Greetings!

I saw that you are looking for software engineers to help change the way people do task X.  I am smart, hardworking, and I also want to change the way people do taskX.  I’ve been passionate about fixing the annoyances that go with task X for a while, and here’s a handy anecdote about it. [...][1]

I am most proud of a personal project of mine, MyProject, that you can check out.  I built it using Language Y and Tool Z.  It’s basically a way for users to keep track of their [...].  While I am still working on MyProject, it’s stable, and these are the features I want you to check out [...][2].  You can see the source on GitHub.  I’ve also attached my resume for your perusal and hope to hear back soon!

Best,
Candidate

[1] If you don’t have a good story about buying into the company’s mission, that is perfectly OK.  It is not necessary at all, but it is also nice to talk to someone who is already hyped about what the company is doing (assuming that he/she is also good).

[2] Please don’t make me log in with fake credentials unless there’s a really good reason to.  And definitely don’t make me use my real Facebook account.  Make it easy for me to see what you built.

via Quora user, Aline Lerner