Introduction #
Nowadays companies in the monitoring and evaluation industry do not need to advertise job openings externally for people to apply. It’s usually a worthwhile experience for a potential candidate to submit an application to the hiring manager or recruiter without the company advertising for the role. There is a 50/50 chance that the company might need your expertise and service, and in fact, you may even be the perfect candidate they have been longing to recruit all the while
If you are a job seeker in the monitoring and evaluation industry and you are looking to reach out to a company for potential employment, you will need to submit a letter of interest to the company of your choice along with a well-written resume detailing your background, work history, and educational achievements. Ahead, you will learn what a letter of interest is, the difference between a letter of interest and a cover letter, and how to create a letter of Interest that will attract the attention of a recruiter or a hiring manager. We have also included one example and a template of how a perfect letter of Interest looks like.
Let’s get started.
What Is a Letter of Interest? #
In its simplest form, a letter of interest is the letter that you write to a company that did not place a job advert stating your interest in working for the company. A letter of Interest is also referred to as a letter of intent or a statement of interest. In other words, a letter of interest gives you the opportunity to sell yourself to a company that may need your service even though the company did not advertise for a monitoring and evaluation position
Letter of Interest vs. Cover Letter #
A letter of interest is different from a cover letter in different ways. A letter of interest doesn’t target any job role. It is usually sent to a company just to express your interest in working in your organisation. As such, you need to write the letter of interest to impress the recruiter or hiring manager so that they may hire you. A letter of interest can be sent by anyone at any level of experience or competence. Whether you are an entry-level M&E professional or an expert in the M&E industry with over 20 years experience, you can send a letter of interest to a company to consider you for employment.
By contrast, when you write and submit a cover letter, you are targeting a specific role that has been advertised by the company. Let’s say a company places an advert and they are looking to hire a monitoring and evaluation expert. In the advert, they detailed the skill sets and experience they need for the position. If you see the advert or someone refers you for the job, the application you submit to the hiring manager or recruiter is what is referred to as a cover letter. A cover letter should explain why you are the most outstanding candidate for the job. It should also highlight your biggest achievements and relevant Monitoring and Evaluation skills for the position.
How to Write a Letter of Interest #
Before you set out to write a letter of interest, it is important to research your target company to find out more information about their product or services, their culture, value, mission and vision, as well as their welfare package for employees. After your due diligence or research, if you are happy with what you discovered about the company, you may need to check whether you have an insider that can work to your advantage. For instance, you may have a friend or a relative who is already working in the company; you can find this out using a platform like LinkedIn.
Read Also: LinkedIn Cold Messages: How To Reach Out About a Job in Monitoring and Evaluation.
If you have someone already working in the company, the person will definitely give you insider tips that will push your letter of intent to the right person that may consider you for employment.
Now, let’s take a look at how to write the perfect letter of interest:
Paragraph 1: Introduce yourself #
In the first paragraph of your letter of interest, you need to introduce yourself and clearly state that you are seeking a job as a monitoring and evaluation professional. For instance, if there’s any area in the monitoring and evaluation industry that you specialize in, you can mention in this first paragraph.
Explain why you are so passionate about working for their company and also highlight the problems you have identified (in the course of your research) and ways you can help the company overcome the challenges. Additionally, mention in your first paragraph that you know they are not currently advertising for an M&E professional, but that you have the requisite skills and experience to be a great addition to their team.
Paragraph 2: Impress the reader with your work experience #
The second paragraph should be more about your background and monitoring and evaluation experience. You need to maximize this second paragraph to impress the reader with your achievements and work experience so that they may likely consider you for employment in the event that they want to hire a monitoring and evaluation expert.
Mention statistics, and if possible, highlight relevant or achievable metrics that you achieved in your previous working environment. For example, you can state that you increased the profit of your organisation by 10% in your last role as an entry level monitoring and evaluation professional. Or maybe you helped your previous company to sign up over 200 new clients.
You can also use the opportunity to detail major projects that you have been involved in. Essentially, the second paragraph gives you an opportunity to walk a recruiter or hiring manager through your background experiences. And if you are a recent graduate, you can use volunteer experience or extracurricular activities that you were involved in at school to explain this paragraph.
Paragraph 3: Encourage the reader to reach out to you #
This is the final paragraph. Here, you need to encourage a recruiter or hiring manager to take action. The action you want them to take is to invite you for an interview. Even if it’s an internship role, you can check out our article on “How to Get an Internship in Monitoring and Evaluation” to prepare for the interview. Lastly, provide your contact details in the letter (address, email, and phone number).
Samples Letter of Interest #
Your address and contact details
Date
Recruiters information
Greetings,
I recently read an article about United International’s new approach to monitoring and evaluation in Marketing Magazine Online, and I’m writing to inquire whether you have any M&E positions open.
I have five years of experience working as an M&E Strategist for one of our local brand. During my time in this role, I increased the number of website page views by 120% and reduced the cost of customer acquisition by 20%. In addition, our sales increased by 50% during that time.
My resume is enclosed with this letter so you can review my education, work experience, and achievements. I would appreciate an opportunity to talk with you or a member of the monitoring and evaluation team to see how my experience and skills could benefit your company. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to speaking with you in the near future.
Sincerely,
Signature (hard copy letter)
Your name
Key Takeaways #
That would be it. You need to write a letter of interest to impress the recruiter or hiring manager so that they may hire. Follow the format we highlighted above and use the same as inspiration. You can follow up with an email or a phone call if you don’t hear back from the company.
