There are some essential elements that should be in your cover letter to garner appropriate attention:

1) Be sure to include the Job Position title in the first paragraph

2) Include a 2nd paragraph that outlines your education and how it relates to the position – you could also draw direct parallels from the position requirements to your scholastic background

3) Include a 3rd paragraph that showcases your work experience – but only the major skill sets that relate directly to the position advertised (look for keywords in the job posting to find clues of which talents or skills the employer sees as most critical and capitalize on those)

4) Try to use different wording than you would in your resume for maximum exposure (see note below)

The cover letter has become an increasingly critical component of the job application – most especially when the resume and cover letter are attached as one document and are scanned into the employer database. In such a case, the keywords and critical skills outlined in your cover letter become search agents for an employer to find their way to you.

What is the best advice when preparing a cover letter to stand out from the crowd when:

The job at hand requires mandatory post secondary education, training, and certification from all potential candidates in order to be considered (all those applying will have the exact same qualifications with some small differences).
and
The potential employer will receive at the minimum 500+ resumes for potentially one to ten open positions (very competitive in nature).

This is the current situation for PCP’s in Ontario Canada.

M