Follow Our Letter of Interest Templates for Impressive Jobseeking Results
Our letter of interest template will help you achieve impressive job-seeking results.
Though we appreciate that reaching out to a company to look for employment is daunting, it’s a crucial step. Most job postings receive hundreds of applicants, with only a handful of candidates taken to the interview stage.
When you take the initiative and express your interest in working for a company, you can get ahead of the curve. You may even land a job that hasn’t yet been advertised.
But to enjoy success with this approach to jobseeking, you must write a brilliant letter of interest.
With that in mind, we reveal what to include in your letter and how to write it. We also share two examples of letter of interest templates that you can personalize and use in your real-life job hunt.
First: What is a letter of interest?
Writing a letter of interest is a way of expressing to a company that you’re keen to work for them. You might have come across a job opening that aligns with your skills and experience, or you might be contemplating a change of scenery and are reaching out to see what’s available.
After all, not all companies advertise openings within the organization. Also, if you write a timely letter of interest, you might get your foot in the door before an official opening becomes available.
The objective of a letter of interest is to show that you’re a suitable candidate for a position with the company you have written to. Therefore, following a professional letter of interest template will give you the best chance of being noticed for the right reasons.
Who can use a letter of interest template?
Anyone can draft a letter of interest to any company. You don’t need to be invited to express your interest in working in a specific organization.
In fact, by design, a letter of interest requires you to take the initiative and not wait for an opportunity to come along. It’s a proactive way of looking for a job and is a potentially great way to beat the competition.
Given that research shows that the average job receives 250 resumes, getting a jump on the competition is highly attractive in the current climate.
Whether you’re looking for an internship or a senior level position, using a letter of interest template to contact a company is a smart move.
Away from the job market, you might also write a letter of interest before applying to a specific school, college, or university.
Before you create a letter of interest template – do your research
Before we get into the crucial details of a letter of interest template, you need to do your research. Cold outreach rarely works when you’re looking for a job. So, in other words, sending the same letter to every company in your neighborhood will almost certainly fail.
Prior to populating your letter of interest, you need to understand who you’re reaching out to. Here are some tips to inform your research strategy:
☑️Understand the company
Visit the company’s website and digest the information available. Learn about their mission, values, and operations. If possible, you could even visit the company (depending on the sector) and get a feel for the place. If you visit in real life, you can refer to this in your letter of interest.
You should also spend time on the company’s social media pages, familiarizing yourself with their content. Today, around 86% of jobseekers find opportunities on social media. So, even if you don’t find what you’re looking for at this company, you may see another option elsewhere.
☑️Discover who to address the letter to
You need to know who to address your letter of interest to. We don’t necessarily recommend reaching out to the company’s CEO, particularly if it’s a big organization. Shoot for someone in the HR department or target a specific employee, perhaps a team manager. LinkedIn is the best place to look for employees within specific organizations.
☑️Check if there are any openings
Though you can send a letter of interest without referring to a specific job, you should still check to see if the company is hiring. If they are, it’s a good idea to mention which position you think you’re best suited to and why.
A letter of interest template: Key sections to include
It shouldn’t take you long to conduct sufficient research, but it will likely make a big difference to the success of your letter of interest.
If you’re planning to reach out to several companies, you can use a standard letter of interest template each time, but you will need to personalize it after doing your research.
So, with that in mind, here are the crucial sections that your letter of interest template must include:
A compelling introduction
The start of your letter is so vital. If it’s not compelling, the recipient may not continue reading. As you’re contacting the person out of the blue, you need to succinctly explain why you’re reaching out.
In this case, you’re expressing an interest in a job at the company. But it’s not enough to say, “I’m looking for a job” or “I really need the work.” Be clever with your introduction and indicate that you’ve been inspired to reach out for a specific reason.
Example: [Company] is the best indie coffee house on the South Side; those Ethiopian beans you had last month really hit the spot. As a barista with 5+ years of experience working in coffee shops in the city, I’d love to work with you guys – have you got any openings right now?
This example takes a novel approach to outreach. It starts with a compliment that shows you know the industry. It’s very specific and indicates you know which beans the company uses to brew its coffee. You then introduce yourself and immediately showcase your experience.
The likelihood is, if the coffee shop is hiring, your letter and resume will be top of the pile.
Details of your experience and skills
All letter of interest templates should detail relevant experience and skills. You don’t have to mention your GPA from high school or that part-time gig you worked as a student.
However, you need to clearly state why some of your workplace experiences and current skills would be perfect for the company you’re applying to.
This is also where excellent research can come into its own. If you know that a company is starting a big project in the coming months in your area of expertise, now is the perfect time to introduce yourself.
We recommend taking the most relevant experiences from your CV and working them into a concise sentence, which should be more than enough to indicate how well suited you are to the potential job in question.
What you can offer the company
If a company isn’t actively hiring, you will need to show them what you can bring to the table. After all, if they are actively hiring, they know what they’re looking for.
This is a chance to express some of your unique skills, experiences, or achievements that could help the company to succeed.
For instance, if you work in sales, quoting some of your recent figures and performance data is a great way to indicate your potential value to a customer.
You might also mention that you have worked with a specific company or person within a relevant field. This will display your expertise and show that you’re someone the company can’t afford to ignore.
A call to action
The final section of your letter of interest template should contain a call to action. This should clearly show the recipient how they can get in touch with you if they want to meet.
We recommend making the call to action specific rather than writing something like “Give me a call to discuss an opening” or “I look forward to hearing from you soon.”
Effective calls to action stipulate what you expect and when you would like to hear from someone. For instance, “Can I visit the office for a quick chat next Thursday at 10 am?”
While proposing a time and place for a potential meeting might seem daunting, it’s necessary. If you don’t, your request will likely be ignored.
Getting a call to action right can be tricky. This is a great thing to use AI for as our tools can generate high-quality CTAs that get results. You can use our Article Writer Tool to help with this. You could use a prompt like “Help me to write an engaging CTA for my letter of interest.”
When you receive the instant results, you can then work through the examples provided and personlaize them before adding them to your letter.
A letter of interest template examples
We now want to share a couple of letter of interest template examples that you can use to reach out to potential employers. Note that we’ve created the names, companies, and positons in these letters. You will need to adapt and customize them to suit your requirements:
Letter of interest template example one: Expressing inspiration for a company
Dear Alan,
My name is Rose Davies and I’m reaching out to express an interest in working for Zoo Marketers. I’ve been following you on Instagram and LinkedIn for months now and I love your content.
As a social media manager, I appreciate the groundwork that goes into your posting schedule. Your Holiday content this year has been epic; I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter festive memes and how they tie in with your Christmas messaging.
Anyway, I’m between jobs right now after taking a sabatical last year. Before traveling for a few months, I had been working at Berkshire Beats in London as a social media marketing manager and strategist. I loved my job and had been there for four years before taking some time to see the world.
I’m just dipping my toe in the water to see if you’ve got any openings or whether you would be open to the idea of growing your team? I would even consider helping you on a freelance basis if appropriate.
Please let me know if you’re available to chat anytime soon. I could pop into your Tottenham Court Road office next Monday afternoon if that would work for you?
Kind regards,
Rose Davies.
[Contact information]
Letter of interest template example two: Approaching someone in your network
Dear Esther,
My name is Peter Levy and I’m a Senior Sales Executive at Benson in Savannah, Georgia. We connected on LinkedIn earlier this year, and from your posts, I’ve noticed that you’re expanding operations in the Atlanta branch of Task Salesforce.
Having driven sales in the tech space for the past ten years at Benson, I feel like I’d be a great fit to help with your expansion in Atlanta. I’m also looking to move to the city in the near future so this felt like a good time to reach out and express my interest.
Would you be happy to schedule a Skype call later this week, perhaps on Thursday afternoon, to chat through some potential options?
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best wishes,
Peter Levy.
[Contact information].
What’s the difference between a letter of interest and a cover letter?
It’s important not to confuse a letter of interest with a cover letter. A cover letter is something that you attach to your resume when you’re applying for a specific role. Typically, this role is widely advertised and specifies that you must attach a cover letter to your application.
In contrast, a letter of interest is something that you send of your own initiative to gauge whether there’s a potential opening at a company. There’s no concrete job or position available.
Therefore, the contents and tone of a cover letter are markedly different from a letter of interest. When writing a cover letter, you must tick the boxes outlined in the job specification for the employer to take a look at your attached resume.
Ready to use our letter of interest template?
You can use our above examples as the basis for your letter of interest. Alternatively, consider using our AI Email Writer to help you get started.
You could enter a prompt like “Create a template I can use to express interest in working for a new company.” Feel free to play around with your prompts to see the various results.
You can then enter the relevant information to boost your job search with the help of AI. Just remember to customize each letter before sending it out. Generic letters without a personal touch won’t necessarily help you achieve the results that you desire.
Letter of interest template FAQ
How do you write a letter of interest?
To write a letter of interest, you need to first do some research to learn about the company you’re reaching out to. Then, personalize your letter of interest template to ensure that it’s relevant. You should also include key sections in your letter, like a compelling introduction, details of your experience, what you can offer, and a call to action.
What is an example of a short letter of interest?
You can use our letter of interest template above as a handy example. It doesn’t need to be long. In fact, a letter of interest should be 300 words or less, as anything longer than this will likely be ignored.
How do you write a simple expression of interest letter?
The easiest way to write a simple expression of interest is to use an AI tool like Arvin to help you. It can create a simple, engaging letter of interest, which you can then personalize with your requirements. Learn more about how Arvin AI tools can help you improve your writing.
Do letters of interest work?
It’s difficult to find statistics relating to the success rate of letters of interest, but proactively searching for jobs is definitely a good strategy. While you will receive bad news from time to time, the more you reach out, the better chance you have. So, use one of our templates to express an interest in a new role today.