The Six Golden Rules for Writing a Cover Letter
A cover letter needs to be a living document, tinkered and tailored for each job application. Wine Guns for Hire turned to the experts, asking what they look for in a cover letter.
Trader House beverage director Leanne Altmann says the award-winning collective, which boasts crowd-pleasing venues such as Cumulus Inc., Supernormal and The Builders Arms Hotel, is a sought-after workplace.
“We want someone who has a genuine passion and enthusiasm for food, wine and service,” she says. “It’s not okay to just love cooking or really be into wine and love reading about Burgundy. That desire to work in the restaurant is a really important one for us.”
Altmann says that genuine passion comes out in the application. For those with a desire to learn, skills can be honed by the group’s strong internal training, but some extra wine and spirit education undertaken by applicants is viewed favourably.
When recruiting, she looks at longevity and any unexplained reasons as to why a person may have jumped from role to role.
Yalumba Wine Company is one of Australia’s oldest wineries, but it has a modern outlook when it comes to recruitment.
It recruits about 200 positions each year.
Yalumba recruitment advisor Stuart Hearn cautions that applicants should keep it short.
“The more succinct the better,” he says.
Hearn says a resume should ideally include no more than ten years of work history, with a breakdown of key tasks and responsibilities in that role.
Having worked previously in a large recruitment company, he says the consensus was that hiring managers were lucky to read one in every five words.
“We receive lots of resumes, and I think it becomes pretty clear quite quickly if there is someone who stands out from the pack,” Altmann advises.
Hearn says experience and skills need to be relevant against the core job criteria.
He warns that people might have “the best resume on paper” but they have to be the right fit for the business.
For those applying remotely, Hearn says they should do some research on the company.
He points to a recent applicant from New Zealand who did an “incredible amount of research” to convey a real understanding of the business. They got the job.
“We are a 173-year-old company. People need to understand our history,” he says.
Wine Victoria chair Angie Bradbury says it’s important that applicants can relate their skills and experience to the specific role.
She agrees that work history up to 10 years is adequate.
“If you are a young person going for your first and second job, I am interested to know if you worked part time in school,” she says. “For older applicants, I don’t need to know what you did at school.”
Ms Bradbury, also principal of Bradbury & Co marketing and brand strategy consultancy, says while it’s tempting to reel off empty phrases such as “great communication skills” and “great interpersonal skills” and “team player”, they don’t shed much light on who you are and how you operate to a prospective employer.
“People give the lipstick version on their resume,” she says. “I like to see people responding to any potential challenges they had. They might say that in a role they had a challenge and what they did to address it.”
“But we don’t need people to wax lyrical about their skills,” Bradbury adds.
“We are looking for that culture fit. The hobbies and interests. Anything they do in the community and networks. We are hiring on cultural values and team fit,” Yalumba’s Stuart Hearn says.
“We’re interested in whether they are in the knitting club or local footy team. What they bring into the business. It’s a family environment. We want to know what type of person we are getting into the business who is representing the business.”
Ms Bradbury agrees that culture is really important.
“We know these days that work isn’t the be all and end all for people. There is a strong intersect between work and life,” she says, so any hobbies, interests and volunteering might be of interest.
Joval Wine Group human resources operations manager Vicky Ly says recruiting people who are across and understand the company culture is paramount for the group. The Joval Wine Group has 300 staff from grape to glass, including distribution companies Red + White and Mezzanine Wine as well as Plumm wine glasses, which are used in 1,500 restaurants in Australia and New Zealand.
“We say it all the time. You can train skills easily, but it is really hard to train attitude, values and beliefs,” she says. “When we are screening, we want to see that people align with our values.”
Ly says winning candidates will have gone through their website, be across the “crafted by hand and heart” values and respond as to how they align with and have demonstrated them.
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