Research assistant cover letter

Research Assistant Cover Letter (With Examples)

If you’re vying for a rewarding and educational position as a research assistant, a compelling and properly structured cover letter will bring you one step closer to getting a job and reaching your biggest career goals.

Research assistant cover letters are a great platform for illustrating your expertise in conducting interviews, collecting data, and completing experiments and research reports. In your cover letter, your ultimate goal is to emphasize your interest and portray how you’ll be the best researcher for the job.

Whether you’re interested in becoming a researcher assisting in psychology, biochemistry, biology, atmospheric studies, biophysics, zoology, climate change, or any other scientific or academic field, you’re more than likely to encounter a lot of competition during the hiring process.

Writing a perfect cover letter to submit along with your professional resume and job application will help you stand out among a large pool of applicants and up your chances of getting hired and having a smooth employee onboarding experience.

The best research assistant cover letters reiterate and emphasize the skills and experiences listed in a standard resume or CV while also conveying a job applicant’s passion, personality, and career goals. Research assistants should aim to highlight their proficiency using laboratory equipment, experience conducting researching projects, and collecting and analyzing data.

By following a cover letter template you’ll stand-out to hiring managers and make a great first impression on renowned researchers and prospective employers.

Parts of a Research Assistant Cover Letter

A research assistant cover letter should heavily focus on an applicant’s education and practical job experience. Cover letters that highlight key qualifications as well as strong communication and analytical skills, in particular, are more often selected to advance in the application process.

Since the majority of successful research assistants hold a bachelor’s degree, highlighting education, especially from a top-tier college or research university, is essential to getting hired. Almost equally as important as relevant education, is practical work experience.

When hiring research assistants, hiring managers are searching for applicants who know how to use and maintain lab equipment, have contributed towards a variety of research projects, can collect data with minimal insight for statistical analysis, and are experienced in conducting literature reviews and documenting and interpreting research findings.

When writing your cover letter, it is imperative that you illustrate your competency with handling research-based assignments and the job-specific skills and previous experience you have that qualify you for the gig.

Tackling each part of your cover letter is a great way to ensure your most desirable skills and qualifications are explicitly highlighted and the document is properly structured and professionally written.

A research assistant cover letter is typically composed of:

• A professional header.

• A compelling introduction paragraph.

• A dense body paragraph that focuses on education, previous experience, research and analytical skills, resume achievements, and interest in the position.

• A conclusion that offers a proposal or shows why you’re the best-suited candidate for the role.

• A professional signature.

Professionals applying for employment opportunities as research assistants should always double-check their cover letter before submitting their job applications. You definitely don’t want to squash your chances of getting an internship because of a few typos.

Generally, cover letters should be between three and four paragraphs long — and definitely less than one page. The business document should also be formatted with standard one-inch page margins, written in a generic font, like Times New Roman, and organized into well-structured and grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs.

Research Assistant Cover Letter Opening

The opening lines of your research assistant cover letter are your opportunity to pique a hiring manager’s interest and make a great first impression.

Hiring managers and prospective employers usually read your cover letter before ever meeting or speaking to you, unless you're applying for a promotion, so it’s important to let your personality come across the paper and put your best foot forward.

The first paragraph of your cover letter should be impressionable and to the point.

In the opening paragraph of your research assistant cover letter, you should aim to professionally introduce yourself, state your interest in the role that you’re applying to, convey your enthusiasm, and illustrate your skill level by mentioning your degree of education or previous relevant work experience.

In addition to perfectly crafting the first few lines of your cover letter, you should also be sure to include a professional header, just as you would in any other business document, and appropriately address the hiring manager.

Here’s a great example of how a successful research assistant cover letter might begin:

Research Assistant Cover Letter Body

The middle few paragraphs of your cover letter are where you can truly let your skills, knowledge, and qualifications shine.

In the body of your research assistant cover letter, you should highlight your key skills and abilities, discuss specific research projects you have worked on, explain your methods of conducting research and collecting informational data and statistics, and go into detail on your knowledge of working with lab equipment and conducting experiments.

Since research assistants are tasked with assisting professors and industry professionals with important and innovative research projects, job-seekers must be highly detail-oriented, organized, and dedicated to their careers. The body paragraphs of your cover letter are a great area to emphasize these skills and call attention to other important interpersonal skills.

Before writing the body of your cover letter you should closely read the specific job posting you're applying to, and work to tailor your cover letter to the skills, qualifications, and work responsibilities listed in the ad.

Here’s a great example of what the body of a research assistant cover letter might look like:

Research Assistant Cover Letter Closing Lines

To wrap up your cover letter, you’ll want to tie up any loose ends, summarize your experience, skills, and passion, and close the document with a professional salutation. The conclusion of your cover letter should be clear and concise.

The best cover letters end by asking for a phone or in-person interview or showing interest in continuing the hiring process. The closing lines of a research assistant cover letter are also a great place to share a proposal you hope to implement if hired. Sharing a research proposal that’s too good to pass up can be a surefire way to pique a potential employer’s interest.

Conveying your enthusiasm for the role and thanking the hiring manager for their time spent reviewing your cover letter and job application will up your chances of getting a callback and landing an in-person job interview.

Lastly, make sure you close your research assistant cover letter with an appropriate sign-off and a professional signature that includes your contact information.

An excellent way of closing your research assistant cover letter is like this:

Example of a Research Assistant Cover Letter

Here’s a great example of a professional and properly formatted research assistant cover letter:

Tips for Writing a Research Assistant Cover Letter

At the end of the day, writing a cover letter can be quite similar across a broad range of professional industries. For a research assistant cover letter in particular, though, there are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to write a professional and compelling cover letter.

Here are the top three tips all applicants should follow in order to write an effective cover letter and land a competitive and top-notch career as a research assistant:

1. Focus on education. Proper education is an important prerequisite for a variety of jobs and careers, but for research assistants, it’s even more important. Research assistants must have a highly specific skill set, which can not be entirely taught on the job, so education is essential to getting hired.

   With more than half of all research assistants holding a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 40 percent holding some type of post-graduate diploma, hiring managers are expecting candidates to be properly educated. Failing to disclose your level of education and expertise could mean not getting your dream job as a research assistant.

2. Highlight previous research experience. Although research assistants aren’t leading or independently conducting experiments and research projects, they still must be high-skilled in their craft. Since the work can be meticulous and requires very specific skill sets, hiring managers always look for previous professional research experience.

   Highlighting previous research experience in your research assistant cover letter will convey your knowledge level and ability to perform well on the job.

3. Discuss your knowledge of lab equipment. A working and thorough knowledge of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment is one of the most sought-after skills hiring managers look for when interviewing job applicants.

   Being well-versed in operating various types of laboratory equipment to ensure accurate results, preparing equipment for experiments, managing laboratory equipment inventories, allocating and maintaining proper equipment, and coordinating repairs and maintenance on laboratory equipment will help you stand out from other applicants.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking to land a high-paying and rewarding position as an assistant researcher, a professional and well-written cover letter will help you put your best foot forward, get noticed, and make the hiring process a breeze.

You only get one shot at making a positive and impactful first impression in your research assistant cover letter. Conveying high-level communication, analytical, and job-specific skills — like handling lab equipment, analyzing facts and figures, managing research projects, and collecting data — is essential to getting hired as a research assistant.

Using the template and tips outlined in this article, and structuring your cover letter to emphasize your strengths and career goals, will allow you to make a solid first impression and land your dream job as a research assistant.