A maternity cover role is a strange job to apply for. It exists because someone else is paused, and the person reading your letter already knows, give or take a few weeks, when you will leave. That one fact should reshape almost everything you put on the page.
Most cover letter advice assumes the employer is buying a future: your growth, your ambition, the five-year version of you. A backfill hiring manager is buying something narrower and more urgent. Write for that reader and your letter stands out from a pile that reads like applications for a permanent post.
What the hiring manager is actually buying
Picture the person who signs off on a maternity cover or a fixed-term replacement. Their colleague is about to leave, or has already gone, and the work did not stop. Deadlines are still on the calendar. A client still expects a reply on Thursday.
What they want is someone who is useful in week two and gone without drama on the agreed date. That is the whole brief. They are not hiring a future team lead, and a letter that spends three paragraphs on long-term career goals tells them you have misread the situation.
So the questions your letter has to answer are practical:
- How fast can you become productive in an environment you did not build?
- Can you work inside someone else's systems without trying to rebuild them?
- Will you leave things in a state the returning person can pick up?
- When can you start, and are you available for the full period?
None of these is about passion for the company. Some warmth is fine, and a line on why this team appeals to you does no harm. But the interview is earned on the practical answers.
Lead with ramp-up, not ambition
Open with evidence that you get up to speed quickly. Not the claim ("I am a fast learner"), which every candidate writes, but a specific moment when you did it.
Good material comes from anywhere you joined something already in motion: a project you inherited halfway through, a role you took over after a resignation, a client account you picked up when a colleague moved teams, an agency assignment where you had to be billable by day three. If you have done a previous maternity cover or fixed-term contract, that is the strongest opening you have. Name it in the first paragraph.
A useful test: could your opening paragraph appear, unchanged, in a letter for a permanent role at a startup? If yes, it is too generic. The opening should only make sense for a backfill. (The reverse case, a role that has never existed before, needs almost the opposite letter, and it has its own guide.)
Show you can pick up work mid-flight
This is the core of the letter, and it is where most candidates go vague. A backfill is never a blank slate. It arrives with specific constraints, and you can address each one directly instead of hoping the reader infers it.
Inherited files
You will open someone else's inbox, their half-finished documents, their notes in a shorthand only they understand. Say how you handle that. Maybe you build a quick inventory in the first days: open items, owners, deadlines. Maybe you ask for a short handover call with the person leaving, if timing allows, and prepare a list of questions for their manager if it does not. One concrete sentence about your method beats a paragraph of adjectives.
A team that already has habits
The team has its own rhythms, tools and unwritten rules. A temporary hire who arrives with opinions about everything that should change is a burden, not a help. Signal that you adapt first and suggest later, and only suggest what will still make sense after the person comes back. An example of slotting into an established process without friction is worth more here than an example of transforming one.
A return date fixed in advance
Everything you do has an end point you already know. That affects how you document, what you start, and what you leave alone. A line about your handover habits (keeping a running log, leaving decisions traceable, writing a closing note for the returning colleague) tells the manager you understand the job ends cleanly. Few candidates mention the exit at all, which is exactly why it works.
State availability and start date plainly
In a standard application, availability can wait for the interview. Here it belongs in the letter. The hiring manager has a gap with a start date and, often, an expected end date, and they are filtering on whether you fit it.
Write it in one clear sentence near the end: when you can start, whether you are available for the full expected duration, and whether you can stay flexible if the return date moves. Return dates do shift, earlier or later, and a candidate who acknowledges that without fuss reads as someone who has done this before.
If you have a notice period, say so and give the date you are free. Do not bury it. If your notice is long enough to be the main obstacle, that is a different problem with its own approach.
Wanting it to become permanent: one line, late, or not at all
Plenty of people take a backfill hoping it turns into a permanent job. That is a reasonable hope and there is nothing dishonest about it. The mistake is making it the pitch.
A manager filling a maternity cover often cannot promise anything beyond the contract. A letter that leans on "I hope to grow with you for the long term" can read as a candidate who will be disappointed at the end, or worse, one who sees the returning colleague as competition. Neither impression helps you.
If you want to say it, use one sentence, late in the letter, framed around the work: you would welcome the chance to stay involved if a future opening comes up. Or leave it out entirely and raise it once you are inside and have proved yourself. Both are defensible. Leading with it is not.
The contract has a different name in every country
The vocabulary changes the moment you cross a border, and using the local term correctly is a small signal that you understand the role.
- UK and much of the English-speaking world: "maternity cover" is the everyday term, and the contract is usually a fixed-term contract, sometimes with a set end date and sometimes tied to the absent employee's return.
- France: the usual form is a CDD de remplacement. The contract generally names the absent employee and the reason for the absence, and it can end when that person comes back.
- Spain: since the 2022 labour reform the label is contrato de sustitucion. Older readers and older job ads may still call it "interinidad".
Rules on duration, renewal and early termination vary by country, sector and collective agreement, and they change over time. Treat the above as orientation, not legal advice, and check the specifics with the employer or an official source before you sign.
A short example
Here is roughly how a strong middle section sounds, written for a marketing coordinator cover:
I have stepped into two roles mid-project before, most recently a six-month fixed-term contract covering a campaign manager on maternity leave. In the first week I built a list of open items with owners and deadlines and confirmed it with her manager, so nothing slipped during the transition. I kept a running handover log throughout, which she used on her first day back. I can start on 3 November and I am available for the full period, with flexibility if the return date moves.
Notice what is missing: no paragraph on long-term ambition, no claim about passion. Every sentence answers a question the hiring manager actually has.
If your CV is the weak link rather than the letter, a separate guide covers how to present contract and temp work on the CV itself. A LinkedIn-to-CV tool like Postulit can give you a clean CV draft from your profile, so the two documents tell the same story.
Before you hit send
Reread the letter as the manager who needs someone effective in week two. Check four things. The first paragraph names a time you joined work already in motion. The middle shows how you handle inherited files and an existing team. Your start date and availability sit in one clear sentence. Any wish to stay on is limited to a single line near the end. If all four are there, the letter is doing its job, and you can send it.