Common Cover Letter Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
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Most cover letters get rejected for a small, predictable set of reasons — and almost all of them are avoidable in a single careful editing pass. Recruiters and hiring managers read hundreds of these, so the patterns are familiar: a letter that could have been sent to any company, a paragraph-by-paragraph rerun of the resume, a wall of text that spills onto a second page, or an opening line that says nothing. None of these are about talent or qualifications. They are about how the letter is written, which means every one of them is fixable.
This page walks through the most common cover letter mistakes one by one, and pairs each with the specific fix. We lead with a short checklist you can scan in seconds, then go deeper on each error — why it costs you, and exactly what to do instead. The throughline is simple: a cover letter should be tailored, brief, employer-focused, error-free, and end with a clear ask. Get those right and you clear the bar that most applicants quietly trip over.
The short list: 8 cover letter mistakes to avoid
If you only have time for the summary, here are the most common cover letter mistakes and the one-line fix for each. (1) Generic and not tailored — rewrite it for the specific role and company. (2) Repeating your resume — interpret your experience instead of restating it. (3) Too long — keep it to one page, roughly 250 to 400 words. (4) Focusing on what you want — frame everything around what the employer needs. (5) Typos and the wrong company name — proofread carefully and double-check every proper noun. (6) A weak opening — lead with a specific hook, not "I am writing to apply." (7) No call to action — end by asking for the interview. (8) Addressing "To whom it may concern" — find and use a real name.
The rest of this page takes each of those in turn. They are roughly ordered from most damaging to most cosmetic, but a single one can sink an otherwise strong application — a misspelled company name or a letter clearly written for a different job is often an instant reject regardless of how good the rest of the letter is. Read them as a checklist: run your draft against all eight before you hit send.
Mistake 1: Generic and not tailored to the job
This is the single most common — and most costly — cover letter mistake. A letter that mentions no specifics about the role, the company, or why you want this job in particular reads as a mass-mailed template, and recruiters spot it instantly. Lines like "I am confident I would be a great fit for your organization" could have been written for any company on earth, which is exactly the problem. If the reader cannot tell that the letter was written for their job, it signals that you did not invest the time — and that is a reason to move on to the next applicant.
The fix: tailor every letter to the specific role and employer. Name the exact job title and company. Pull two or three of the most important requirements from the job posting and show, briefly, how your experience maps to them. Reference something concrete about the company — a product, a recent initiative, a value you genuinely share — to show you have actually looked. You do not need to rewrite the letter from scratch each time; a strong base structure with a genuinely customized opening, one tailored body paragraph, and the right company details is enough to clear the bar that most generic letters fail.
Mistake 2: Repeating your resume
The cover letter and the resume are different documents with different jobs, and the most common content mistake is collapsing them into the same thing — walking through your work history paragraph by paragraph, restating bullet points the reader can already see attached. This wastes the one chance you have to add context the resume cannot. The hiring manager already has your resume; a cover letter that merely narrates it gives them no reason to read both.
The fix: use the cover letter to interpret and prioritize, not duplicate. Pick the one or two experiences most relevant to this role and tell the short story the resume cannot — the context, the challenge, the result, why it matters for this job. Connect the dots between what you have done and what the employer needs, especially for anything that is not obvious from the resume alone (a career pivot, a transferable skill, a gap you can explain positively). A good test: if a sentence simply re-narrates a resume bullet, cut it or replace it with the "why it matters here" that the bullet leaves out.
Mistake 3: Too long
A cover letter that runs past one page is a common and self-inflicted mistake. Recruiters skim, and length does not buy more attention — it spends the limited attention you have, and it signals that you could not prioritize. Most over-long letters are not long because the candidate had too much to say; they are long because of padding: resume restatement, generic wind-up, and lists of soft-skill adjectives.
The fix: keep it to one page — roughly 250 to 400 words across three to four short paragraphs (an opening hook, one or two body paragraphs of evidence, and a brief close). If you are writing in an email body or a LinkedIn message instead of attaching a formal letter, go shorter still, around 150 words. Cut to length editorially, not cosmetically: remove the resume restatement and the throat-clearing rather than shrinking the font or narrowing the margins to cram more in. For the full word-and-page breakdown, see our guide on how long a cover letter should be.
Mistake 4: Focusing on what you want, not what the employer needs
Many cover letters read like a list of what the applicant wants out of the job — "I am looking for a role where I can grow," "this position would be a great next step for my career," "I want to work somewhere that values work-life balance." Those things may be true and important to you, but a cover letter is not the place to lead with them. From the employer's side, the question being answered is "why should we hire this person?" — and a letter that is mostly about your wants does not answer it.
The fix: flip the frame so the letter is about what you can do for the employer. For every point you make, connect it to a need the company has: the problems the role exists to solve, the requirements in the posting, the outcomes the team cares about. Lead with the value you bring and the results you have delivered, and let your fit for what they need carry the letter. Your own goals can appear briefly — genuine enthusiasm for the mission reads well — but they should be the supporting note, not the headline.
Mistake 5: Typos and the wrong company name
Typos, grammatical errors, and — worst of all — the wrong company or hiring-manager name are among the most damaging cover letter mistakes precisely because they are so easy to avoid. Spelling errors in a document meant to showcase your professionalism suggest carelessness. And the classic reused-template failure — leaving a previous employer's name in the letter, or addressing it to the wrong person — is often an instant reject, because it proves the letter was not written for this job and was not proofread.
The fix: proofread carefully, every time, and treat proper nouns as a separate check. Read the letter slowly, then read it aloud — your ear catches errors your eye skips. Run a spell-check, but do not trust it for the things that matter most: it will not flag a correctly-spelled wrong company name. Verify the company name, the role title, and the hiring manager's name against the posting before you send. If you reuse a base letter, make searching for and replacing every company- and role-specific detail a deliberate step, not an afterthought. When you can, have someone else read it — a second set of eyes catches what you have read past a dozen times.
Mistake 6: A weak, generic opening
The opening line is your most-read sentence, and the most common mistake is wasting it. "I am writing to apply for the [role] position at [company]" tells the reader nothing they do not already know from the subject line or the application field, and it makes every letter sound identical. A flat opener gives a skimming reader no reason to keep going — and many will not.
The fix: open with a specific hook. Lead with a relevant achievement tied to what the role needs, a genuine and concrete point of connection to the company's work, or a sharp statement of the value you bring. The goal of the first two or three sentences is to make the reader want to read the next paragraph — establish what you are applying for and give one concrete reason you are worth their time. You can still name the role; just do not make naming the role the entire opening.
Mistake 7: No call to action at the end
Many cover letters simply trail off — "thank you for your consideration" and nothing more — without ever asking for the next step. Ending passively is a missed opportunity: the close is where you reaffirm your fit and invite the conversation the whole letter is building toward. A letter with no call to action leaves the reader with no nudge to act.
The fix: end with a brief, confident call to action. Reaffirm your interest in one line, express that you would welcome the chance to discuss how you can contribute, and thank the reader for their time. Keep it short — the close is where padding sneaks in, and a long wind-down undoes the momentum of a tight letter. Then sign off cleanly with a professional closing and your name. The tone should be enthusiastic and confident without tipping into presumptuous; you are inviting a conversation, not demanding one.
Mistake 8: Addressing "To whom it may concern"
"To whom it may concern" and "Dear Sir or Madam" are dated, impersonal greetings that signal you did not try to find out who would read the letter. They are a small thing, but small things add up, and an impersonal opener undercuts a letter that is otherwise meant to feel tailored and specific.
The fix: address a real person whenever you can find one. Check the job posting, the company's team or about page, and LinkedIn for the hiring manager or recruiter's name, then use "Dear [Name]." When you genuinely cannot find a name — and sometimes you cannot — a role- or team-based greeting like "Dear Hiring Manager" or "Dear [Team] Team" is a perfectly acceptable modern fallback that still reads better than "To whom it may concern." The effort of looking is itself part of what a good greeting signals.
The bottom line on cover letter mistakes
Nearly every common cover letter mistake comes back to two habits: writing the same letter for every job, and making the letter about you instead of the employer. Tailor each letter to the specific role and company, use it to interpret your resume rather than repeat it, keep it to one page, frame everything around what the employer needs, open with a specific hook, end by asking for the interview, address a named person, and proofread once more than feels necessary — double-checking the company name. Run your draft against that checklist before you send, and you clear the bar that most applicants quietly trip over.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the most common cover letter mistake?
The most common cover letter mistake is sending a generic, untailored letter — one that does not name the specific role or company and could have been sent to any employer. Recruiters spot template language instantly, and it signals you did not invest the time. The fix is to tailor each letter: name the exact role and company, map two or three requirements from the posting to your experience, and reference something concrete about the company to show you actually looked.
What should you not put in a cover letter?
Leave out anything that makes the letter generic, padded, or self-focused: a paragraph-by-paragraph restatement of your resume, lists of soft-skill adjectives with no example behind them, a recap of what you want from the job rather than what you offer, and generic openers like "I am writing to apply." Also cut anything that should not be there at all — typos, the wrong company name left over from a reused draft, salary demands, negative remarks about a past employer, and dated greetings like "To whom it may concern."
How do I fix a cover letter that is too long?
Cut editorially, not cosmetically. Target one page, roughly 250 to 400 words in three to four short paragraphs. Remove any sentence that simply restates a resume bullet, delete generic wind-up like "I am writing to express my interest," and replace lists of adjectives with one concrete example. Do not shrink the font or narrow the margins to cram more words in — that reads as padded and is harder to skim. If the words do not fit comfortably on one page at a readable size, the answer is fewer words, not smaller ones.
Is "To whom it may concern" a mistake in a cover letter?
It is a mistake when a real name was findable and you did not look. "To whom it may concern" and "Dear Sir or Madam" read as dated and impersonal. Check the job posting, the company's team page, and LinkedIn for the hiring manager or recruiter, then use "Dear [Name]." When you genuinely cannot find a name, a modern fallback like "Dear Hiring Manager" is perfectly acceptable and still reads better than "To whom it may concern."
How do I avoid typos and the wrong company name in a cover letter?
Treat proofreading as a deliberate step, and check proper nouns separately. Read the letter slowly, then read it aloud to catch errors your eye skips. Run a spell-check, but do not trust it for a correctly-spelled wrong company name — verify the company name, role title, and hiring manager's name against the posting before sending. If you reuse a base letter, make finding and replacing every company- and role-specific detail an explicit step, and when you can, have someone else read it for a fresh set of eyes.
Methodology
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