Cover Letter for Internal Position or Promotion Examples

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Dave Rygielski
Dave Rygielski
Career Expert
Cover Letter for Internal Position or Promotion Examples

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:

  • Two cover letter examples: a sample cover letter for internal position, and a cover letter for promotion.
  • How to not trip up on the basics: the cover letter format.
  • A quick and ready template to start from in minutes.

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Looking for different cover letter examples and guides? See:

After analyzing data from over 500,000 documents generated in our product, we found that*:

- The most often chosen cover letter templates among our users are Cascade, Cubic, Primo, and Classic.
- Each user typically creates an average of 2.36 documents in our document builder.
- Administrative assistans, customer service representatives, registered nurses and servers are professions for which our users most likely create cover letters. 
 
* The data comes from the last 12 months (August 2023-August 2024)

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.

1. Cover Letter for Internal Position Examples

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.

#1: Cover Letter for Internal Position Example

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.

Example #2: Cover Letter for Promotion

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

Haven't found what you're looking for? Check all our good cover letter examples.

2. How to Make Your Cover Letter For Promotion Blow Them Away

1. Format Your Cover Letter For Internal Position Neatly

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:

  • Align text to the left without justification. 
  • Use 1-inch margins on all sides.
  • Your cover letter font should be the same as your resume font—use a classic like Bell MT, Arial or Garamond.
  • Use 1.15 line spacing. Drop a line between each section, and between paragraphs.
  • The best length for your cover letter is one page.

So, what to include in your cover letter for internal positions?

2. Make a Header With Your Contact Information

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:

Cover Letter For Internal Position: Header 

[ 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.

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3. Introduce The Position You’re Applying For

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]:

Cover Letter For Internal Position: Introduction

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.

4. Make a Case For Why They Should Promote You

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:

Cover Letter for Internal Position Sample: Second Paragraph

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.

5. Make The Final Interview

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]:

Cover Letter for Internal Position Sample: Third Paragraph

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.

6. Close the Deal

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:

Cover Letter for Internal Position Sample: Sign Off & Call to Action

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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Key Points

As you write a cover letter for internal positions and promotions, remember to:

  • Get the formatting and header absolutely right—or it looks foolish.
  • State what position you’re applying to, and introduce yourself with a relevant achievement from your resume in this capacity, or parallel role.
  • In the second paragraph, draw on your experience in your position, and how much, and how well you do the things that your new job focuses on.
  • Describe your drive, passion, and commitment in the third paragraph.
  • Request an interview/call and sign formally. 

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!

About ResumeLab’s Editorial Process

At ResumeLab, quality is at the crux of our values, supporting our commitment to delivering top-notch career resources. The editorial team of career experts carefully reviews every article in accordance with editorial guidelines, ensuring the high quality and reliability of our content. We actively conduct original research, shedding light on the job market's intricacies and earning recognition from numerous influential news outlets. Our dedication to delivering expert career advice attracts millions of readers to our blog each year.

Dave Rygielski
Written byDave Rygielski

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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