Project Manager Cover Letter: Example & How to Write

Setting milestones, monitoring backlogs, ensuring accountability – project managers are all about getting things done; reliably, efficiently, and on time. It’s not a job for everyone, but it’s one that’s incredibly satisfying for those who are cut out for it. 

This is all well and good, but it doesn’t help you get your cover letter finished. It can be a little galling when, just for example, the thing we do so well at work—breaking a project down and getting it done—is exactly where we fall short when trying to sell those skills.

This article is here to help you harness your project manager skills in writing a project manager cover letter while giving you all the expert and inside information you need to make the right calls. With plenty of project manager cover letter examples (UK-based), you’re about to write your best cover letter ever.

Use the LiveCareer cover letter builder and your cover letter will write itself. Choose a professional template, answer a few easy questions and the creator will generate a professional cover letter for you with just one click.

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 Looking for other cover letter examples? See our guides for:

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Couldn't find your job? See a full list of our cover letter examples. 

Project Manager Cover Letter Sample

Now that’s a powerful but still short cover letter. Let’s see how to write your cover letter (also called a letter of application):

1. Frame your project manager cover letter with a header

A cover letter needs to follow certain conventions, like so many other documents you deal with on a daily basis. Start by setting out the header: align to the right your name, postal address, email, and phone number. Leave a line and add the date of writing, always in the form ‘23rd May 2021’, and leave another line.

Now align to the left the hiring manager’s or recruiter’s name, their job title, the company name, and the company’s postal address. Type out the postal addresses just as though you were addressing an envelope. Don’t know to whom to address your project manager cover letter? It’s important that you do—read on.

Project manager cover letter example header

You can adjust every cover letter created in the builder to meet the job requirements. Choose the name of your profession and the company to which you’re applying, and the LiveCareer cover letter builder will automatically adapt the content for you. Create a cover letter faster than you ever thought possible and apply for the job in record time.

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2. Address the reader of your project manager cover letter properly

Let’s say you get an email from a sub-contractor who wants to form a professional relationship with your company spanning multiple projects. Which of the following cover letter salutations would make the best impression on you? ‘To Whom It May Concern’, ‘Dear Project Manager’, ‘Dear + Mr/Ms + your surname’ or ‘Dear + your first name’?

Never use ‘To Whom It May Concern’, ‘Dear Sir / Madame’ or anything similar. These greetings are cold, impersonal, and long outdated. ‘Dear Hiring Manager’ (or HR Manager or Recruiter, etc.) is sometimes a necessary evil. Use these as a last resort and be as specific and accurate with the job title as possible.

That leaves actually using the person’s name. To do this, you first have to know their name. If the job advert isn’t of any help, then check the company’s website, Microsoft’s LinkedIn, and your favourite search engine. If all else fails, call up the company and ask. It’s hard to imagine that not working.

So now it’s just a question of whether or not you feel comfortable starting off on a first-name basis. If the person you’re writing to isn’t too much more senior than you and the company doesn’t have too formal and stodgy a corporate culture, then ‘Dear + first name’ is the better, more personal way to go.

Trust your instinct if you’re not comfortable doing so, though. It’s safer to err on the side of formality in a project manager cover letter. Unless you’re writing to someone with an academic title or military rank, you’ll have to be sure of their sex before using the gendered ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’. Always use ‘Ms’ for women.

Sample cover letter for project manager position: salutation

3. Open your project manager cover letter strong and smart

You deal with a lot of people during the course of a project and your approach probably changes when meeting a new subordinate versus a new client for the first time. It’s not so much about making a ‘good’ impression (as though that were one, unchanging thing) but more about choosing the right impression to make.

The opening paragraph of your cover letter needs to show your passion for your work and enthusiasm for the company and its operations. It also needs to give some indication of what it is that you can bring to the table in terms of experience and skills. How you do this depends on your experience level.

If you have some relevant work experience as a project manager, then the best way to indicate what you can do for this potential new employer is simply by describing what it was that you managed to do for your current and or previous employer. Focus on concrete and quantifiable achievements and you can’t go wrong.

If you don’t have any experience as a project manager, then think back over all the projects you’ve been involved in. Mine these for project manager achievements. You needn’t have had the project manager’s job title to have set goals, delegated tasks, monitored progress, managed resources or led others.

Many employers these days rely on Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) to, well, track their applicants, but these systems also often become de facto gatekeepers and points of triage. Make sure your cover letter jumps through all the algorithmic hoops by mentioning the name of the company in full as well as the job title.

One more thing you should mention in a cover letter for a project manager position is the fact that you were referred to the role, if in fact you were. There’s nothing wrong with dropping names, as long as you do it discreetly and do it once. Someone within the company thinks you’re a good fit, this is a good thing.

As much as your opening paragraph has to do, you absolutely have to keep it as short as possible. It won’t do you any good if it doesn’t get read, and we all know how enticing a wall of text is on your screen. So limit yourself to 40–80 words, no more.

Project manager cover letter sample opening paragraph

You don’t have to create any content yourself. The LiveCareer cover letter generator will automatically suggest the best content for your cover letter with ready-made examples and expert tips.

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4. Showcase of your achievements

Putting your main project manager cover letter body paragraph together is conceptually simple, but like many things, it’s easier said than done. Your main body paragraph will be made up of 2–3 essentially back-to-back on-the-job achievements with only minimal connecting and explanatory sentences between them.

First, it’s time to unpack what an ‘achievement’ is in this context. An achievement is something of which you have many under your belt. It’s a description of an action you took at work, often in response to a challenge or problem, and the benefits that your employer scooped up as a result of your effort.

The foundation of each achievement is a strong verb that describes your actions. The most important characteristics of an achievement are that it’s concrete and quantified. Quantify everything you can, but focus the bulk of your attention on putting numbers to the benefits that went to your employer.

You can use something like a PAR formula to generate achievements a little more methodically if the above explanation is a little too abstract for your tastes. You’ll need one produced to this spec for your opening paragraph, too. Beat ATS algorithms by mirroring the keywords used in the job advert.

You should aim for a total of 120–200 words here (the fewer, the better). This can become a bit of a monolithic text-chunk if you’re not careful, so consider breaking it into two paragraphs. It’s great if you can make this writing flow, but don’t despair if you can’t and consider using bullet points to just roll with it.

Project manager cover letter example main body paragraph

5. Close your project manager cover letter with a confident CTA

Be a good project manager and don’t leave your reader wandering aimlessly in the weeds: take 40–60 words to tie up any loose ends and summarise your achievements. Pick out any common themes that aren’t obvious at first reading and link them back to benefits to your new employer, if necessary.

Be sure to thank your reader for the time and effort they’re putting into weighing up your application. Yes, it’s good manners, but it could also pay dividends during the recruitment process. End your cover letter on a confident call to action (CTA) through which you can show your eagerness to progress to the next stage.

Cover letter for a project manager example closing paragraphs

6. Sign off properly

No matter what industry you work in, you’ve probably been surprised by people’s ability to get simple things wrong. Don’t be like them when signing off from your project manager cover letter. Use ‘Yours sincerely’ if you addressed your cover letter to a named person and ‘Yours faithfully’ if you couldn’t find a name. 

Project manager cover letter example sign-off

7. Keep these formatting rules in mind

A project manager that neither pays attention to details nor the big picture is not much of a project manager. Spelling and grammar errors littered throughout a poorly set-out cover letter speak to both poor attention to detail and big-picture awareness. So make sure your cover letter is absolutely meticulous. Using AI to assist with your cover letter can be a good idea, as it may provide helpful suggestions and implement improvements.

The length of your cover letter should end up somewhere in the range of 200–400 words. This will nicely fill an A4 page (never go over a single A4 page). You should have plenty of white space to clearly break your cover letter structure down into sections and help make it easier to read, skim, and scan through.

Speaking of making your project manager cover letter easier on the eye, go with a professional-looking CV font. Something like Noto, Garamond, Liberation, or even Arial or Calibri will do. Leave the font size at 11–12 points. Resist the urge to fiddle with page-setting defaults unnecessarily.

Your project manager job application is made of two main components: your cover letter and CV. Make sure the overall look of your documents matches, making it clear that they go together. Use a simple template. Avoid infographics as they are not ATS-friendly. Format your cover letter nicely, leaving some white space between paragraphs.

“For managerial positions, the most important aspect of a CV is that it is clear and concise. The visual design is less critical; what matters most is the ability to locate key information easily. I recommend using simple, well-structured templates emphasizing readability and organization, allowing the hiring team to access the details that matter most quickly”.

Always save or export your work in PDF unless explicitly asked for something less stable (ATSs sometimes can’t deal with PDF). If you're writing an email cover letter, then of course, that's a different matter.

And… that’s it! Now you know how to write a perfect cover letter.

A cover letter alone simply won’t be enough—you need an impactful CV, too. Create your CV in minutes. Just follow our wizard and fill in every CV section with ready-made content. Get started by choosing a professional CV template.

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Has this article been helpful to you in getting a project manager cover letter together? Do you need clarification on anything I’ve mentioned? Please leave your questions, comments, feedback, and experiences in the comments section below – we’ll be sure to get back to you.

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Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.