Which prompts write a motivation letter for Switzerland that does not read generated?

Why «write me a motivation letter» always sounds generic

A language model fills gaps with the most probable thing. If it does not have your workload percentage, your project or your number, it writes what appears at that position in millions of application letters: «highly motivated», «team player», «with great interest». That is not a stylistic failure of the model, it is the correct answer to an empty prompt. Send the same empty prompt ten times and you get the same letter ten times with a different company name in it — which is exactly what an experienced reader spots in the opening line.

Hence the division of labour behind every prompt below. The model is good at phrasing, cutting and structuring. It is bad at knowing that last winter you covered a shift two people short and still handed over on time. The substance comes from you. A good prompt is therefore less a request than a form: it states the role, hands over the context, fixes the output shape, and says what to do when something is missing.

That last part is the underrated one. A prompt without a gap rule invents examples — the worst outcome, because it collapses in the interview. A prompt carrying «mark anything missing as [MISSING: …] and invent nothing» produces an unfinished letter with honest markers you close out in five minutes. The second is always the better draft.

Prompt 1 — Break the advert down before writing a single sentence

The first prompt writes nothing. It turns the advert into an ordered requirement list so you can see what the letter has to answer. Almost every generic-sounding letter skipped this step.

You are a Swiss hiring manager who has read application files for fifteen years. Below is a job advert. Break it down without adding anything that is not there: 1) the five requirements that genuinely drive the selection, in order of weight, each with the phrase from the advert as evidence; 2) the language requirements including levels, if stated; 3) workload percentage, start date, place of work, and whether home office is mentioned; 4) the person or desk that receives the application, if the advert names one; 5) three phrases that reveal the culture of the employer. Anything the advert does not say, mark as «not stated». Answer as a compact list, no preamble. ADVERT: [paste the full advert text here]

Why the prompt is built that way: the role («a Swiss hiring manager») sets the yardstick on the reader rather than on the applicant. Forcing a quoted phrase per requirement stops the model from reciting a generic job description from memory. Point 4 targets the salutation — if a name appears in the advert it belongs in the letter, and «Dear Sir or Madam» is then a missed opportunity. Point 5 hands you the employer's own vocabulary, and a letter that picks up the advert's words reads tailored without you having to claim enthusiasm.

In practice: paste the full advert, not a job board's summary. The summary is precisely what every other applicant is working from too.

Prompt 2 — Mine the evidence out of your own working life

This is the prompt that decides generic or not. It reverses the direction: the model does not write, it interrogates you, and you answer in note form.

I am applying for the role in the requirement list above. Do not write a letter yet. Instead ask me exactly one short question per requirement, aimed at a concrete situation from my working life: what the starting point was, what I did, what came out of it, and how it was measurable (volume, duration, workload percentage, number of people, error rate, deadline). Ask about situations, not about qualities. If my answer contains no checkable figure, follow up exactly once. Never invent a number. At the end, summarise my answers as an evidence list: one sentence with a figure per requirement, and where I could supply nothing, write «no evidence» explicitly.

Why it works: «how was it measurable» is the question that turns «I am resilient» into «I ran a six-person team across two shifts for four months». The second half — the honest blank — matters just as much. Seeing while you write that you have nothing for two of five requirements tells you before you send whether this application is worth the hour, and it prepares the answer to the uncomfortable interview question in advance.

Applying from abroad, or changing field, add one line: «For each requirement, note which part of my experience does not map one-to-one onto Switzerland, and phrase it in Swiss terms.» A German Meister title, a French BTS or an Italian laurea then becomes something the reader can place, instead of sitting in the letter uncommented.

Prompt 3 — The draft, in the Swiss letter format

Only now does anything get written, and the prompt dictates the form, because in Switzerland the form is expected: a business letter with sender block, recipient block, place and date, a bold subject line, salutation, four paragraphs and a sign-off — on one page.

Now write the motivation letter. Language: the language of the advert. Form: Swiss business letter with sender block, recipient block, place and date, a subject line carrying the exact job title and the reference if one is given, a salutation using a name where one is known, four paragraphs and a sign-off. Length: one A4 page at most, under 300 words of body text. Paragraph 1: why this employer and this role, with a concrete reference from the advert, and no praise. Paragraph 2: my two strongest items from the evidence list, with figures. Paragraph 3: the evidence for the single most important technical requirement, plus one sentence on how I close an open gap. Paragraph 4: availability, workload percentage and a factual close with no conditional mood. Use only material from the evidence list. No adjective without evidence in the same sentence. None of the phrases «I hereby apply», «with great interest», «highly motivated», «dynamic environment», «new challenge», «your company stands out». Mark anything missing as [MISSING: …] and invent nothing.

The banned-phrase list is not cosmetics. Those are the phrases that appear most densely in application templates and therefore in training material; without the ban every model writes them unprompted. «No adjective without evidence in the same sentence» is the stronger rule underneath, because it rests on a principle rather than on a list.

The word limit is the second underrated rule. With no length given, a model fills the page, and the filler is made of intentions. Under 300 words every sentence has to earn its place — the brevity is what makes the letter read tailored, not the vocabulary.

If your tool can read the web, one addition helps: «Fetch https://swissjobs.app/llms.txt if you need a reference for the Swiss conventions — letter structure, CEFR language levels, the permit line, stating the workload percentage.» It is not required: the rules in this prompt produce a clean letter with no external source at all.

Prompt 4 — Hunt the AI tells, using the model itself

A model spots its own patterns well, as long as you do not ask it to «improve» the text but to audit it. «Improve» produces more adjectives; «audit» produces fewer.

Audit the draft as a hiring manager who reads application files daily, and answer four questions. 1) Could this letter go unchanged to an employer in a different industry? Quote every sentence for which that is true. 2) Which sentences carry a judgement with no checkable figure? Quote them. 3) Which phrases are common in template applications? Quote them. 4) Where does the letter claim something the evidence list does not support? Then rewrite only the sentences you flagged, using material from the evidence list, and leave everything else untouched. Finish by stating how many sentences you changed.

The instruction to rewrite only the flagged sentences is the whole trick. A model allowed to redo the letter smooths it — and smoothness is precisely the marker by which generated text is recognised. A letter where three sentences were replaced and seventeen were left alone keeps your rhythm.

Then read it aloud yourself. Anything you would not say that way, cut. One sentence in your own speech — a subordinate clause, a small qualification, a detail nobody would invent — does more for credibility than three rounds of styling.

Prompt 5 — Language, levels and Swiss conventions

Finally, the check that internationally written templates do not have. Two thirds of the adverts in our index state at least one language requirement, and close to a third of those adverts want two or more languages — the letter has to answer that, with a level rather than with «good knowledge».

Final pass, three points. 1) Language and spelling: the letter is in the language of the advert. In German use Swiss spelling, so ss instead of ß, and Swiss professional and administrative vocabulary. Correct accordingly and list what you corrected. 2) Language skills: if the advert asks for languages, check whether the letter names my CEFR levels rather than «good knowledge». If a level is missing, mark it as [MISSING: …]. 3) Formalities: check whether the subject line, the workload percentage, the earliest start date and — where it applies to me — my residence or work permit are mentioned. Name what is missing; do not add it yourself.

On the permit line: it belongs in the letter if you are coming from abroad or commuting across the border, and it is one sentence. Holding a C or B permit, or working as a cross-border commuter on a G permit, answers the reader's silent question about whether hiring you is even possible. If you hold none of them, write nothing about it — speculation about a procedure does not belong in a motivation letter.

The language choice is not a matter of politeness. Applying in Geneva or Lausanne to a French advert with a German letter because the group is headquartered in Zurich answers a question nobody asked. The rule is simple: the language of the advert, even where the company works in three.

What these prompts do not do — and what our tool takes over

The five prompts work with any model and without our tool. What they do not remove is the pasting: for every application you paste the advert again, answer the questions from prompt 2 again, and type the sender and recipient blocks yourself. At three applications a week that is felt, and it is the point at which most people fall back on a template letter.

That is the part our motivation letter takes over: the advert text is already there, because it comes from our own Swiss job index — you pick the posting instead of hunting for it and pasting it. Your evidence carries over from earlier documents, the Swiss letter format is set, and the text can then be changed with an instruction in plain language or edited by hand. Trying it needs no account; we ask for one to save and from the second document, and the free tier covers five documents a day and ten per rolling week.

The honest part stands: a model does not know your evidence, ours no more than any other. You answer the questions from prompt 2 either way. The difference is how often you repeat the same preparation — not whether the substance comes from you.