To write a cover letter with AI, paste the job posting and two or three of your most relevant achievements into the chat, and ask for a 250 to 350 word letter that connects them. Then rewrite the opening and closing in your own words and delete any claim you can’t back up. AI is very good at structure and very bad at knowing what makes you worth hiring, so the details have to come from you.
You also don’t need to upload your whole resume to a cloud chatbot to do this. Below is a template that works, the edits that stop a letter sounding machine-made, and how to keep your job search private.
Why do AI cover letters sound generic? #
Ask a chatbot “write a cover letter for a marketing job” and you’ll get the same letter everyone else gets: “I am excited to apply,” “proven track record,” “fast-paced environment,” “I believe I would be a great fit.” That happens because the model has nothing specific to work with, so it falls back on the most common phrasing it’s seen.
The fix is input, not a better AI. A letter built from one specific achievement with a number in it beats a polished letter built from nothing.
How to write a cover letter with AI, step by step #
- Pick the three requirements that matter most in the job posting. Usually they’re in the first few bullet points or repeated more than once.
- Match each one to a real example from your work: what you did, how, and the result. Numbers help (saved 6 hours a week, grew signups 30%, handled 40 calls a day).
- Paste the posting and your examples into the chat with the prompt below.
- Edit the draft. Rewrite the first and last sentences yourself, cut anything generic, check every fact.
- Read it aloud. If a sentence sounds like something you’d never say, change it.
A cover letter prompt template #
Write a cover letter for this job: [paste the posting, or its key requirements]. My most relevant experience:
- [Requirement] – [what you did and the result]
- [Requirement] – [what you did and the result]
- [Requirement] – [what you did and the result] Why this company: [one real reason, e.g. a product you use, their mission, someone you spoke to]. Length: 250–350 words, four short paragraphs. Tone: confident and plain. No clichés like “proven track record” or “fast-paced environment.” Use [NAME], [PHONE] and [EMAIL] as placeholders. Don’t add any experience I didn’t mention.
That final line matters. Without it, models sometimes invent a certification or a tool you’ve never used, and an interviewer will ask about it.
How to make an AI cover letter sound like you #
- Give it a sample of your writing. Paste an email or a paragraph you wrote and say “match this voice.” The difference is obvious.
- Write the opening yourself. One honest sentence about why this job (“I’ve used your scheduling app to run my clinic’s rota for two years”) beats any generated hook.
- Cut every sentence that could be in anyone’s letter. If it would fit another applicant just as well, delete it.
- Keep one specific story. A single concrete example with a result is what hiring managers remember.
- Ask for criticism, not praise. “What would a skeptical hiring manager think is weak or vague in this letter?” gets useful edits. For tone, our guide to checking a message’s tone with AI has more prompts.
Use AI for your resume bullets too #
The same approach tightens resume bullets. Paste one at a time:
Rewrite this resume bullet to lead with the result and include a number if I gave one. Keep it under 20 words. Don’t invent anything: “Responsible for managing the social media accounts.”
Expect something like “Grew Instagram followers from 2,000 to 11,000 in a year by posting daily short videos,” but only if you told it those numbers. If you didn’t, it should ask, and you can prompt it to: “Ask me for any numbers you need.”
Should you upload your resume to a cloud chatbot? #
A resume is a compact file of personal data: full name, phone number, email, often your home city, every employer, your dates of employment, sometimes your school graduation years (which reveal your age). Cloud chatbots store what you upload under their privacy policies, and depending on your settings, conversations may be reviewed or used to train models.
There’s also the secrecy problem. Many people job hunt while employed. If you draft cover letters in a work account, on a work laptop or through a company-provided AI tool, your employer may be able to see it. Our guide to using AI at work without leaking data explains who can see what on company accounts.
Three safer ways to do it:
- Paste only what the letter needs. The three examples and the job posting. No contact details, no full work history. Use placeholders.
- Strip identifiers if you do paste the resume. Our guide to keeping personal data out of AI chatbots shows how.
- Draft on your own phone with an offline AI. Nothing leaves the device, and it’s nowhere near your work accounts.
Personal LLM is an app for the third option. It runs open models like Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 on your iPhone or Android phone, with no account and no server, so your resume and drafts stay on the device. You can attach your resume as a PDF or text file and ask about it: the text is searched on the phone, and the model answers from the passages that match your question. For a cover letter, pasting your three chosen examples directly usually gives better results than asking it to find them in the full resume. The app’s thinking mode, which shows the model’s working in a collapsible panel, is handy for a question like “which of my experiences best matches each requirement, and why?”
Phone-sized models write a solid first draft. They’re less polished than the biggest cloud models, so plan on editing, which you should do anyway.
Check before you send #
| Check | Why |
|---|---|
| Every claim is true | Anything in the letter is fair game in the interview |
| Company name and job title are right | Easy to miss when you reuse a draft |
| No placeholder left | “[COMPANY]” in a sent letter is fatal |
| Under one page | Most letters get skimmed |
| First line is specific | Generic openers get skipped |
| No clichés | Search for “passionate,” “proven,” “dynamic,” “fast-paced” |
| Ends with a clear next step | “I’d welcome a chance to talk about…” |
Frequently asked questions #
Is it okay to use AI to write a cover letter? #
Most employers care whether the letter is accurate and specific, not which tool helped you draft it. Some application forms ask you to disclose AI use, so read the instructions. Using AI for structure and editing, with your own facts and voice, is common.
Can employers tell if a cover letter was written by AI? #
They can tell when a letter is generic, and unedited AI letters usually are. AI-detection tools are unreliable, so a well-edited letter with real, specific examples reads as yours because the substance is yours.
How long should a cover letter be? #
About 250 to 400 words, or three to four short paragraphs. Long enough to connect two or three strong examples to the job, short enough to read in a minute.
What should I not put into ChatGPT when job hunting? #
Leave out your phone number, address, references’ contact details, salary history and anything from your current employer that’s confidential. Use placeholders, or draft with an AI that runs offline on your phone.