Assistant manager may be one of the most underappreciated roles in the business world. A great cover letter can help you tell the story of how you work your magic.
For a start, it is rare that they are simply assisting their immediate managers in their activities. That might be common for a recent graduate, but most assistant managers have weighty responsibilities of their own.
Assistant managers usually handle a huge volume of operational leg work and decision making, help to manage relationships with a range of stakeholders and need an ability to multitask that few other positions can match. The assistant manager cover letter needs to add depth and personality to all of these aspects.
This assistant manager guide and cover letter example will look at how to expand on the most worthy parts of your experience. To a large extent, this should be governed by the requirements for your future role (and boss) – your success will be their success, so how do you go about writing an assistant manager cover letter that shows you have what it takes?
In this guide, along with our assistant manager cover letter example, we will consider:
How you you support your direct boss and those around you?
According to Zippia, there were 290,000 assistant managers in the United States in 2020, with a strong 6% annual growth rate.
Assistant manager is one of the most competitive roles in the corporate hierarchy, so while you want your story to pop off the page, it makes sense to stick to a tried and tested cover letter format. Your future manager will want to understand that you are a logical thinker who is adept at presenting a compelling argument. Slick communication is where assistant manager success. begins.
This is how we’ve structured our assistant manager cover letter example to make the most of the application:
This cover letter guide is specifically designing towards writing content for an assistant manager cover letter, but you can also find much more general and thought-provoking content in our comprehensive cover letter example. You only write a cover letter for each role once, so it is worth thinking about the job from as many angles as possible.
Here is an assistant manager cover letter example that might offer some inspiration:
Dear Mr. Walker,
After nine years working in retail and hospitality, the assistant manager role at the museum with responsibility for the shop and café would be a great fit. As a keen visitor of the museum, this opportunity to serve would be my way of giving back.
Working in a setting that mixes retail and food is nothing new to me. Roaring Meadow Theme Park had a 300-occupancy food court and a 5,000 SKU souvenir store, while Paddleback Canoe Centre featured a pop-up café and river rapids store (80% online purchases).
My role as assistant manager responsible for both operations comprised all aspects of commercial, operational, and financial management. I am not a manager to stand back and watch during a busy period, especially with a small team of 3-5. I am more than used to doing everything from running the tills to stocking the shelves.
My mandate at both previous roles has made the most of my finance degree in terms of running the P&L and managing stock procurement. Cash flow is vital for a small store. I worked hard to improve buying processes and minimize inefficiency. I reduced the operating budget at the Theme Park food court by 15% while at the same time driving average spend up by $3.50. Our promotional offers were popular in driving return visits.
I am a friendly and open communicator and will always share my concerns with my boss and the wider team. Constructive criticism helps everyone to do a better job. My colleagues voted my “most likely person to share a problem with.”
I would love the chance to come along for in a job seeker capacity instead of a visitor. I am keen to share what I might change.
Sincerely,
Keith Harding
If this assistant manager cover letter example is helpful, please do have a look at our related business & management cover letter examples:
No-nonsense efficiency is a key requirement for any assistant manager, so the first glance at their cover letter header should convey a sense their resume will cover every job search question.
A header should contain the contact details and email of the candidate, along with their full name (no nicknames). It sounds really basic, but if these practical details are not prominently displayed, then a hiring manager will wonder what else might be missing. You want the recruiter to be concentrating on your assistant manager experience, but they can only do that if they know in the back of their mind that you are easy to contact should they wish.
A word of warning: don’t try to be too cute with your choice of email address. Just use your normal private email.
Due to data protection issues, there is no requirement to include your full home address - you can share that later at the offer stage. The inside address of the employer is also a convention that should be left only for the most formal of employers. You can definitely use that space more productively.
Goal of the cover letter header: Present the basic information about your assistant manager application in a practical way, with good use of cover letter header design.
When you are an assistant manager, all the small details matter, so ensuring that you get the greeting right on the assistant manager cover letter is essential. Calling the hiring manager or recruiter by the correct name and using the right title (Mr, Mrs, Ms) is common courtesy and not so hard to check. You will likely be applying for multiple jobs at any one time, but double checking the little details such as these is as important as the big picture stuff.
The introduction for an assistant manager’s cover letter has to speak directly to their future boss in terms of how they will be uniquely placed to help them. The nature of the relationship between manager and assistant has to be spelt out in those opening couple of lines, with previous examples of accomplishments backing up the perceived fit.
A cover letter introduction should convey hints of personality that are difficult to put across in a resume – you should try to convince the reader that you are the sort of person that they would want to work with as well as the fact that you are equipped to do a great job.
Goal of the cover letter intro: Make it specific to the role and ideally specific to the hiring manager – seek to understand what they want from you as their assistant.
Dear Mr. Walker,
After nine years working in retail and hospitality, the assistant manager role at the museum with responsibility for the shop and café would be a great fit. As a keen visitor of the museum, this opportunity to serve would be my way of giving back.
The middle part (known as the body) of the assistant manager cover letter is where you expand on your experiences and demonstrate that you understand the subtleties of the role in question. No hiring manager wants to read a cover letter that simply regurgitates the job description back at them, so get inside their mind and talk about exactly what matters to them.
Don’t just detail what you achieved; but talk about how you did it. Context is everything and as situations will vary from company to company, your approach is often as important as the results that you achieve.
Mentioning the employers that you have worked with is useful if they have similar management cultures, but this can sometimes backfire if you choose examples where assistant managers are expected to work in a very different way to a future employer. It is important not to give any reason for a hiring manager to doubt your suitability.
Commercial and operational awareness is important in any assistant manager cover letter, so include plenty of quantifiable accomplishments with action verbs that offer a deeper insight into how you go about your work. Make sure that you don’t come across as a “busy” manager who values activity over impact.
Goal of the body of your cover letter: Be specific about the impact of your assistance on your future boss. Back it up with factual accomplishments and a hint of personality.
Working in a setting that mixes retail and food is nothing new to me. Roaring Meadow Theme Park had a 300-occupancy food court and a 5,000 SKU souvenir store, while Paddleback Canoe Centre featured a pop-up café and river rapids store (80% online purchases).
My role as assistant manager responsible for both operations comprised all aspects of commercial, operational, and financial management. I am not a manager to stand back and watch during a busy period, especially with a small team of 3-5. I am more than used to doing everything from running the tills to stocking the shelves.
My mandate at both previous roles has made the most of my finance degree in terms of running the P&L and managing stock procurement. Cash flow is vital for a small store. I worked hard to improve buying processes and minimize inefficiency. I reduced the operating budget at the Theme Park food court by 15% while at the same time driving average spend up by $3.50. Our promotional offers were popular in driving return visits.
I am a friendly and open communicator and will always share my concerns with my boss and the wider team. Constructive criticism helps everyone to do a better job. My colleagues voted my “most likely person to share a problem with.”
The best assistant manager cover letter should not only be specific to your managerial duties but also to the industry in which you plan to work. You can get more insight on your future field by checking out the corresponding free cover letter example in Resume.io’s growing collection!
Let’s face it, managers want to hire an assistant to make their working lives easier in many different ways. As you work out your job search sales pitch, it is vital to (honestly and objectively) understand just how you will be able to help them, and in the closing of your cover letter you need to come out with one last weighty reason to hire you.
If you have constructed a strong case, you should have no qualms in asking for an opportunity to meet and learn more in an interview. This call to action in the conclusion of an assistant manager cover letter will prompt a critical question in the recruiter’s mind, and whether they act on the answer then and there or at a later point, their instinctive answer will be swirling away in their consciousness.
Goal of the closing: Bring out one last reason to hire you, leave exactly the desired impression, and confidently ask for an opportunity to meet for an interview.
I would love the chance to come along for in a job seeker capacity instead of a visitor. I am keen to share what I might change.
Sincerely,
Keith Harding
Communication skills are top of the list for an assistant manager, so the manner in which you present your job search arguments will be an indicator of your ability to get your message across. Any mistakes or lack of quality in this endeavour will raise unnecessary questions, so pay attention to the details when you are writing your assistant manager cover letter.
These mistakes might be obvious, so there really is no excuse:
Getting the content right is critical to enable to cover letter to hit the right notes, so spend your time on that rather than worrying about concocting an “attractive” template (that may not look the same in the recipient’s browser anyway). Using our simple cover letter templates will save you much time and effort.
Certain industries require assistant managers with considerable experience, but there are many others where the learning is on the job and the role calls for more general people and organizational management skills. Much of the interest from your future boss will be around your attitude as well as your aptitude, so it’s totally possible to write an assistant manager cover letter with no experience.
Focus on the aspects of the role that are common to any assistant manager position – communication skills, people management and target orientation. There are many ways in which someone with no experience can demonstrate these qualities – from volunteering work to education. Show a willingness to learn and work hard – sometimes a manager actually wants someone with less experience to mould them and help them to develop.
If you do not have experience, your cover letter can make up for that with personality. You never know the sort of person that the hiring manager may want to work with, so be yourself.