How to End a Cover Letter: A Closing Formula, Five Rewrites, and the Right Sign-Off

The three parts of a cover letter ending

Keep the three parts separate and short. Together they should come to roughly 50–75 words, in line with the closing budget in our guide to how long a cover letter should be.

8 examples across 3 groups

A three-sentence formula for the closing paragraph

Sentence 1: connect. Name the posting's most important need and point back to the evidence you already gave for it. Do not introduce a new achievement here. If something is strong enough to mention, it belongs in the body, where you have room to explain it. Sentence 2: ask. Request a specific next step, usually a conversation about something concrete in the role. "I look forward to hearing from you" is not wrong, but it asks for nothing and could end any letter to any employer. "I would welcome a conversation about how I would support your Q1 hiring push" gives the reader a reason to reply. Sentence 3: logistics, only if they matter. Start date, notice period, relocation, shift availability or licensure status. If the posting asks about any of these, answer here. If it does not, skip the sentence. Then the thank-you line, then the sign-off. Should you say you will follow up? Career centers differ. Purdue OWL suggests telling readers when you will contact them, or, if you are not comfortable with that, asking them to contact you instead. Georgetown's career center suggests you may say you will follow up, for example within two weeks, and to skip it if the employer has asked not to be contacted. A simple rule covers both: promise a follow-up only when you have a named person and a way to reach them, and name a week rather than a day and time. If you applied through a portal with no contact name, ask for the conversation instead of promising one.

Worked example: five weak closings, rewritten

The posting: a logistics coordinator role at a regional food distributor. It asks for carrier scheduling, experience with a transportation management system (TMS), and someone to reduce late deliveries, with a start date in early March. The posting names the hiring manager and gives a contact email. The applicant, Jordan, described a TMS migration and an on-time delivery improvement in the body of the letter. 1. The passive close. "I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience." It asks for nothing and could end any letter. Rewrite: "I would welcome a conversation about how I would help reduce late deliveries in my first few months." 2. The conditional close. "If you feel I would be a good fit, please do not hesitate to contact me." The "if" invites the reader to decide you are not. Rewrite: "I would like to talk about the role, and I am available most afternoons." 3. The unsupported claim. "I am confident I am the best candidate for this position." The reader has no way to check it, and every applicant can write it. Rewrite: "The TMS migration I described above is the same work this role needs first." 4. The demand. "I will call your office on Tuesday to schedule an interview." It assumes the interview and sets the time for the reader. Rewrite: "If it would help, I am glad to send a short summary of how we cut late deliveries at my current job." Or, because the posting gives a named contact and an email address, a follow-up you can keep: "I will follow up by email in two weeks to check on the timeline." 5. The double thanks. "Thank you so much for your time and consideration, I really appreciate it, and thank you again for reading." One thank-you is polite. Three reads as nervous. Rewrite: "Thank you for your time." Put together, Jordan's ending is 51 words: "The TMS migration I described above is the same work this role needs first, and I would welcome a conversation about how I would help reduce late deliveries in my first few months. I can start March 2 and am based in Columbus." "Thank you for your time." "Sincerely," "Jordan Lee" One line that weak endings often add and that should go: "References available upon request." Employers assume it, and our guide to references on a resume explains when and how to provide them instead.

Which sign-off to use

"Sincerely," is the sign-off used in the sample letters from Purdue OWL and Georgetown's career center, and it works for every industry and level. You do not need anything more creative. The goal is to avoid one that sounds too casual or too personal; Robert Half, for example, recommends "Sincerely," "Best regards" or "Thank you for your consideration" and advises against "Yours," "Cheers" and "Take care." Two mechanical rules: capitalize only the first word ("Best regards," not "Best Regards,") and put a comma after it. Your name goes on the next line.

16 examples across 3 groups

Match the sign-off to your greeting, and to the country

In the US, the wording of the sign-off does not change with the greeting; only its formality should match. University of Sussex guidance on letter punctuation notes that American usage prefers "Yours sincerely" or "Sincerely yours" for all business letters, and plain "Sincerely," is the shortened form used in the Purdue OWL and Georgetown samples. British convention is stricter. The same Sussex guide describes the traditional rule: close with "Yours sincerely" when you wrote to a named person, and "Yours faithfully" when you opened with "Dear Sir/Madam". The same guide calls the distinction "anything but crucial," so do not worry if you get it wrong. For US applications, the bigger choice is the greeting itself. In the Resume Genius survey, "Dear Hiring Manager" was hiring managers' preferred generic greeting. If you can find the hiring manager's name, use it, and match the formality of your sign-off to the formality of your greeting: "Dear Ms. Alvarez" and "Sincerely," belong together, while "Hi Sam" in an email thread can end with "Best regards,".

How to lay out the ending in each format

The words stay the same. What changes is what goes under your name. Attached PDF or Word letter. Closing paragraph, thank-you line, a blank line, "Sincerely," and your typed full name. Your phone number and email are already in the letter's header, so you do not need to repeat them. Georgetown's career center notes that a cover letter submitted online does not need a signature, so a scanned signature image is optional. Email body. Keep the same closing paragraph, then the sign-off, your full name, and your phone number, email address and LinkedIn URL on separate lines beneath it. The recruiter may reply from a phone, and contact details under your name save them from opening the attachment to find them. Mention the attached resume once in the body, not again in the signature. Application text box. Many application forms have a plain-text field for the cover letter. Paste the letter without the address block at the top, keep paragraphs short because formatting is usually stripped, and keep the sign-off and your name. Adding your phone number and email under your name is reasonable here, since the text may be read apart from your resume. Printed letter. Purdue OWL says to leave at least three spaces between the complimentary close and your typed name, and to sign your name in ink in that space. For complete letters laid out this way, see the nurse, internship and administrative assistant cover letter examples.

What the evidence says about cover letter endings

Very little research looks at cover letter endings directly. Two sources are worth knowing, and both are worth reading accurately. The Resume Genius hiring manager survey. Resume Genius surveyed 625 US hiring managers through Pollfish. Asked which part of a cover letter left the biggest impression, 41% chose the introduction, 21% the body paragraphs, 18% the header and contact information, 13% the format and 6% the closing remarks. On time spent, 36% said they spend under 30 seconds on a cover letter and 48% between 30 seconds and two minutes. This is a survey of what people say they notice, not a test of what gets interviews. Still, it points the same way as common sense: spend most of your effort on the opening and the evidence, and keep the ending short. The Boomerang email sign-off study. Boomerang, an email software company, analyzed more than 350,000 email threads from the archives of over twenty online mailing lists and compared reply rates by sign-off. "Thanks in advance" had the highest reply rate at 65.7%, followed by "Thanks" at 63.0% and "Thank you" at 57.9%, against 47.5% for all emails in the sample. Emails ending with some form of thanks got replies 62% of the time, compared with 46% for those without. Many of the messages were requests for help or advice posted to online communities, and the reply rates are observational. Boomerang points to a separate 2010 experiment by Grant and Gino, in which people who were thanked for helping with a cover letter were more than twice as likely to help again, as support for a causal effect. That thank-you came after the help, not before it. Taken together, they suggest a thank-you helps rather than hurts. Neither says anything about hiring decisions. "Thanks in advance" is still on the leave-out list above, even though it topped the study. That is our judgment rather than a finding: in a request for help it reads as gratitude, but at the end of a job application it assumes the reader will do what you asked. "Thank you" keeps the gratitude without the assumption. The research that does show a cover letter changing results concerns the whole letter, not the last lines: the field experiment covered in our cover letter length guide found that letters tailored to the posting drew more callbacks than generic ones.

A final check before you send

Most ending mistakes are not style problems. They are errors left over from the last application. Read the last paragraph one more time and check five things. The company name and role title are right. If you reuse a letter, the closing paragraph is where the old company's name tends to survive, because it is the part you edit last. The ending makes no new claims. Every achievement it refers to appears in the body above it. There is exactly one thank-you. If you sign off with "Thank you,", drop the thank-you line above it. Any follow-up promise is one you will keep. If you write that you will follow up in two weeks, put a reminder in your calendar. The sign-off matches the greeting. A formal greeting with "Cheers," at the bottom, or "Hi Sam" with "Respectfully,", reads as two different letters joined together.

The ending works only if the letter above it is specific

A strong closing paragraph points back to evidence that matches the posting. If the body of the letter is generic, no sign-off can fix it, and the same is true of the resume you attach with it. If you want to check that match on the resume side, ATSOptimized compares your resume with the job description, shows which relevant terms are missing, and rewrites your existing experience to match, without adding anything you did not do. You can get started for free, and no credit card is required.