When a company asks you to send your resume by fax should you send a cover letter with it or just the resume?

Answer 1

1. When you fax your cover letter and resume, the cover letter goes into the body of the fax cover sheet. You don't have a cover sheet and a separate cover letter. Just the fax cover and the resume.

2. Absolutely use a cover letter. Most cover letters can be prepared in the same font ans style as the resume. Either way, definitely use a cover letter.

3. Adding to the previous answer, the main reason to use a cover letter is to make sure your resume gets to its intended recipient. Frequently, companies give you the most used fax number-meaning your resume could end up in a pile of faxes. Do you know what happens to the papers that pile up for any length of time at a fax machine used by multiple people? The trash can. It's always a good follow-up to call to make sure they receive your fax and that the transmission was readable. Inexpensive fax machines can turn beautiful resumes into chicken scratch, and with no cover sheet, they'll never know who was trying to send what! Lastly, if you are faxing a resume in response to a classified ad, or even an online job posting, you would be surprised at how many wrong fax numbers are mistakenly displayed. (Due to typos, errors by newspaper staff, or simply employers giving the regular phone line number and not the fax number!)

4. I was taught at school that to send in a resume or job application without a covering letter is very discourteous. The covering letter can be very short.