What you’ll be able to do

By the end of this you’ll have a cover letter that actually sounds like you wrote it, that answers what the job advert asked for (not what you assume it asked for), and that doesn’t have the AI fingerprints all over it. You know the ones. “I am writing to express my keen interest in…” Recruiters see hundreds of these. We’re avoiding that entirely.

This isn’t about getting AI to do the whole job for you. It’s about using it to get past the blank page, faster, without ending up sounding like a robot applying for a robot’s job.

Before you start

You need three things open before you touch an AI tool. The job advert, your CV, and something a bit harder to pin down: an honest reason why this role matters to you. Not the LinkedIn version. The real one.

Maybe it’s the money. Maybe it’s that you’re desperate to leave your current manager. Maybe it’s genuinely the work. Whatever it is, know it before you start, because AI can’t invent that for you, and if you skip this step you’ll end up with a letter that’s technically correct and completely hollow.

Have the job advert copied somewhere accessible, not just skimmed once three days ago. Have your CV as text, not a PDF you’re squinting at. And give yourself ten minutes to actually think about why you want this job, specifically this one, not “a job like this.”

Get set up

If you want the fastest route to something that doesn’t sound generic, ScriptGrain is built for exactly this problem: it drafts your cover letter in your own measured voice rather than assistant-voice, working from a profile of how you actually write. The free tier gives you one profile and one draft, which is enough to see whether it fits how you work before you commit to anything else. It’s ours, so take that as you will, but the reason I’d point you there first is specific: most AI tools default to a confident, slightly hollow tone that reads the same for everyone. ScriptGrain’s whole job is not doing that.

That said, you don’t need it. ChatGPT or Claude will do a perfectly reasonable job if you paste in the advert and your CV and are specific about what you want. Both let you upload or paste long text and hold context across a conversation, so you can go back and forth, refining as you go.

If you’re already living in Gmail, its Help me write feature can draft short sections, though it’s more suited to quick emails than a full considered letter, it’s better as a polish tool once you’ve got a draft than as a starting point. Word’s Copilot works similarly if you’re drafting inside a Word document already, pulling in context from what’s around it.

Whichever you pick, the approach matters more than the tool. Start by getting the AI to understand the advert properly before it writes a single sentence of your letter. Skip that step and you’ll spend twice as long rewriting later.

Try it yourself

Here are three prompts, each doing a different job. Use them in order.

First, get the AI to properly read the advert and pull out what it’s actually asking for, not what you think it’s asking for:

Here's a job advert. Read it and list, in plain language:
1. The three or four things this employer clearly cares about most
2. Any specific skills, tools, or experience mentioned by name
3. Anything unusual or specific in the tone of the advert itself

[paste the full job advert here]

Second, feed in your CV and ask it to match your actual experience against those demands, honestly:

Here's my CV and the list of things the employer cares about from the previous step.
For each thing they care about, tell me honestly whether my CV shows evidence of it,
weak evidence, or nothing at all. Don't invent anything I haven't actually done.

[paste your CV]
[paste the list from step one]

Third, and only now, ask for a draft. This is the prompt that matters most, so be specific:

Write a first draft cover letter using this structure: why this company specifically
(not generic praise), why me (using only the real evidence from my CV, no invention),
and what happens next. Keep it to one page. Do not use phrases like "I am writing to
apply for" or "I am excited to apply." Write plainly, in short and medium sentences,
like a person talking, not a brochure. Here's the advert, my CV, and my honest reason
for wanting this role:

[paste advert]
[paste CV]
[write a sentence or two, in your own words, about why you actually want this job]

That third prompt is doing the heavy lifting. The bit about your honest reason for wanting the role is the part most people skip, and it’s the single biggest reason AI cover letters sound hollow. Put it in.

Check the result

Once you’ve got a draft, don’t just skim it and send it. Run these checks.

Read it out loud. Actually out loud, not in your head. If you stumble on a sentence, or it sounds like something you’d never say to a real person, that’s a sentence to cut or rewrite.

Check it against the advert directly. Open both side by side. Does the letter answer the specific things the advert asked for, or does it just sound generally competent? Generally competent isn’t good enough, it needs to be specific.

Look for the generic tells. “I am writing to express my interest.” “I believe I would be a great fit.” “I am a hardworking and dedicated individual.” If any of those or their cousins have crept in, they need to go, they’re the exact fingerprints that make recruiters tune out.

And check nothing’s been made up. This matters more than it sounds. AI will sometimes smooth over a gap in your CV by implying skills or experience you don’t actually have. Go through every claim in the letter and ask: can I back this up in an interview, specifically? If not, cut it or reword it to what’s actually true.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes the draft comes back sounding nothing like you, or missing the point of the advert entirely. Usually that’s because the AI didn’t have enough to go on, so go back and feed it more: more of your CV, a clearer sense of your own voice, a more specific reason for wanting the job.

If it keeps drifting into generic language no matter what you do, try asking it directly to rewrite a specific paragraph “in a plainer, more direct voice, like I’d actually speak.” That single instruction does more than you’d expect.

Now the privacy bit, because it matters. Don’t paste anything into an AI tool that you wouldn’t be comfortable sitting on someone else’s server. That includes your full home address, your National Insurance number, references’ personal contact details, or anything from a current employer that’s confidential. Your CV and the job advert are fine, they’re both things you’d happily hand to a stranger anyway. Salary details from a current contract, internal company information, or anything under an NDA is not fine. Keep it out.

And never let AI fabricate achievements. It’s tempting when a draft comes back sounding punchier than the truth, but recruiters ask follow-up questions, and a confident lie in a cover letter falls apart fast in an interview. The fix for a flat letter is never invention, it’s specifics only you know: the actual project, the actual number, the actual reason you left your last job. That’s what makes it sound like you, because it is you.

Keep exploring

If you’re starting from scratch, it’s worth reading How to get AI to write my CV before this one, since a stronger CV makes every step here easier. Once you’ve got the tone right in this letter, How to get AI to sound like me goes deeper into keeping that voice consistent across everything else you write. And if the job search itself is the bottleneck, How to get AI to find and apply for jobs covers the bit that comes before all of this.

Sources and review notes

Review date: 15 September 2026 — every source above was opened and checked against the text on that date.

Disclosure: ScriptGrain is one of our products — this site is made by the same studio, Adapt Progress Evolve. We have tried to compare fairly, and the alternatives named are real and worth a look.