Cover Letter & Letterhead

Howdy folks!

So I'm applying for a full time history position at a community college. We have to use the state application, which absolutely sucks. The final part of the application is uploading a resume, cover letter, transcripts, etc. I'm working on my cover letter, and I have a question. It's been a while since I've written one, but is it okay to write the cover letter on letterhead for my current job? I created this letterhead to use for student recommendations and such, and I like it, but I don't want it to look weird if I'm using letterhead for a job I may potentially leave. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Matt

 

My understanding is that using your employer's letterhead when applying for a job with a different company is an application faux pas that should be avoided.

 

I would not use the letter head of the current employer. It could almost give the impression you are "stealing paper" before you leave. With everyone so sensitive to cost/expenses it might just send the wrong message.

 

Plus, you can easily whip up a decent letterhead in a matter of minutes using MS Word or similar. It would not be a good idea to use your current employer's letterhead and there is really no motivation to do so.

 

I would not use the employer's letterhead even when applying for a new position at the same company/institution.

 

If you created the letterhead yourself originally, why not borrow the design and create your own personalized letterhead to write the cover letter on? Avoids the faux pas (which I agree it would be) of using your employer's letterhead, and still gives you a snappy letterhead to put your cover letter on.

 

I suppose I didn't give the full details. When I say letterhead, I'm not referring to something that's already printed. It was the design I created. Our school letterhead sucks, and I wouldn't use that ever. That's why I created my own. It basically has my name at the top with my title (Social Studies Department Chair), school name, email, phone, and address. One the left side are little clip art things from the social studies field. The reason I thought about using it was because it clearly displayed that I was department head, which shows leadership and supervision. I could easily take out the school name or something.

What about that? Is that still tacky, or should I just create something from scratch?

-Matt

 

Your CV should show these things. Go with a plain letterhead. Also, I'm not sure the clip art things would help your application.

 

Thanks guys! Like I said, it's been a loooooooooong while since I've written a cover letter! I've been looking at the letterhead templates in Word. I think I'll go from there.

-Matt