You come first, leave last. You put in the effort, the hours, the sweat. You’re a big fish in a small pond. Let’s make a splash.
Advancing within your current company not only demonstrates your loyalty but also your ambition to grow alongside the organization.
Crafting a thoughtful cover letter for an internal position allows you to showcase your achievements and readiness for new challenges. This guide will help you position yourself as the ideal candidate for that next step.
In this guide:
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Depending on whether you’re applying to a new internal position, or you’re asking for a promotion, you must adapt your approach. See how these two examples differ.
Our sample cover letter for internal position applications comes from Maria, who in her job as a warehouse manager revolutionized her site and made huge profitability gains, and is now looking to progress to an operations manager position.
Let’s see how she spins her yarn to display just how much she has done for the company.
Maria C. Dixon
Warehouse Manager
3016 Fulton Street
New Martinsville, WV 26155
304-390-6463
mary@dixon.com
New Martinsville, Feb 25, 2020
Richard Hawkes
COO
HW Operations
7 Industrial Road
Austin, TX 73301
Dear Richard,
I would like to implore you to consider me for the position of Operations Manager you have advertised externally. I have been with HW for 3+ years now as a warehouse manager, and in this time, achieved huge profitability gains each consecutive year.
I believe I have what it takes to perform as an Operations Manager for HW. As a Warehouse Manager at New Martinsville, I turned around the site which was losing $140k p.a. into one that closed the last year with $280k profit. Additionally, we closed this January with a $35k profit, our record month since the creation of the warehouse. I did this by rearranging the warehouse setup into thematic zones that have items that are most often bought together close to each other. This allowed us to reduce the average daily distance walked by a picker from 7.6 miles to just 4.3 (making employees happier, too!), and reduce average parcel completion time from 14.2 to just 8.1 minutes. These improvements allowed us to not have to use seasonal part-time workers, and even sustain record profits with just 31 employees, instead of 37 full-time and 20 seasonal workers.
I believe that the aptitude and effort I demonstrated, especially the savings increases and costs reductions I have made in my warehouse, could be scaled to the wider company, and I believe it to be necessary, at a time when 25% of our locations are operating under the red line.
When could we meet to tell you about how we could roll-out these improvements to even our most remote locations in record time?
Best Regards,
Maria C. Dixon
304-390-6463
mary@dixon.com
What if you’re after a promotion that hasn’t been advertised as an open position? We got you.
Our cover letter for promotion comes from Alejandro, a junior developer in a software house, looking to progress to a normal developer position with more pay and perks.
Alejandro S. White
4917 Yorkshire Circle
Seattle, WA 98101
423-512-2311
alejandro@white.com
linkedin.com/alejwhitendro
github.com/alejo99
Seattle, Jan 9, 2020
Jane Employer
Head of Development
Easy Software
1 Tech Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
Dear Jane,
I am writing to you to update you on my progress and contribution as a junior developer in the past 12 months I have been at Easy Software, and to implore you to consider promoting me to a developer position.
As a junior developer, my responsibilities revolve around supporting the senior members of the Dev Team—being delegated the easier, partial tasks, testing, debugging, brainstorming, as well as working on software documentation, internal and external. In the past 12 months, I have been the most effective debugger out of our 6 junior developers, fixing 1228 bugs across 21 applications. During brainstorming sessions, I often contribute to the discussion with senior devs with meaningful ideas, such as the addition of the public tracking functionality to the Seattle Transport Authority project, which reinvigorated public transport use in Seattle, and increased it by 5% in the first month, and another 12% in the second since implementation. Very often, while testing, I am able to independently fix some of the more serious issues that occur, whereas most of my colleagues refer them to the senior devs. I believe I have shown enough maturity, drive, and skill to make the move to a full developer position.
I am currently making a bigger-than-junior impact in my junior developer position. I am a firm believer that in a developer position, I will be able to make an even bigger impact, and allow Easy Software to grow and produce even more interesting and innovative products.
When could we meet for me to tell you about how I fixed the CoffeeMate bug that had the whole team baffled for 2 days?
Kind Regards,
Alejandro S. White
423-512-2311
alejandro@white.com
linkedin.com/alejwhitendro
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They know you. They think they do. They know you as much as you can get to know someone during idle chat at lunch, after 2 drinks too many at the sushi spot during the Christmas Party. That’s a great place to start. Don’t mess it up by busting out the Comic Sans like it’s 2002.
Here are the rules to ace the cover letter format:
So, what to include in your cover letter for internal positions?
This may be a formality, but do not omit anything. Make sure the header matches your resume header, if you are sending a resume that is. The rest shouldn’t be a problem, find out who’s going to be dealing with the application and put down their details.
Checklist:
[ Your Full Name]
[ Your Job Title ] (Optional)
[ Address ]
[ Phone Number ]
[ Email Address ]
[ LinkedIn Profile ] (Optional)
[ City and Date ]
[ Hiring Manager’s Full Name ]
[ Hiring Manager’s Position ]
[ Company Name ]
[ Company Street Address ]
[ City and Zip Code ]
Expert Hint: Remember, whatever you do: Do not be smarter than your boss.
Double your impact with a matching resume and cover letter combo. Use our cover letter generator and make your application documents pop out.
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Get right to business. Address your cover letter by first name. Start off your cover letter by identifying the position you are seeking, and justify it with a relevant factor of your performance in your current role.
Fill these [blanks]:
Dear [Hiring manager’s Name],
When I heard of the new [target position name] position being created, I immediately saw the parallels from my current position that make me the right fit. Having worked the last [number of years]+ years as a [previous position title], I have spent a lot of time honing [a parallel skill or responsibility] skills, resulting in [metric/improvement/achievement], and leading me to believe I am ready to progress to this position with more responsibility.
Expert Hint: Do not be callous, even if the hiring manager is your best buddy. Do not write that ‘they have to look no further’, or that ‘you decided to save them money on recruitment’. Always treat as if a stranger will read it, because they very well might. Worse, someone you know might read it, you might not get the position, and it will sting. Explain how you understand the company culture and will be a smoother transition to promote you than someone from the outside, but do not big yourself up needlessly.
Take a piece of paper and split it into two columns. On the left, write out your every responsibility, duty, the things you do at work. Even if you did them once. Think, “If I was trying to tell someone how good I am at it, what would I say?”. Think numbers, achievements from your resume.
Fill that page. When you’re done, walk away, come back in a few hours, and write down the things you’ve suddenly remembered. Now, take the description of the new position, of its duties and responsibilities, and highlight the things that match with your list.
Here are the components of your promotion cover letter’s second paragraph. Remember to back it up with the evidence. Bonus points if you can compare yourself to the ‘company average’ or even better—your past self. They may not know about your improvement, so let them know.
Start with this:
In my [X]+ years as a [your position name], I have excelled at [matching responsibility/duty 1], on occasion even managing to [achievement/metric 1] for our company. While [matching responsibility/duty 2], I have been able to [achievement/metric 2], contributing to [a company metric, perhaps the company made record profits that year]. While at the start of my spell with [company name] I have only been able to [underperforming metric 1], however, after [remedial steps/training you took] I am proud to say that I have [talk about your improvement and what it means for the company]. I am keen to keep developing further at maximum pace, and this opportunity is the right move for both I and [company name] to grow.
Expert Hint: We as humans are prone to believing people are watching and judging us all the time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before you put yourself in the spotlight, make sure there is nothing that will ruin your chances accidentally, on social media for example.
Companies always want to grow. They want to make more. However, companies cannot grow if the people don’t grow—or the number of them. Surely, it is better to have the more experienced with the company culture rising, instead of keeping them down and plugging strangers in higher up.
The costs of training a new person are higher, their adaptation time is longer—it is not certain that they will ever fit into the company culture. These are all valid arguments, but not to make in this form. Do not ever try to uplift yourself by putting down other candidates.
Explain simply how promoting you would be more cost-effective, have a higher chance of success—not how hiring your competitors would be disastrous.
Fill in the [blanks]:
The culture of [company name] is something I am intertwined in. I am asking you to allow me to grow, which I will return in kind. It is more beneficial to the smooth running of the company to allow the people with the know-how and understanding of the business to rise and take more responsibility. I understand the business, how it operates and its goals. The company is aiming to [describe the goals here], but the company cannot grow if the people do not grow.
Normally at ResumeLab, here’s where we advise people to ask for the interview. However, unless the position is in another division, country, etc., you can wager going for a ‘I’m looking forward to’. Usually, this can be seen as arrogant or even callous, but you ought not to worry.
A lot of people use that expression freely in their applications, and here it’s valid, and less-committing than usual—you can simply say you look forward to catching up with them about it, which could mean an interview, or could mean catching them in a hall.
Like this:
I’ll look forward to catching up with you about this opportunity. I am eager to tell you more about how [something you did] and managed to [achievement].
Best Regards,
[Digital copy of your handwritten signature]
[Your Full Name]
[Phone Number]
[Email Address]
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As you write a cover letter for internal positions and promotions, remember to:
Do you have any more questions about writing a cover letter for internal positions? Did you find our cover letter for internal promotion example helpful? Leave us a comment, I’ll be more than happy to hear from you!
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Dave is a career expert delivering a wide range of well-researched advice regarding the job hunting and application process. At ResumeLab, his data-driven resume and cover letter guides help readers capitalize on their potential.
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