Guess what, there is such a way...and it goes by the name of "cover letter". Well, technically, it's actually called a "great cover letter". Chances are good that any job you apply for will want a resume, and even if it didn't ask for one, why wouldn't you add it anyways? The same applies for a cover letter, it just doesn't make sense to leave out such an important tool for raising your chances of getting the job.

When a corporate paperpusher is trying to sift through hundreds of job applications in the pursuit of finding ONE person to fill the slot, do you really think he or she is going to sit there and read through every single resume, check every single source, and give every single applicant the same chance? No! Nobody in the world has time to do that. What that person is going to do is look at all the cover letters. It's the first thing they'll read, and it's your first elimination to get through.

The process is easy: the resumes with cover letters that look promising will stay in the game, and the ones with the sub-par cover letters --or dare I say it: none!-- will be given to Bob in Accounting to feed to his goat.

So if your goal is to manage to survive the original culling, you'll need to have not only just a cover letter, but the best one you can possibly come up with! Dont get me wrong, your resume is important and naturally you're going to have to be an appropriate candidate, but the perfect cover letter can not just open the door but set out a velvet welcome mat as well.

But all of this is well and good if you know how to write a killer cover letter...but what if you didn't go to college for four years to get a degree in Cover Letter Writing? What if you're just that guy out there who's looking for a job? Well, ask yourself...what's the best way to learn how to do something?

You have somebody teach you! You find somebody who's written a great cover letter in his life, and see what he did. You learn by example. And why just one person? Learn from dozens of examples...see what works, and learn how to adapt it to your own personal needs. By no means am I telling you to plagiarize or rip off of other people, but by seeing what others have done you can see how you can do it as well.

But where do you find these cover letter examples? How do you figure out which ones work and which ones don't? Well, I can help you out a little bit there.