Graduate cover letter — a full example
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A new graduate has one thing nobody else does: current knowledge of tools and standards that someone who graduated ten years ago never studied. A letter that works leans on that instead of apologising for the short career, and turns the internship and the final-year project into concrete results.
The complete example
This is a guide, not something to send verbatim. Replace every number and company name with your own — a copied letter is easy to spot, and numbers that aren't yours fall apart in the interview.
I am applying for your Junior Data Analyst position. I graduated this year from King Saud University's computer science faculty with distinction, and what caught my eye in your advert was your reliance on Power BI for reporting — the tool I built my entire final-year project in.
For that project I analysed a 50,000-row sales dataset and built an interactive Power BI dashboard tracking monthly trends; it was marked at 95%. During a six-month cooperative placement at Saudi Telecom I worked inside the data analysis team and cleaned the customer database, removing 12% of records as duplicates. I am proficient in SQL, Python (pandas) and advanced Excel.
I would value the chance to discuss how I could contribute to your team from the first day. Thank you for your time — my CV and portfolio links are attached.
What makes this role's letter different
An internship is work experience
Write it up exactly as you would a job: the organisation, the duration, what you delivered. Don't file it under "training" as though it counts for less.
Name the tools
SQL, Power BI and Python are strings an applicant tracking system matches literally. "Analytical skills" matches nothing.
Mention your grade only if it's strong
A distinction is worth stating. An average grade adds nothing — put a real achievement in its place.
Keywords for this role
Work the ones that genuinely apply to you into your letter and CV using this exact wording — these are the terms the system matches.
- Power BI
- SQL
- Python
- Data analysis
- Excel
- Reporting
And the CV for the same role
A cover letter is always sent with a CV. Here is the CV example for this role, written the same way.
See the CV example