You have your new business suit and your resumé, and you're ready to start interviewing. Once you've entered the names and addresses of potential employers into your contacts list, the next step is to create a short, polite cover letter and mail this with your resumé. You can use Outlook and Word to make the cover letter process easy. You can even use Outlook to keep track of which potential employers you sent the letter to (so that you don't accidentally send the same letter twice). Finally, you can set a reminder to follow up with a postcard a few weeks later.

Creating your list of potential employers

First, organize contacts that are potential employers into a single list.

To categorize the potential employers

1. In Outlook, click the Contacts folder.
2. Double-click the first potential employer on your list, and then click the Categories button, located on the bottom right of the window.
3. In the Categories dialog box, click the Master Category List button.
4. In the Master Categories dialog, in the New category box, type potential employers, click Add, and then click OK.
5. Select the potential employers check box, and then click OK twice.
6. Click Save and Close.
7. Double-click the next potential employer on your list, and then click the Categories button.
8. Select the potential employers check box, and then click OK.
9. Click Save and Close.
10. Repeat steps 7-9 for each employer on your list.

Creating a mail merge from the Outlook contacts

Now that you've identified all of the potential employers, it's time to display only those contacts, and merge the contact information into a form letter.

To filter the list of contacts to show only potential employers

1. In Outlook, click the Contacts folder.
2. On the View menu, point to Arrange by, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.

    Note   In Outlook 2002, on the View menu, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.

3. Click Filter, and then click the More Choices tab.
4. Click Categories, select the potential employers check box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK to accept the filter, and then click OK again to return to the filtered contacts list.

To create a mail merge document from the filtered list

1. From the filtered contacts list, on the Tools menu, click Mail Merge.

   The default options in this dialog box should be exactly what you need.

2. Click OK. Outlook will create a merge document in Word.
3. On the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and click Mail Merge.

    Note   Because you've already attached the contacts list to the merge document, the process starts at step 3 of 6. These steps help you write your letter and attach the appropriate contact information.

4. At the bottom of the Mail Merge task pane, click Next: Write your letter.
5. Follow the rest of the steps in the task pane.
6. On the File menu, click Save, and then save the merge document as Coverletter.doc.

If you want ideas for how to write a good cover letter, take a look at Templates on the Microsoft Office Online Web site.

 Note   Once you've completed the merge, you may want to turn off the contact filter in Outlook.

Turn off filtering

1. Switch to Outlook.
2. On the View menu, point to Current View, and click Customize Current View.
3. Click Filter, and then click Clear All.

Tracking the letters you sent

Linking the letter to the contacts

1. On the Outlook Bar, click My Shortcuts, and then click Journal.
2. On the Actions menu, click New Journal Entry.
3. In the Subject line, type letter to potential employers.
4. In the Entry type box, click Document.
5. On the Insert menu, click File.
6. Select the document that was saved as the main document for your letter (Coverletter.doc), and then click Insert.
7. Click Contacts, and then select the contacts that you sent the letter to (the potential employers).
   
   

    Note    You can hold down CTRL to select multiple contacts.

8. Click OK, and then click Save and close.

Now you'll have a record of when you sent the employer contacts the letter — you can even easily see a copy of the letter.

How?

1. In the Contacts folder, open one of the potential employer contacts.
2. Click the Activities tab, and then click Journal in the Show box.
3. Double-click the item whose Subject is "letter to potential employers."
4. The Journal item contains a link to the Coverletter.doc document.

Following up in two weeks

You can set a reminder in Outlook so that you don't forget to follow up your letter with a postcard a week or two later.

Setting the reminder

1. On the Outlook Shortcuts bar, click Tasks.
2. To create a new task, click New.
3. In the Subject box , type send follow-up post card to potential employers.
4. In the Due date list, click a date that is two weeks from the current date.
5. Select the Reminder check box.