Write a one-page UK cover letter

A UK cover letter is a formal business letter, and most of what gets sent is not one. Three paragraphs of enthusiasm, no recipient block, no line saying which job this is about, and a sign-off chosen by feel. The cover letter generator writes it to the form instead: your details at the top, the recipient underneath them, a reference line naming the role, then three paragraphs that each do a different job, then the closing that matches how you opened. It fits on one page, under 4,000 characters. Every figure in it comes off your CV. Fifteen words and phrases are banned before it writes a line.

Top of the page: your name, then whichever of your address, phone and email are actually in your CV. Any you have not given are left out rather than filled in, because an invented phone number is worse than a missing one.

Below that, the recipient. A named hiring manager and their title where the advert supplies them, the company, and the company address where it is stated. Then a reference line: the role, and where you saw it advertised.

Then the closing, which is the part applications most often get wrong. "Yours sincerely" belongs with a named person, so Dear Ms [Surname] closes Yours sincerely. "Yours faithfully" belongs with an unnamed one, so Dear Hiring Manager closes Yours faithfully. The letter matches the pair to its own salutation, and the two ends move together.

A list of fifteen words and phrases is banned from the output: delve, tapestry, testament, beacon, navigate, landscape, dynamic, synergistic, spearhead, orchestrate, underscore, foster and pivotal, plus two stock closing phrases, one of which is "in conclusion". They are the vocabulary that reads as machine-written.

Not every advert asks for one. Where it does, or where the form has a free text box and no guidance, the letter does a job your CV cannot.

"The advert asks for something my CV only half answers." This is where you address it directly, in your own words, rather than hoping somebody joins the dots.

"My job title does not match the one advertised." The letter is the place to say why the work is the same even though the label is not. A CV has no room for that argument.

"I am applying through an agency." Tick the recruitment agency switch and the letter speaks to the recruiter about the role they are filling, not to the agency as though it were the employer.

"I have been out of work for a while." One plain sentence, written by you, beats a gap a stranger has to interpret.

1. Your CV, or your career profile. Every fact in the letter comes from here. The middle paragraph cannot be true of anyone but you, because it is built from what you have already written down.
2. The advert. Up to 10,000 characters. The letter picks the three to five requirements that matter most and answers those, instead of marching through all fourteen bullets on the job page.
3. Role and company. These set the reference line and the recipient block, and the role title is what the opening paragraph is written against.
4. Formality. Casual, neutral, formal and very formal. Formal removes contractions altogether, so "I am" rather than "I'm", and keeps the sentences measured. Casual keeps the contractions and shortens everything. The structure of the letter does not change, only the register.
5. Output language, if the application is not in English.

Credits come off when you submit, before anything is written. The draft is editable in place afterwards, and downloads as a PDF or a Word file.

It will not make you eligible. Where the advert requires a licence, a qualification or a right to work you do not hold, no letter gets round that, and this one will not imply otherwise.

It will not fill in an address, a phone number or an email your CV does not contain. Missing fields are left out. It will not raise pay either, in either direction: salary is a conversation for later in the process, not for paragraph three.

It is AI, and no person reads the letter before you do. Read it aloud once. Every sentence in it is one you have to be willing to defend at interview.

A cover letter costs one credit, the cheapest of the three documents. Five free credits arrive every month on a free account, renewing automatically, with no card needed to start.

Generating the CV and the letter together in one run costs 2.45. If you are applying often, Premium is £10 a month for 200 credits, and top-up credits are £1 for 10, minimum 30, which do not expire. Credits are taken at submission, so an abandoned run still counts.