Writing Letters of Application for Jobs

Write letters of application for jobs

Application letters are written for official purposes such as job applications. These letters are sometimes called official business or formal letters. Application letters should be always be concise, complete, logically, planned, clearly, and politely expressed in grammatically correct and good English or language.

Format of an application letter

An application letter regardless of their purpose, consist of the following parts or elements:

1. Writer’s/ sender’s address – this is written on top right hand corner. This part is also called a letterhead.
2. Date – (this is under a sender’s address), it shows the date of the letter i.e. the day in which the letter was written.
3. Reference number (= if any) on right hand side below the date.
4. Receiver’s / sender’s address – this is written on left hand corner /side. It consists of the name or title of the person, place of business or any place where the letter is intended to reach.
5. The salutation; this is the greeting that begins the letter. Use dear Sir/Madam if you write to someone whose name you don’t know i.e. he or she is not known to you.
6. Heading; it should be very brief starting with RE: or REF:-the heading should carry a message (theme of the letter. It should be capital letter and underlined it if is handwritten but do not underline if it typed, bold it.
7. Body /message -it contains the message or the information of the letter. It is most important part which requires good flow of ideas and well punctuated.
8. Complementary close. -it consists of the words of respect to show the feeling of the writer of the letter towards his/ her correspondent / receiver of the letter. It should also relate with the salutation.
9. Signature of the writer.
10. Full name plus the name of the company, office or firm which the writer represents, written at an extreme end of letter. Although sometimes a company name may be written above the letter.

Exercise 1

You have completed your university studies and aspire to become a teacher. Write an application Letter to the director, ministry of education and vocational training seeking for the opportunity.