If you want a job as a bank manager, you could just mass-mail 50 resumes to 50 banks, sit back and wait for the calls to roll in. But wouldn’t your approach be more effective if it were a little more personalized? Like if you included a thoughtful, targeted, tailored bank manager cover letter with each application? That’s where our expertise comes in.
Here at Resume.io, we have everything you need to boost your job search. With 180+ cover letter examples for job titles in every industry, we are here to help you impress the bank manager and land that interview.
The following cover letter example and writing guide will tell you everything you need to know about how to write the critical one-page letter. Getting it right could be the difference between a hire and a rejection letter. Specifically, we will be looking at:
The future is bright for finance managers! The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects these positions to grow by a whopping 17 percent over the coming decade.
Looking for some more inspiration? Find more insights in the accounting and finance cover letter examples and writing guides here:
To format a bank manager cover letter properly, you need to think about structure, layout and design.
The structure is the “skeleton” – the framework, outline, blueprint. The ancient Egyptians didn’t just start building pyramids without any plan and hope they would turn out all right.
A bank manager cover letter sample should be one page only – 400 words max, and every word has to count. Here are the six components you need:
Check out the free cover letter sample below for a reference point when starting your own.
Dear Mr. Bradshaw,
Having managed two underperforming CityBank branches into the State top-ten list, I hope that my track record of bank operations transformation and team development will serve me well as you open your first branch in the Hanksville region.
My experience of recruiting a high-performing team is critical to success – I previously had to replace 70% of the employees in our turnaround strategy and I am proficient in working with employment agencies to find the highest potential staff. It’s crucial to have tellers, loan officers and customer service representatives who buy into putting the customer first. By running an efficient operation, we ensured that was always possible.
Your competitive bonus packages will allow me to hire the best sales talent. Having increased cumulative sales at my previous two employers by an average of 27% year-on-year, I understand how to coach people to cross-sell and explore other sources of revenue. When you have a team that is proficient in needs analysis and adept at closing sales, growing business with existing customers is key to sustainable growth.
My degree in Financial Management and Banking from Rutgers University formed the start of a continuous journey of education that has recently focused on lean management practices and value stream mapping. A customer who comes into a bank has other things to do with their day – we have to offer them the maximum value in the minimal time.
Customer satisfaction lay at the heart of our performance improvement, with a 54% increase in extremely satisfied customers over a three-year period. When you are starting a branch, you have an amazing opportunity to get it right the first time and I would welcome the opportunity of an interview to discuss how we can attract and retain a wide customer base.
Sincerely,
Ashley Ford
Before we get into what all the words need to say, let’s think about how the page needs to look. These are issues of design and layout, and they are critical to proper cover letter format.
You need to choose an attractive, readable, professional cover letter font, and you need a font size between 10 and 12 points. Any smaller than that and the recruiter has to reach for a magnifying glass; any larger and it looks like you’re writing a “Mother Goose” book.
All text should be aligned left, not justified from margin to margin. And speaking of margins, allow for at least one inch of blank space on the left, right, top and bottom of your letter. A cover letter should never look “squeezed,” like you’re trying to force 15 gallons of stuff into a 10-gallon bag.
Make your paragraphs of more or less equal length. Do not indent them, but do add a space between them. Avoid big blocks of unbroken text, which are daunting to read. Strive for visual balance, meaning your text is more or less centered on the page. You don’t want a bunch of text at the top and nothing at the bottom.
Page designers have a saying: “White space is your friend.” This means that you need a certain amount of space on your page that contains nothing at all. This gives the eye and the brain a break, and it’s essential for good design. Find even more formatting tips in our comprehensive cover letter guide.
Unless you’re an expert designer, you can save yourself a lot of headaches (and errors) by using a cover letter template where all the layout has already been done for you.
The bank manager cover letter example attached to this guide is a good start. But feel free to look through the dozens of cover letter templates offered by Resume.io. Find one you like, click on it and make it your own inside our builder tool.
The cover letter header, which used to be called a letterhead, is a thoughtfully designed element at the top of your page that provides all your contact info:
You already have all this information memorized, so this will be the easiest part of the letter to write. But it’s the most challenging to design, because it should provide a sort of visual “wow factor” to your letter. Good headers include creative use of typography, layout and perhaps an accent color.
Again, don’t wing it – use a field-tested header, like the one on our cover letter sample, that is a proven success.
The cover letter greeting is a three-word salutation (“Dear Mr. Sachs”) that many cover letter writers manage to botch completely.
“To Whom It May Concern” is among the most common fails, followed by “Dear Sir or Madam.”
The purpose of a cover letter is to establish a personal connection with a hiring manager. So if at all possible, you need to find out that person’s name. If no name is provided in the job listing, do your best to learn it anyway. If all else fails, pick up the phone, call the company and ask.
People like to read their own names, and you’re more likely to get a response from a letter addressed to an individual than from one addressed to an entire company.
If it’s impossible to find out the name of the hiring manager, then you might have to get a bit creative. “Dear Hiring Manager,” “Greetings Citibank hiring team” or the like will sometimes be your best option. But try to make this an option of last resort. See the greeting of our bank manager cover letter example below.
Dear Mr. Bradshaw,
It’s time to start writing. Your first paragraph, the cover letter introduction, must provide an irresistible hook that compels the reader to keep reading.
As the name implies, here you must find a way to introduce yourself, but you don’t need to say “Hello, my name is …” because your name already appears at the top and bottom of your letter.
What you do want here is an intriguing opener that both identifies the job you’re seeking and suggests why you would be the ideal candidate. If you have years of experience as a bank manager, that’s a great start. But whatever your leading qualification is, open with that. You can flesh it out in the paragraphs that follow. Below you’ll find the introduction from our cover letter sample.
Having managed two underperforming CityBank branches into the State top-ten list, I hope that my track record of bank operations transformation and team development will serve me well as you open your first branch in the Hanksville region.
The middle paragraphs of cover letters must do the heavy lifting, building a bulletproof case that you are the right person for the job.
Again, work experience is key, so expand on what you’ve done for other employers. Don’t just mention where you’ve worked in the past, but be specific, using facts and figures, about what you accomplished in past jobs. Try to include one anecdote about a major challenge you once faced on the job and how you resolved it to everyone’s satisfaction.
Here you can also pivot toward talking about the future: what you’d like to achieve in the future, and how this relates specifically to the company you’re targeting. Mention the company’s name, and anything relevant you know about it, to demonstrate that you aren’t just mass-mailing a copy-pasted cover letter to all potential employers. Here’s the body section from our cover letter example.
My experience of recruiting a high-performing team is critical to success – I previously had to replace 70% of the employees in our turnaround strategy and I am proficient in working with employment agencies to find the highest potential staff. It’s crucial to have tellers, loan officers and customer service representatives who buy into putting the customer first. By running an efficient operation, we ensured that was always possible.
Your competitive bonus packages will allow me to hire the best sales talent. Having increased cumulative sales at my previous two employers by an average of 27% year-on-year, I understand how to coach people to cross-sell and explore other sources of revenue. When you have a team that is proficient in needs analysis and adept at closing sales, growing business with existing customers is key to sustainable growth.
My degree in Financial Management and Banking from Rutgers University formed the start of a continuous journey of education that has recently focused on lean management practices and value stream mapping. A customer who comes into a bank has other things to do with their day – we have to offer them the maximum value in the minimal time.
In the cover letter conclusion, the last paragraph, you must politely suggest that some response would be greatly appreciated. This is known as a “call to action” – it’s like you’re playing tennis and you’ve served the ball, but now the other person has to hit it back.
You might say that you’re eagerly anticipating a reply, that you’re always available for an interview, or even that you’d like to call this person in a week or two to discuss this opportunity further. Don’t be arrogant or presumptuous, but do plant the thought in your correspondent’s head that s/he should do something as a result of this letter, and not just lay it aside. Check out the conclusion from our cover letter example below.
Close with “Sincerely,” “Cordially,” “Best regards” or another appropriate phrase. Add a return after this and then type your full name. See our cover letter sample for an idea of how to format the conclusion.
Customer satisfaction lay at the heart of our performance improvement, with a 54% increase in extremely satisfied customers over a three-year period. When you are starting a branch, you have an amazing opportunity to get it right the first time and I would welcome the opportunity of an interview to discuss how we can attract and retain a wide customer base.
Sincerely,
Ashley Ford
Mistakes to avoid on a bank manager cover letter sample:
Are you new to the world of finance? If you are looking to change careers or this is your first job, your cover letter is more important than ever. You need to make a big impression with this document. Now, since you have no experience to speak of, you'll need to figure out other talking points. Here are some of the things you may want to cover: