Wharton psychologist Adam Grant's tip for an 'amazing' cover letter: Admit if you are 'not quite the fit'

Finding the perfect job is tough and it can be a disappointment to realize that you might not have all the requirements down. But you don't have to check off every single box to land the perfect job, you just need to convince the hiring managers that you are determined to succeed in it.

Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant recently told CNBC's "Squawk Box" about an 'amazing' cover letter he read a few years ago, where the applicant did not have all the qualifications listed. Instead of ignoring her weaknesses, she addressed the elephant in the room by admitting that she was "not quite the fit."

"I am not the candidate you are looking for. I don't have the years of experience and I don't have these skills," Grant said the cover letter read. "What I do have though is a determination to learn. If you hire me, I will prove that I am worth it."

Grant loved how she was honest about her lack of qualifications but was also confidently highlighting her ability to make up for them.

"There are ways you can signal both confidence and humility," Grant said. "She got the job [after that cover letter] and she crushed it."

Grant is not the only person who thinks that qualifications are not the end-all-be-all of cover letters. In a 2020 interview with CNBC Make It, ZipRecruiter CEO Ian Siegel said that the only three things that matter in cover letters are to "show enthusiasm, show you've done research and show you want to come in there and make a contribution."

Psychologist Art Markman goes a step further and says that you should always apply for jobs where you do not meet all of the qualifications. "If you're completely qualified for the job you apply for, you aimed too low," Markman wrote in a 2019 article for Harvard Business Review.

Getting the job without checking off all the boxes is not a far-fetched goal. In July 2023, Olympic swimmer Nic Fink told CNBC Make it his top three tips on how he managed to get a job as an engineer despite having no work experience outside of a pool.

Echoing Grant's sentiments, Fink said that he was 'completely honest' about his pitfalls in the application process, instead of trying to downplay them. He also focused on highlighting the 'intangible skills' he learned from his existing experiences that could be translated to the position he was applying for.

Many companies are starting to emphasize the importance of soft skills in hiring processes, which are rarely industry specific and can be developed in a wide-range of experiences. Some of the most in-demand soft skills like time management and critical thinking can be developed in non-position-specific experiences that you can instead demonstrate in your cover letter.

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