Data Scientist
Cover Letter Sample

1. Research the company

Hiring managers love to see proof that you’ve researched their company in your cover letter. Highlighting your research shows you’re genuinely interested and know how to take initiative.

There are many resources with information about your target employer you can reference in your cover letter:

• StackShare: You’re applying to be a data scientist, so it makes sense to research the company’s tech stack. Search for the company you’re applying to on StackShare (or similar sites) to find out about the technology stacks it uses.

• The company’s website: A company’s website likely includes all the information it wants potential employees to know about its values, products, history, and structure.

• Annual report: If you’re applying to a publicly traded company, its annual report should be available online. Reading a company’s annual report is an excellent way to gain a comprehensive overview of the company’s operations and financial position from the preceding year, as well as its upcoming goals.

• Social media: Browsing the company’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages is a great way to learn more about its personality and upcoming goals.

Here’s an example of a candidate who connects research about the company’s upcoming expansion to the skills they possess that will help fulfill this goal:

It would be a pleasure to learn more about [Company]’s expansion plans and provide further insight into how my highly developed data analytic abilities, experience managing large data sets, robust predictive analytics, and machine learning skills can help your company achieve these results.

2. Restate quantified bullet points from your resume

To immediately grab the hiring manager’s attention, use metrics to display the tangible results of your data science work. The easiest way to get those metrics on your cover letter is by using the quantified bullets from your resume.

Adding hard numbers puts you petabytes ahead of the competition who only reference broad skills and vague accomplishments on their cover letters. Notice how the above cover letter is immediately strengthened by including the candidate’s quantified resume accomplishments:

Some notable contributions to my previous employers include:

• Conducted data regression analysis of the relationship between company stock prices and industry trends, achieving a 15% more accurate prediction of performance than previous years
• Used predictive analytics such as machine learning and data mining techniques to forecast company sales of new products with a 95% accuracy rate

3. Don’t rely on spell check

Employers use your cover letter as a beta test of your attention to detail, thoroughness, and observation skills. Submitting a cover letter with errors could make you fail that test because 49% of hiring managers throw out cover letters that contain spelling errors.

Think of your cover letter as a critical data set — you’d never hit submit without refining the set with different data filtration techniques to identify queries, redundancies, and fragmentation. It’s only logical that you’d treat your cover letter with the same care.

Unfortunately, running a simple Word spell check on your cover letter just won’t cut it. Word’s spell check overlooks many errors — awkward wording and misused homophones, for example. To reduce the margin of error, have a colleague or professional editor proofread and critique your cover letter.

4. Finish your cover letter with a call-to-action

End your cover letter by:

1. thanking the reader for their time
2. politely requesting an interview

Expressing thanks is important because it emphasizes that you have interpersonal skills to complement your technical skills. Asking for an interview is essential because it indicates you’re seriously interested in working for the company.

Here’s a closing paragraph that shows the candidate’s confidence and eagerness to continue with the application process:

Thank you for your time and for considering my candidacy for this position. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future to schedule an interview.