Your success in the job market could depend heavily on how good your cover letter is. Statistics show the average American's job hunt lasts up to or over nine months. This makes it more critical now than ever that you get your foot in the door before you get it slammed in your face. With the right cover letter, that goal can be a lot easier to reach.

When employers are sifting through a ton of resumes, looking for just one person for the job, the cover letter is your primary means of attack. It's the first look they're going to get at you, and it's your first opportunity to look better than the rest of the applicants.

Getting through this first challenge is essential to getting the position. This first culling can determine right now if you have a shot at the job you're after. Resumes with a great cover letter will go to the next round, while the applications with weak cover letters (or worse--none at all!) will be filed in the trash can.

Now, chances are good you didn't somehow find the time to go to college for four years to get a degree in Cover Letter Writing, so you might feel at a slight disadvantage. The good news is that you don't have to be an expert in the field to do well. All you need is a teacher.

Probably the best teacher around is the good old "example". It's never a bad idea to learn an important skill by talking to people who have had successful experiences with whatever it is you're trying to learn. Unfortunately, finding these people isn't always the simplest thing in the world, which can make the process something less than easy.

You'll be happy to know that it isn't necessary to go hunting for the people who wrote the successful cover letters, just the cover letters themselves. You can learn a lot more from them than you could from the writers, and they're a lot easier to find.

Being able to analyze and adapt something is a skill you'll be glad to build while you're at it, because such a skill is highly valued in the workplace. Too many people just get lazy and plagiarize, which gets you nowhere. If you take the time to learn what makes a cover letter good, not only will it allow you to create your own successful cover letter, but it'll also improve your analysis skills and make you even better in the eyes of potential employers.

And during your analysis and writing process, it's important to not forget what the real intention of your cover letter is. For it to be successful, it needs to primarily do two things: outline your qualifications, and get you on the road to an interview. The most important goal of a good cover letter is to try to get that interview. Once you do that it's up to you, but if you try to search for a job without a solid cover letter as your partner, there's a good chance you may never even get that interview.