Cover letter mistakes that quietly get you rejected

The cover letter mistakes that cost you the interview are almost never the ones people worry about. Candidates obsess over typos and fonts then send a letter that could go to any company on earth. The real failures are quieter—they do not look like errors, they look like a letter that was technically fine and told the reader nothing. Here are the ones worth fixing first.

The generic opening

The most common mistake is an opening that announces nothing. "I am writing to apply for the position advertised on your website" tells the reader something they already know and burns the most valuable line in the letter. A skimming reader decides early whether to keep going, so a flat opening costs you the whole letter before you have made a single point. Open instead with the role and your single strongest reason for fitting it. The structure that makes openings land is covered in how to write a cover letter that gets read.

Restating the resume

The second silent killer is a letter that walks through your resume in paragraph form. The reader already has the resume—repeating it wastes the one document where you control the narrative. The letter's job is the context a bullet cannot hold: why this role, why now and how a specific achievement maps to what the team needs. If a sentence in your letter could be deleted because the fact is already on the resume, delete it. The full division of labour is in cover letter vs resume.

A quick triage

Vague self-praise and ignoring the posting

Describing yourself as hardworking, passionate or detail-oriented feels safe and does nothing, because a reader cannot check an adjective. Every quality you claim should be replaced by the thing you did that demonstrates it. "Detail-oriented" becomes the bug you caught before it shipped; "collaborative" becomes the cross-team review you ran. Evidence is the only self-praise a reader believes.

Closely related is ignoring the posting. A letter that does not reflect the specific requirements signals you did not read them, and a reader comparing applications will always favour the candidate who clearly did. Tailoring is the antidote and it has its own playbook in how to tailor a cover letter to a job description.

The weak close

The last mistake is fading out. "Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you" is fine but forgettable and the close is your final impression. End instead with a short confident line that points forward—what you would bring and that you would welcome the conversation. It costs one sentence and changes the note the reader is left on.

A fast way to avoid all five at once is to start from a structured draft rather than a blank page. The Cover Letter Generator opens with the role, keeps the resume's facts out of the letter, proves points with your real background then flags the requirements you have not addressed—so the common mistakes are designed out from the start.

Frequently asked questions

What is the biggest mistake in a cover letter?
Sending one that could go to any company. A generic letter signals low effort, and tailoring is the fix.

Do small typos really get you rejected?
A single typo rarely sinks a strong letter, but a pattern signals carelessness. Fix the structure first then proofread.

Bottom line

The cover letter mistakes that quietly cost you are generic openings, restated resumes, vague self-praise, ignoring the posting and weak closes—each one telling the reader the letter was not written for them. Fix the substance, then let the Cover Letter Generator and Resume Builder keep both documents specific and aligned.