Write a cover letter that gets read

In Swedish the document is called a personligt brev (personal letter), sometimes an ansökningsbrev (application letter). In English adverts you will also see cover letter or motivation letter. It travels with your CV and has one job: to convince the reader that you are the right person for this particular role.

The CV and the letter divide the work between them:

Avoid retelling your CV in prose. If a sentence in the letter could be replaced by pointing at a line in the CV, cut it and use the space for motivation and examples instead.

Length: one A4 page is the norm in Sweden. Shorter is fine; longer rarely helps. University calls sometimes set their own limits (see below), and those always win.

Is the letter still read? Less often than before. In a 2025 episode of Arbetsförmedlingen's job podcast, a recruiter at the agency said they have dropped the letter from their own hiring and screen applications against the advert's requirement profile in 30 to 60 seconds, opening a letter mainly when the CV leaves them unsure whether a candidate has a skill. Many employers now use selection questions instead (covered further down). Where a letter is requested, it is still your best place to answer why this job, which employers like to know.

A Swedish cover letter has a simple frame. Arbetsförmedlingen's templates all use the same building blocks, in this order:

1. Your details. Name, and depending on the layout your address, phone, email and LinkedIn profile.
2. Place and date. For example Gothenburg, 6 October 2026.
3. Recipient block (optional). Name, title, organisation and postal address of the person hiring, if you know them.
4. Greeting. Swedish letters open with a relaxed Hej followed by the name. In English, Dear plus the name is standard. Use the hiring manager's name if the advert gives it.
5. Body. Three to five short paragraphs (see below).
6. Sign-off. Med vänlig hälsning in Swedish, Kind regards or Sincerely in English, then your name.

The templates leave the body as placeholder text, so here is a frame for what goes in it:

Lead with what matters most. The reader decides in the first lines whether to keep going, so a strong opening that says which job you want and why you fit does more than a polite warm-up.

You do not need to design a letter from scratch. Plenty of employers, unions and career sites publish free templates; searching personligt brev mall or personligt brev exempel gives you many to choose from.

Arbetsförmedlingen offers three free Word templates on its personal letter page, in Swedish and English:

Each template opens with an instruction box. Replace every placeholder in curly brackets with your own details, delete the instruction box before sending, and in the green version swap the sample image for your own photo and update its alternative text. Pick the template whose design matches the CV you are sending; the agency publishes matching CV templates, covered in our guide to writing a CV.

A few layout points:

• Photo: optional in Sweden. Some recruiters prefer not to see one so they can judge skills alone; it can make more sense in sales or customer-facing jobs.
• Design: a tidy layout never hurts, but outside design roles recruiters judge content, not graphics. A clean, plain letter loses nothing.
• File format: send the letter as a PDF or Word file so it opens and reads correctly, and give it a clear file name with your name in it.

A letter written for one job and sent to twenty is easy to spot. Recruiters then have to hunt for the requirements themselves, and you risk leaving out the very experience this employer needs. Treat each letter as a direct reply to one advert:

1. Mark the must-haves. Most adverts separate essential requirements from merits (meriterande). Every essential requirement should be visibly covered by your CV or your letter.
2. Read the employer's own text. How is the organisation set up, which team would you join, what problems do they mention? Show you have worked in similar settings.
3. Use their words. If the advert says stakeholder management, use that phrase rather than a synonym. Recruitment systems and busy readers both look for it.
4. Explain what your past jobs involved. Do not assume the reader knows what a job title meant at your previous employer. Name the tasks, responsibilities, problems and how you solved them.
5. Cut what does not serve this role. A shorter, sharper letter beats a complete one.

Swedish employers often care as much about who you are at work as about your degree and experience, so name your strengths. But there are no universally good or bad qualities: being calm and a good listener suits one job, being fast and fearless suits another. Pick the two or three qualities this role needs and prove them.

Listing adjectives proves nothing. A short situation does:

• Instead of I am meticulous write Before each release I re-ran the full test suite by hand, and in two years none of my releases had to be rolled back.
• Instead of I work well in teams write Our five-person team split a grant report by chapter; I set up the shared timeline and we submitted a week early.
• Instead of I take initiative write When our lab lost its technician, I wrote the instrument booking guide that the group still uses.

Examples can come from work, studies, volunteering or leisure. For newcomers, examples from your home country count just as much; explain the context in a sentence so a Swedish reader can follow it.

Stuck for words? This list merges Arbetsförmedlingen's Swedish and English lists of personal qualities, grouped by what they say about you. Use it for inspiration, not as a menu: a letter stuffed with these words reads like a list of buzzwords. Pick one, then describe what it looks like when you do it.

How you get work done

Careful, cautious, consistent, diligent, economical with resources, disciplined, efficient, fast, goal-oriented, hard-working, methodical, meticulous, orderly, organised, persevering, persistent, practical, precise, prudent, punctual, quality-conscious, reliable, responsible, results-oriented, structured, thorough, unrelenting, vigilant.

How you think and judge

Clear-sighted, competent, creative, exceptional, experienced, expert, factual, innovative, insightful, knowledgeable, objective, pioneering, quick-thinking, rational, realistic, sharp, smart, tactical, thoughtful, well-informed, well-reasoned, wise.

How you work with people

Accommodating, appreciative, attentive, caring, charismatic, cheerful, compassionate, cooperative, credible, diplomatic, discreet, easy-going, gentle, good-humoured, humane, humble, humorous, loyal, a good listener, open, outgoing, patient, protective, receptive, sensitive, service-minded, sincere, supportive, talkative, trustworthy, unpretentious.

Drive and independence

Adventurous, alert, ambitious, brave, determined, driven, dynamic, energetic, enthusiastic, fearless, fit, impulsive, independent, mobile, motivated, positive, proactive, self-confident, self-starter, strong, stubborn, tough, unafraid.

Composure and range

Adaptable, calm, composed, flexible, professional, self-controlled, serious, stress-resistant, unique, versatile.

For research and specialist roles

Generic adjectives matter less here than demonstrated competencies. Think in terms of: independent research, methodological rigour, analytical depth, publication record, grant writing, supervision of students, teaching and course design, collaboration across disciplines or countries, project leadership, and communicating research to non-specialists. Each one still needs an example or a result behind it.

Swedish working life is fairly informal, and letters follow suit. Aim for professional but plain:

• Not too formal. Stiff, ornate phrasing feels distant. Write as you would speak to a respected colleague.
• No insider jargon. The first reader may be an HR generalist. Explain acronyms and in-house terms, or leave them out.
• Not too detailed. One sharp example per point. Save the full story for the interview.

Clichés are the quickest way to sound like everyone else. The phrases Swedish recruiters see most include stress-resistant, outgoing and likes having many balls in the air. Each can be replaced with something concrete:

Close on a warm, forward-looking line, for example I would welcome the chance to meet and tell you more about how I work.

Which language? Write in the language of the advert unless it says otherwise. Many Swedish universities and international employers recruit in English; Lund University's science faculty, for example, recommends that applications are written in English.

ChatGPT and similar tools can help you get unstuck. Good uses:

• A first draft when the blank page is the problem. Give the tool the advert and your own notes, then rewrite the result.
• A readability check. Ask whether your text is clear, easy to read and actually shows your strengths.
• Language polish. Let it check word choice, spelling and grammar, especially if you are writing in a second language.

Two cautions. First, read every suggestion and make the text your own. Many employers run recruitment systems with built-in AI support, and a letter that is entirely machine-written risks being sorted out. Generic AI phrasing also tends to produce exactly the clichés recruiters skip. Second, be careful with what you paste in: leave out your personal identity number, address and anything you would not share with a stranger.

When you are done, save the final version as Word or PDF so formatting survives.

More and more employers skip the letter and ask selection questions (urvalsfrågor) in the application form instead. Karolinska Institutet, for example, says that in some of its recruitments you apply without a personal letter and instead answer questions about why you want the job. Questions range from yes/no checks (Do you have experience with system X?) to open prompts that ask you to describe or justify something.

Treat them as the letter in pieces:

• They tell you exactly what matters. A question about a specific experience means the employer is screening for it. Spend real time on it.
• Never answer "see CV". The CV may not say it specifically enough, and you can fall out of the process on that alone.
• Use the same evidence-first approach. A short situation and a result beat a general claim.
• Draft offline. Write your answers in a document first, then paste them in, so a timed-out form does not cost you the work.

Open applications (spontanansökan) without an advert still work at some employers, who keep them on file. There, a short letter explaining what you offer and what kind of role you are after is essential.

Swedish universities hire doctoral students, postdocs, researchers and teachers as employees, and most take applications through an online recruitment system (Lund University and Karolinska Institutet both use Varbi). The call text decides what you upload, and it is usually more specific than an industry advert.

Typical academic package. Lund University's Faculty of Science, for an associate senior lecturer (assistant professor) post, asks for a cover page, a personal letter of at most one page, a CV of at most two pages, a publication list, a research plan of at most five pages, a statement of teaching qualifications of at most two pages and one page on leadership and engagement with wider society. Senior posts there add separate qualifications portfolios for research, teaching, leadership and external engagement, and Karolinska Institutet asks applicants for academic appointments to use its own qualifications portfolio. See the Lund science faculty instructions.

Doctoral positions. Doctoral places in Sweden are usually advertised as positions and applied for like a job. At Lund University's Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology, for example, the instructions for doctoral applicants say the cover letter should explain why you want to do doctoral studies and how your previous education relates to the subject, alongside a project plan of at most 1,500 words, degree projects, transcripts and proof of language skills. The same instructions note that supervisors are assigned only after admission and that staff will not comment on draft proposals, so read the call before contacting anyone.

What the academic letter should do:

• Show fit with the group. Name the research environment, the methods or questions you share with it, and what you would add.
• Point to your strongest evidence. Two or three publications, a method you master, a dataset or tool you built. The full list belongs in the publication list.
• Cover teaching and supervision if the post includes them, with concrete courses or students.
• Mention funding and collaboration you have secured or led, briefly.
• Explain why Sweden and why this department, not a generic wish to move abroad.

Keep to every page limit and file format the call specifies. A letter that runs over a fixed limit can count against you, however strong the content.

If you are applying from abroad or are new to Sweden, a few lines can remove questions the employer would otherwise have:

• Right to work. State it plainly: EU/EEA citizen, already holding a Swedish permit, or needing a permit if hired. See which rules apply to you in our guide to work permits in Sweden.
• Availability. If you need to relocate, say when you could start.
• Foreign degree. The Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) can issue a recognition statement showing what your foreign qualification corresponds to in Sweden, and you can send it to employers with your application. Mentioning it helps a reader unfamiliar with your university.
• Licensed professions. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals may need a Swedish licence from the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) before they can practise. Say where you are in that process; details are on Socialstyrelsen's licence pages.
• Swedish skills. Be honest about your level and mention any course you are taking. Our guide to learning Swedish lists the options.

You do not need to share your age, family situation or other private details. Employers assess skills, and Swedish law forbids discrimination in recruitment; see equality and discrimination at work.

• The job title and the employer's name are right, everywhere.
• The first paragraph says which job you want and why you fit.
• Every essential requirement in the advert is covered by the letter or the CV.
• Each quality you claim has an example behind it.
• No sentence simply repeats your CV, and no cliché survived.
• It fits on one page, or within the limit the call sets.
• Template instructions and placeholder brackets are gone.
• Spelling and grammar are checked, by you as well as a tool.
• It is saved as PDF or Word with a clear file name, and sent before the closing date.

For more on the whole application, Arbetsförmedlingen's Play channel has webinars and podcasts on CVs, letters and interviews, some subtitled in English. When your letter is ready, browse open positions and put it to work.