Here is my template for a cover letter that consists of 5 main parts: intro paragraph, body paragraph, explanation of why I am a good fit for the company, many highlights I can say about my past experience, and closing paragraph.
My template
Intro paragraph
I am a full-time developer, once a year traveler and a snob ever since I registered on Instagram. I have a postgraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. With its help I do what I do for a living. But besides that I passionate in game development and irrational exploitation of computers.
Body paragraph
I am looking for a company where I can settle down, because I do not like personal changes, though I cannot say the same about my relationship with code, I like to improve it. I need a company that improves the lives of people, makes the world a better place, and makes me proud of my work.
My good fit
I have been working for 8 years in a small company developing software for slot machines and casino systems. I have started my career in Slot Constructor after my graduation, where I have learned many things about time management, problem-solving, and embedded systems.
Highlights
Visual part of the game is not complex as in modern RPG or action games, it is possible to teach a student, and the game will be ready in two months. But slot machines hide many important parts inside, in a cabinet. It takes player's bills, it plays music, it fires the lights, it reports accounting to the house system, it works autonomously and without a chance for a software mistake. On top of this it requires balanced mathematical calculations which are triggered by pure RNG to engage the player and deliver a joy.
Players trust their money to our software. The future of casino operators depends on precise calculations, stability, and the success of our games. My role is to design, implement, and verify mathematical models that bring profit to the casino, and, on another side, high engagement to a random player from a fortunate win. Also, I have developed a backend part of our system that tracks every money flow and game accounting in special house systems.
I integrated our backend to different POS systems to put our games on casino floors. For this purpose I designed a unform protocol to use on our side that can be connected through a proxy interface to POS systems without need of changing any part of the games.
Closing paragraph
My experience, I strongly believe, is correlated to your company profile. I would like to work in a productive friendly team and to be a valuable part of it.
I hope you will find my candidature matching your expectations for applying position and we will talk about our future together. Thank you for reviewing my application.
Sincerely, Nikolay Neupokoev
Examples
Marines
And your company appeared on my radar as a company focused on science.
I have post graduate education. I enjoy getting new knowledge and creating new stuff. My qualification work was based on a program that solves classification tasks in bioinformatics, although I have changed it to model a neuron behavior.
[...]
The players trust our software their money. The future of casino operators depends on precise calculations, stability and the success of our products. It is not a joke when with one press of a button the player can win $5000.00 and the property has to pay it. They believe us that it is not a mistake and in average casino will take 5% from each players bet.
Square
Why do you want to work at Square?
I am in the search for a company that improves the lives of people, makes the world a better place, and makes me proud of my work. I hope Square is the right choice.
Highlights
I have been working for 8 years in a small company developing software for slot machines and casino systems. I have started my career in Slot Constructor after my graduation, where I have learned many things about time management, problem-solving, and embedded systems. My role is to design, implement, and verify mathematical models that bring profit to the casino, and, on another side, high engagement to a random player from a fortunate win. In our recent project, we made possible to control table games from mobile devices, using CNN-based object detection and recognition. My experience, I strongly believe, is correlated to your company profile. I would like to work in a productive friendly team and to be a valuable part of it.
AbCellera
Why do you want to work at AbCellera?
Your company appeared on my radar as a company focused on science. I am looking into bioinformatics. Perhaps my interest is caused by the latest events, but no doubt, I have a growing feeling that my university years did not get fulfillment from the past years. My master's thesis was built upon a program that analyses gene regulatory sequences in bioinformatics, although I have changed it to model neuron behavior. Then and still, I am dreaming of creating an artificial intelligence. Working in a team of well-educated people and scientists is my goal because it sets a high standard for myself, so I strive to improve myself and not stagnate.
What, in your previous experience, has prepared you to work here?
I received a good education, completed various projects in a quality demanding industry. I adopted enough knowledge about project management, planning, design and architecture, documentation - all of this to be a well proficient software developer. I believe in self-education as the best way of improving coding skills that is why I read articles and books, I do different hobby projects, watch talks from conferences, participate in code/game jams and solve challenges on hackerrank.com and codewars.com. I would love to apply my programming skills to actual problems with your help.