As you search for a teaching assistant job, you may find that you have a lot of skills and experience that you’ll want to expand on. A cover letter is where you can elaborate on details that expand on your resume and present yourself as the ideal candidate for a teaching assistant job. Cover letters are the perfect way to evidence your skill set, which you will have already presented in your resume. This provides the hiring manager with more reason to consider you for a job interview. This guide will take you through writing the perfect cover letter for a teaching assistant and provides you with a cover letter sample that you can use.
The first step to writing a great cover letter is to start properly with your contact information. Include your name, phone number, email address and professional social media links, like your LinkedIn profile. For the salutation, address the hiring manager by name if possible, avoiding generic introductions like “Dear Hiring Manager” or “To Whom It May Concern.” Once you’ve addressed the cover letter appropriately, you can move on to the content.
Your first paragraph needs to include a hook. Start with a statement that sets you apart from other job seekers and makes it more likely for the manager to read the whole letter. In this cover letter example, the applicant starts by indicating that she has over nine years of experience, which is a great way to catch the hiring manager’s attention, especially if the requirements are much lower, like two years.
Once you’ve hooked the recruiter, you can move on to discussing your best skills and teaching experience. Make sure to tailor these skills to the job posting. Reference specific experiences and skills listed in the job advertisement. This is where the applicant specifically mentions that in her last job, she was able to raise the class’ average grades by 7%. This may be especially important for a class that’s already doing poorly or in an area that has issues with grade performance.
Finally, your closing paragraph should end with a call to action. Remind the hiring manager why you’re the ideal candidate for the position, and end with a request for a job interview. Here, the applicant ends the cover letter highlighting the skills she can bring to the job.
A cover letter is important for any job that you apply to. While a resume builder and resume examples can help you with the core of your resume, a cover letter is what allows you to talk at length about your experiences and knowledge. Plus, a cover letter builder from ResumeNerd makes it easier than ever to create your cover letter.
Cover letters should generally be between half a page and three-quarters of a page long, which is about 250-350 words on average. This is long enough for you to include plenty of experience and skills, but not so long that it overflows onto more than a page, which might keep a hiring manager from reading the entire cover letter.
If you don’t have much experience in being a teaching assistant, you should instead focus on any experience you have, as well as your skills and knowledge. Potential employers want to know that you fit the job description, but they also just want to know that you can do the job. Listing your skills and education can do exactly that.
