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Cover letter checker
Turn a letter that restates your resume into one that adds a reason to hire you
This free cover letter checker scores your letter on tone, structure, storytelling, and company fit, then gives paragraph-level rewrite suggestions and alternative opening and closing lines. It runs in about 30 seconds and needs no account — you enter an email to see the full report.
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01 / 04
Most cover letters repeat the resume
The most common failure is not bad writing — it is redundancy. A letter that summarises your job history gives the reader nothing they did not already have, and the reader knows it within a sentence. A letter earns its place when it carries something the resume structurally cannot: why this role, why now, why the unusual thing on page one is a strength rather than a gap.
This tool checks for that specifically. It flags paragraphs that restate rather than add, openings that spend their most valuable sentence on a formality, and closings that ask for nothing. Then it shows you a version that does the job.
02 / 04
When a cover letter actually matters
It matters most when your application is not self-explanatory: a career change, an employment gap, a relocation, a step down in title for a step up in scope, or an internal referral you need to name. In those cases the letter is doing work nothing else can do, and a weak one costs you the role.
For a straightforward application to a large employer with a heavily automated pipeline, the resume does most of the work and the letter is a formality. Knowing which situation you are in tells you how much effort the letter deserves — and the feedback here reflects that rather than treating every letter as equally critical.
03 / 04
The four paragraphs that do the work
One: the opening, which names something specific about this company or team. Two: the proof, a single story with a number in it that shows you have done the thing they need. Three: the fit, which answers why this role rather than any role. Four: a close that proposes a next step instead of thanking them for their time.
That is roughly 250 words. A letter longer than one page is rarely read to the end, and the second page almost never contains the sentence that got someone hired.
04 / 04
What gets a letter skipped
Repeating the resume in prose is the most common failure, and it wastes the only document where you get to explain yourself. So does opening with “I am writing to apply for”, which uses your strongest line to state something the recruiter already knows.
Generic praise is the other giveaway. If a sentence about why you admire the company would work just as well for their competitor, it is telling the reader you sent the same letter to both.
Fair questions.
They matter when the application needs context a resume cannot carry — a career change, a gap, a relocation, or a referral. For a straightforward application to a large employer, the resume does most of the work.
Three to four short paragraphs on a single page. Length is rarely the problem; redundancy with the resume is.
For most applications they are optional and rarely decisive. They matter when something needs explaining that a resume cannot: a career change, a gap, a relocation, or a referral worth naming. In those cases the letter is often the reason an unusual application gets a second look.
To draft and tighten, yes. To invent, no. A letter that claims work you did not do falls apart in the first interview, which is why the coach only rewrites from what is already in your own documents.
A check tells you what's wrong. The coach fixes it with you.
The coach sits inside the document, scores every edit as you make it, and refuses to invent anything you didn't do. Free to start, no card.