Help! Cover letter in an email dillemna.

[SquishySquirmy]

Am job hunting at the moment.

When sending a cv by email I always write a cover letter, as I know this is expected. (I don't when asked to upload a cv via a website etc where there is no easy mechanism to add a cover letter).

But normally I do it in such a way that the cover "letter" is the email.
eg:
"Dear blah blah,
please see attached my cv,
blah blah blah how great I would be for the job at your wonderful company etc etc etc.......
Best Regards,
Squishy"

However.
I have found an advert for a job that would be perfect for me, but they state "submit your resume and cover letter to xxx@xxxx" and its got me worrying...

Are they expecting the cover letter to be sent as an attachment along with the cv?
If I do not attach a cover letter but include it all in the body of the email, will I be damaging my chances?
Have I been doing it wrong all this time?
Is this why I don't have a job yet?
Or am I over thinking this?

Bump for the morning - shouldn't have started the thread at midnight!

I usually attach my covering letter separately and the email just states something like ‘please find attached my cv and covering letter’ but I can’t imagine it would be a deal breaker either way (wouldn’t be for posts I have been involved in shortlisting for).

I would write a separate covering letter and CV and attach both to the email. The email would be short but say something like "Please find attached my CV and a covering letter for... etc."

I wouldn't make the cover letter the email in this instance as they probably want to collect all the docs together and give them to a reviewer so separate docs is just easier and cleare.

You haven't been doing it wrong, just this one is a bit different to the usual. I doubt it would stop you getting a job!

Thanks.

So should an attached cover letter be formatted like a traditional letter?
With address etc in the top left corner? (like the ones we learnt how to write in school!)
Because that feels instinctively strange, but I am so used to the "rules" for emails and I suspect that how I would construct a polite email would not be formal enough for a letter.

Yes, a separate cover letter.