Tailor your style for the size of company you're dealing with (with the implied "do a bunch of research on the companies you're serious about first"). Applying

Tailor your style for the size of company you're dealing with (with the implied "do a bunch of research on the companies you're serious about first"). Applying for a position at a bank/multinational/"big" company with a full HR department and a contract with Taleo to track job applicants? Be a bit more formal. Remember that the first person who reads your letter is likely an HR professional with little connection to the people who will actually make the hire/no-hire call. They'll be working from a job requirement form, and their goal is to answer the question "Is there enough of a chance that this candidate has the right skills that I should forward their file on to the right hiring manager?" What makes this even more "fun" is that there's a good chance that they have a very small - if any - technical background, and may not know (for example) the connection between jQuery, Javascript, and "AJAX". For companies like this, a little buzzword bingo in there is an important ingredient that gets your file sent on to the technical guy, who will actually know what he's looking for. On the other hand, you've got small/medium-sized companies in which the engineers you'd end up working with will be much closer to the incoming stream of applications. These companies may have a designated HR guy, but the role is often filled by someone else wearing the HR hat for one day a week. Here, the initial person reading your letter is someone you'll probably end up working with to some degree or another, which complicates their goal in the first screening. Now, the question becomes "Does this person sound like the kind of person I'd like to work with, and if so, does (s)he sound smart/interesting enough that I should disturb Steve over there to get him to look at this letter?" Bottom line: if you're applying to somewhere that has an HR department you need to get through first, write the letter for them (and assume the actual hiring managers won't read it). If you're applying to somewhere where the HR guy is a potential colleague, write the letter as if everyone will read it and they're judging your fit as a person, not only technically.