# Cover Letter Format: What Recruiters Actually Open URL: https://ohboiler.com/journal/cover-letter-format Type: blog Locale: en Published: 2026-09-30 Updated: 2026-09-30 --- > A recruiter explains the cover letter format that gets read: layout, length, fonts, ATS rules, and how it changes for email and portals. The right cover letter format is short and plain: one page, 250 to 350 words, a single column, 11 or 12 point type, one inch margins, saved as a PDF unless the employer asks for a Word file. That covers most applications. The part nobody mentions is that the format changes with the way you send it. A letter uploaded to a portal, pasted into a text box and sent in an email body are three different documents. I read cover letters for a living, so I will tell you which rules matter and which ones are folklore. ## Which format rules does anyone actually check? Very few, and they are the boring ones. In a week of screening I might open two hundred letters. I will not remember a single font. I will remember the three that were hard to read, the one that ran to two pages, and the one addressed to another company. Here is what moves the needle, in the order I notice it: - **Length.** One page. If I have to scroll, I have already decided how much effort the rest deserves. - **Name and role.** The right company, the right job title, spelled correctly. - **Visual calm.** Margins, white space and a font that does not fight the words. - **Skimmability.** Short paragraphs, because I read on a phone between calls. Everything else, from the date format to the exact closing phrase, is a rounding error. Resume.io's guide [recommends one page, three to four paragraphs and 250 to 400 words](https://resume.io/blog/cover-letter-format), which matches what lands on my desk when it works. ![A blank sheet of paper with a wooden ruler along its left edge showing the one inch margin](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/ohboiler/2026-09/7661fd-i1.webp) ## What does the layout look like, top to bottom? Start with the skeleton. Every conventional cover letter format uses the same six parts, in the same order, and a hiring manager's eye goes to the same places. - **Your header.** Name, email, phone, city, and a LinkedIn link if it is tidy. Match the header on your resume so the two documents look like a pair. - **The date.** Today's date, written out. "30 September 2026" in the UK, "September 30, 2026" in the US. Pick the one your reader uses and keep it consistent. - **The recipient.** Name, title, company. If the job post gives no name, skip the address block rather than invent one. - **The greeting.** "Dear Ms Okafor," when you know the name. "Dear Hiring Manager," when you do not. "To Whom It May Concern" reads like a form letter from 1994. - **The body.** Three short paragraphs. More on those below. - **The sign-off.** "Sincerely," or "Best regards," then your typed name. The body is where the letter wins or loses, so it deserves its own section. ## How should the three body paragraphs work? Think of the body as a short argument with a beginning, a middle and an end. It is not a biography. **Paragraph one says what you are applying for and why you are a fit, in two sentences.** Skip "I am writing to apply for". The job title is already in the subject line or the portal. Open with the evidence instead: "I have spent four years running customer onboarding for a 60 person SaaS company, which is exactly the problem your Operations Lead role describes." **Paragraph two gives one or two specific examples.** One number and one outcome beat a list of duties. "Cut first response time from nine hours to two" does more than "strong communicator". If you have ever been the person who fixed something, say what you fixed. **Paragraph three closes the loop.** Say what you would do in the first ninety days or what interests you about their problem, then name the next step. A line such as "I can send a short work sample on request" is better than "I look forward to hearing from you", which is a sentence that has never once changed a decision. Keep the whole thing near 300 words. Shorter is fine. Longer is where letters go to die. A quick aside for UK readers. Our convention pairs "Dear Ms Okafor" with "Yours sincerely", and "Dear Sir or Madam" with "Yours faithfully". In practice almost nobody is marked down for "Best regards" either way, so do not lose sleep over it. What matters more is that you do not write a US style letter full of "Sincerely" and a date written month first to a recruiter in Leeds and then wonder why it feels slightly off. ## Does the format change when an ATS reads it? It does, and this is the section most guides skip. An applicant tracking system will parse your letter into plain text before a human sees it, so anything decorative is at risk. The safe rules are short: - **Single column.** Text boxes, tables and side panels scramble the reading order. - **Standard fonts.** Calibri, Arial, Georgia or Times New Roman at 11 or 12 point. Grammarly's own guidance [points to Times New Roman or Arial at 12 point with one inch margins](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/resumes-cover-letters/cover-letter-format/), which is as dull and as safe as advice gets. - **No contact details in the header or footer of the file.** Some systems ignore those areas entirely. Put your email and phone in the body of the page. - **No logos, icons, photos or skill bars.** They add nothing a parser can read. - **A text based file.** A PDF exported from Word or Google Docs is fine. A scanned photo of a printed letter is not. If the posting says "upload a .docx", upload a .docx. If it says nothing, a PDF keeps your layout intact on every device, and a Word file is the fallback when the portal rejects the PDF. File names matter more than people think. "FirstName_LastName_CoverLetter.pdf" is what I can find again in a folder of two hundred downloads. "Final_v7_REAL.pdf" is not. If you want to know how a scanner reads your draft before you send it, a keyword checker can help. It will not write the letter for you, and it should not. ![A one page cover letter clipped on a desk next to a printed application form and reading glasses](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/ohboiler/2026-09/b796bc-i3.webp) ## What changes when the letter goes into an email? Almost everything. When a job post says "send your application to this address", the email body is the cover letter. Attaching a formal letter and writing "please see attached" in the body is one extra click for me, and on a phone it is an irritating one. Use the email version instead: - **Subject line.** "Operations Lead application, Your Name". Clear, findable, and it matches what the recruiter searches for later. - **No header block.** Your name and contact details go below the sign-off, as a signature. - **Greeting first.** Start with "Dear Ms Okafor," and go straight into paragraph one. - **Default font.** Do not format it. Plain text travels everywhere. - **Attach the resume only.** The body already is the letter, so there is nothing else to attach. ![Hands typing a short email on a laptop with an empty message window](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/ohboiler/2026-09/249ffb-i2.webp) The same logic applies to the text box in an application portal. There you have no fonts, no margins and no layout to worry about, so the only format left is your paragraph breaks. Write it in a notes app first, keep paragraphs to three sentences, and paste it in. Portals strip formatting, and a single wall of text is the usual result of pasting a long letter straight in. ## Which format mistakes cost people interviews? Mistakes cost a lot, and they are rarely the ones that get attention online. These are the ones I see most, from most to least common: **The wrong company name.** A letter that still says the last employer it was sent to is the fastest rejection I process. It happens most when someone reuses a template without a checking pass. The fix is a two minute read before you send, looking only at proper nouns. **A second page.** The signature spills over onto a new page and the last two lines are stranded. Tighten the body instead of shrinking the font below 11 point. **A designed template.** Coloured sidebars, icons and a headshot look striking in a builder preview and awkward in a parser. Resume.io found that [83% of hiring managers say a well written cover letter can help a candidate overcome a weaker resume](https://resume.io/blog/cover-letter-format), so the words deserve the attention, not the decoration. **The resume in paragraph form.** If the letter restates every line of your work history, I have read the same thing twice. Use the letter for the one story the resume cannot tell. **"To Whom It May Concern".** A two minute search on LinkedIn usually finds a name. If it does not, "Dear Hiring Team" is warmer and costs nothing. I made the second and fourth mistakes myself when I started out, so I am not claiming any superiority here. ## Is a builder or a template worth paying for? Sometimes, and only for one job: getting the layout right once so you can stop thinking about it. A good template gives you the six part skeleton, sensible margins and a text based export. After that, the value is in your paragraphs, not in the tool. If you apply to a few roles a week, a builder with ready made cover letter layouts saves the fiddly part. Two that show up often in my work are Kickresume and Resume.io. Both export clean PDFs, and both offer plainer templates that survive a parser. Pick the plainest one they have. If you are juggling many applications at once, the real problem is tracking rather than formatting. A tracker that keeps each role, contact and version of your letter in one place will save you from sending the wrong company name, which as I said is the costliest format error of the lot. Skip any tool that wants a recurring charge before you have seen the export. A cover letter is one page of text. You do not need a subscription to format it. ## What should you actually do before you hit send? Here is the routine I would use, and it takes under ten minutes once you have a base letter. - Open a clean base letter in single column layout, Calibri or Arial at 11 or 12 point. - Replace the header date, recipient, company and job title. Read only those four things aloud. - Rewrite paragraph one for this job. Everything else can be reused, but that paragraph cannot. - Change one example in paragraph two to match the posting's first requirement. - Export to PDF, name the file with your own name and "CoverLetter", and open it once to check that it fits on a single page. - Send to yourself first if the application is an email. Look at it on your phone. The format is the easy part of a cover letter, and that is the good news. Get the one page, one column, one set of correct proper nouns right, and the reader gets to spend their thirty seconds on what you actually wrote. That is all the format is for. ## FAQ ### What is the standard cover letter format? One page, single column, 250 to 350 words, 11 or 12 point font, one inch margins, single spaced with a blank line between paragraphs. The order is header, date, recipient, greeting, three body paragraphs and a sign-off. ### How long should a cover letter be? Aim for 250 to 350 words across three short paragraphs. Anything that spills onto a second page should be tightened, not shrunk below 11 point type. ### What font is best for a cover letter? Calibri, Arial, Georgia or Times New Roman at 11 or 12 point. Match the font on your resume so the two documents look like a pair, and avoid decorative fonts that parsers can misread. ### Should I send a cover letter as a PDF or a Word file? Follow the posting. If it asks for .docx, send .docx. If it says nothing, a text based PDF keeps your layout intact on every device, with Word as the fallback if a portal rejects the PDF. ### How should I format a cover letter in an email? Skip the header block and start with the greeting. Put your name and contact details below the sign-off, use the default font, and write a clear subject line such as the job title and your name. ### Do ATS systems read cover letters? Many applicant tracking systems parse uploaded letters into plain text, so use a single column, standard fonts, no text boxes or tables, and keep contact details in the body rather than in the file header or footer.