Writing a personligt brev that gets read

The personligt brev is still standard in Sweden, and it is still mostly done badly. Recruiters read it after the CV, quickly, looking for one thing: does this person understand what the job needs? Structure that works Opening (2-3 sentences). Name the role and where you saw it, then state what you do now in one line. No "I am writing to apply for" throat-clearing. Middle (two short paragraphs). Take two or three requirements straight from the listing and answer them with something you actually did. "You need experience leading migrations — I moved our billing service to a new provider over four months with no customer downtime." Specific beats enthusiastic. Close (2-3 sentences). Why this employer, concretely. Something about their product, market or way of working that you can only know if you looked. Then your availability and notice period. Leave out Your whole career history — that is the CV's job. Adjectives about yourself (driven, passionate, structured) unless followed by evidence. Personal details like age, marital status or a photo; Swedish employers increasingly avoid them for bias reasons. Length One page, always. Swedish, unless the listing is written in English — then English is fine and expected. The test Read it back and cross out any sentence that a different applicant for a different job could have written. If most of it goes, start again.