My wife is applying to another retail job at the manager position what should her cover letter be like?

Having reviewed many resumes in my career, I always liked and appreciated short cover letters and lively, detailed resumes. Think of the letter as merely an introduction and statement of intention. When your wife meets the hiring person for the first time, she’ll want to come across as warm, upbeat, personable and mature, and to whatever extent she can project those qualities beforehand in her letter is adviseable.

Good luck to her.

I agree cover letter should be short and sweet, if she writes one at all. She can talk specificially wanting to join that company and why and touch on the skills she has that she believes matches the company’s needs, plus the position she desires.

Make sure her resume touches on her attention and accomplishments at exceeding sales goals. if she can actually give numbers and statistics even better.

Read the ad for the position carefully. Make sure she covers the elements they’re looking for in her resume. I see so many resumes where people tell me what they can do but they don’t apply what they can do to the job being advertised. Also, show don’t tell. It isn’t enough to say “I am a good communicator” she needs to show how she’s a good communicator.

Make sure to have an editor whose language skills are impeccable edit her letter.

Keep it to one page, if possible.

(...an upscale store with a smaller sales (inventory?) volume…)

One warning, smaller stores tend to have fewer managers. If that is the case, only 2.5 or 3 total key holders, then when one gets sick or quits, the others work horrific hours to cover until the other position is filled again.

@gailcalled A Louis Vuitton small boutique could easily have less volume than a two story Express.

I just made the mistake of having a long cover letter that explained everything on my resume. Fortunately I got the job, because they saw passed that, but my employer still pointed out that flaw when we were in our interview..

Her advice was to have something short, but long enough to get a reader excited to see your resume. Then make sure you don’t let them down when they finally see it.