Consulting Cover Letter: Example & Writing Tips for 2023

In consulting, you’re the one offering advice, but now we’d like to offer some to you. A simple formula for writing a job-winning consulting cover letter.

Jacques Buffett, CPRW

Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Career Expert

Updated 13/12/2022

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Sales consultant, management consultant, business consultant and so on. These days there are more flavours of consultant than you can poke a stick at, and for good reason. Consultants are an essential part of the modern business world. Their advice and expertise helps provide an objective view to organisations to help them improve their business performance.

And there’s not a single business out there that doesn’t want to optimise and improve in one way or another. But it’s a cut-throat job market out there and to land the best you need a powerfully convincing consulting cover letter.

And this guide will be your consultant for how to write a cover letter for consulting jobs that’ll offer massive improvements to your job search process.

Want to write your cover letter fast? Use our cover letter builder. Choose from 20+ professional cover letter templates that match your CV. See actionable examples and get expert tips along the way.

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Sample Cover Letter for a CV—See more cover letter templates and create your cover letter here.

Example Consulting Cover Letter

Paul Haines

11a Bartleby Terrace

London

SW18 5TR

13th July 2021

Rob Sykes

Head of Business Development

The Criterion Group

54-56 Stamford Street

London

SW1A 1ED

Dear Mr Sykes,

Being aware of The Criterion Groups growing reputation in the property management industry I was delighted to see your opening for the role of management consultant. I’d love the opportunity to repeat the successes I’ve had in my current role, such as increasing measurable productivity metrics by 15% on average by introducing a novel 360 degree feedback mechanism for cross team analysis.

As management consultant with the Ampleforth Group I have specialised in helping teams grow from good to great. By educating managers and their teams in the latest developments in Agile frameworks and methodologies I have been able to help minimise inefficiencies in processes. This was achieved through a comprehensive process mapping exercise involving six teams and in excess of 50 separate processes. Over 200 inefficiencies and redundant steps were identified and removed, with this streamlining creating aggregate savings in resource and costs of £200, 000+.

I can see that Criterion has just announced plans to merge with Antic Properties. I particularly enjoy the energy and challenges created by such changes. I successfully led the integration team for a merger between two organisations consisting of 3,000 and 2,000 employees respectively. This involved merging existing databases and systems into a coherent new framework and migrating financial and migrating the data of 300,000 customers in compliance with privacy regulations. Helping managers to create stable and productive teams following such moves is incredibly satisfying and one of my favourite aspects of management consulting.

Thanks for taking the time to consider my application. Please do get in touch with me at your convenience. I’d be delighted to have the chance to discuss how my work to create post-merger onboarding and integration courses helped to cement new ways of working.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Haines

You’ve just seen a brilliant consulting cover letter example and now you’ll learn how to write one yourself. But don’t forget—

Even the best consultant cover letter needs a CV to go with it. Learn how to write one here: What to Include in a CV: Essential CV Sections

And if you’re looking for tips for other careers, we’ve got just the advice you need to consult:

Consulting Cover Letter Template

Here’s the step-by-step guide to writing your consulting cover letter.

1. Start With a Professional Consulting Cover Letter Format

When a consultant advises on performance improvement, setting clear and efficient structures and processes is a guaranteed win. It’s the same when you’re writing a cover letter, there’s a clear and well-established cover letter structure to follow. Here’s what you need to do.

Choose a matching CV and cover letter template. It adds a particularly professional feel to your job application.
Set one-inch page margins and set your line spacing to 1.15 or single for a crisp cover letter layout.
Then pick out an easy-to-read font. If it’s a good CV font it’ll be great for cover letters too. There’s some evidence that sans serif fonts are better for on-screen reading, but stick to the reliable classics and you’ll be fine. Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri are perfect.
And be mindful of the best cover letter length before you start writing. You’re looking at one page at most.

2. Write Your Consulting Cover Letter Header

A consultant cover letter needs to show your precision and attention to detail. No hiring manager will take you seriously if you send one that fails to follow the basic rules of UK business letter writing. So here’s how to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

Get the cover letter address right. Your own personal details should go first and be right-aligned. Then leave a space and include the date you wrote the letter. The correct format is as follows, 13th July 2021.
Next, you’ll need to write the hiring manager’s contact information. This should be left-aligned and always try to find out their name and use it. Reading your own name has a powerful effect on your brain and makes you pay more attention. A simple and easy marketing hack.

And how do you find out the hiring manager’s name? There’s plenty of ways to research it, but the easiest way is just to phone the company and ask. It’s a few minutes of your time that’ll really pay dividends.

3. Begin Your Letter with a Personal Greeting and a Catchy First Paragraph

Now for the main event, your consulting cover letter itself. You need to make a strong start and grab the recruiter’s attention. After all, even pre-coronavirus there were 75 applicants on average for every job. A figure that’s bound to be even higher now. So here’s how to make your consulting letter jump out of that stack.

Use the standard formal greeting to kick things off. ‘Dear [hiring manager’s name]’ or ‘Dear Hiring Manager’ if you’re addressing your consultant cover letter anonymously.
Now for the first paragraph. Specifically, name the role you’re applying for to make your intentions clear and show you’ve written an individually tailored letter.
Then include a juicy professional achievement that acts as a ‘hook’ and lands you in the yes pile.

4. Add More Proof That You’re the Right Candidate for This Consulting Job

The middle of your consulting cover letter has to build-up momentum and provide even more evidence of your employable excellence. Use the second paragraph to weave in more detail about your consulting brilliance. Here’s how.

Don’t start writing until you re-read the job advert. Pay attention to the skills and experience it mentions and ensure that you use examples of your own experience and achievements that match up with the job requirements.
The way to do this properly is to use quantified achievements and accomplishment statements to structure your sentences.

5. Show How Much You Want the Job

It’s not enough to just show competence, you’ve got to show you really want the job too. A bit of passion and enthusiasm goes a long way, especially when you’re just starting out in your career. So if you’re writing a consulting internship cover letter, pay close attention.

Conduct some due diligence on the employer you’re targeting. Check out their corporate website, read their LinkedIn, search for them on Google news. Find a positive fact about the company and mention it as your inspiration to work for them.
Another strategy is to show how your skills can help to solve their current challenges and contribute to their future plans. Again, do your research to discover what those challenges and plans are.

6. Finish With Gratitude and a Call to Action

Now we’ve come to the last paragraph of your consulting cover letter. This is where you need to make sure that the interview is in the bag. Here’s how it’s done.

Always say thank you. Gratitude helps promote something called prosocial behaviour, so the person you say thank you to is more likely to see you in a positive light.
Also, use a call to action. As simple as it sounds, asking for an interview really does help increase your chances of getting one.
You can also add even more proof of your potential as a prospective employee, throwing in another professional achievement, or discussing your goals for growth in the role can really help seal the deal.
And don’t worry about saying ‘please find attached my CV’.

7. Use the Right Sign-Off

And we finish your consulting cover letter where we began, your sign-off is similar to your header in that you need to follow the basic rules of letter writing.

Sign-off with your full name and a digital copy of your handwritten signature (optional).
Use ‘Yours sincerely’ if you addressed your consultant cover letter to a named person and ‘Yours faithfully’ if you didn’t.
And if your cover letter for consulting jobs is being sent as the body of an email, include your contact details as part of the email signature rather than including them in the header.

If you’d like to see even more detail about writing a cover letter for consulting jobs, take a look at our in-depth piece: How to Write a Cover Letter: Complete Guide

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Thanks for reading. I hope you’ve found our example consulting cover letter useful. There are many types of consultants and if you do need more specific advice such as writing a strategy consulting cover letter or a sales consultant cover letter then please ask in the comments section and I’ll get back to you.

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