I can’t be 100% sure, but I strongly suspect that my cover letter is what got me an interview for my current organization, or at the very least ended up getting the hiring folk interested enough to do a more in-depth review of my resume. Although I had the qualifications required for the position and had the necessary skillset, I was missing a “preferred” item that was pretty significant.
But I was excited about the potential of the position, so I found the hiring manager’s name from the org chart, as well as an article she had written that really resonated with me, and I very clearly linked my why with what was likely the manager’s why and my enthusiasm for the possibilities of the position. It was very clearly a custom cover letter, indeed the only one I wrote because I hadn’t been looking for a job until I randomly saw the posting. But a well-written cover letter can grab someone’s attention (for good reasons!) and give people a reason to want to learn more about a candidate.
I was the first reader often for jobs at my primary school. I always read the cover letters. I agree…proofread carefully. If I saw more than one grammatical error or words spelled incorrectly, I put those in a second reading pile. They weren’t my top choices.
In education (and other professions as well), writing is taught across all subject areas, and accuracy is important.
Had to laugh because this is exactly how I found my current job! Because my experience was somewhat atypical for the position I had to do a specific cover letter too.
Definitely, but in order to make it stand out you need a really good prompt and then tweak it. I came across a Gemini generated resume today and while it was well written, it was very obvious that it was AI generated.
Ok, thanks everyone. I’ll guess I’ll tell him to start on cover letters. These are engineering jobs, and pretty technical, if that makes a difference. (I read cover letters, but I hire people who need to write as the main part of their job.) Given how challenging the job market is he’s trying to apply broadly - which means the jobs don’t have a ton in common. Which I think will likely make an easily customizable cover letter challenging. Oh well, it is what it is.
Do they matter ? No idea. Likely depends on the role and place. And people are always stuck with who to address to - my kids used the company name - Dear Wal-Mart,
My kids certainly did them where there was a chance.
But if you change much in each one, like totally customizing vs only changing company names and job titles, etc, your volume will likely be less and my first worked on volume with great success . And you’ll need to proof very strongly because you’ve removed and added content on customized notes.
It certainly can’t hurt and may help. One will never know - unless they get the job and are specifically told that’s why they even got an interview.
First and last paragraph the same. Middle paragraph is what needs to be customized…ten minutes tops. He shouldn’t overthink this. And having someone else proofread….
We require cover letters at my organization. Your chances are much lower - and sometimes zero - if you don’t include one (HR will reach out and ask for one most of the time but even then some people don’t send one). As a hiring manager sometimes I read them, sometimes just a quick skim but I always notice if one isn’t included. Obvious AI will get you eliminated, as will poor or ungrammatical writing as I need people to be able to write. Otherwise well-written is a plus, you looked at the organization’s website a plus, but honestly if you pass the elimination criteria your resume is getting you the interview (or not). One reason I require a cover letter is I’m not interested in someone who is just shotgunning any job on Indeed - the jobs I hire for have some particular quirks (including geographic) such that I need people to actually want that job, not just a job.
Oh and I’m still really cranky that most people no longer send even an email thank you after an interview. I’ve accepted it’s no longer a required part of the job process but it’s a huge plus when someone does.
I found this amusing because in today’s job market companies ghost applicants constantly. Zero acknowledgement throughout the process. My older son would show up for virtual interviews and be ghosted. My youngest went through multiple interviews for an internship to be ghosted. It’s such a lack of respect.
I agree - happened to my son with Ford - and he tried hard to get in touch with them after thinking maybe there was a mix up or the person was sick. They have shared inboxes, etc. He even called the switchboard to ask to speak to someone. Nada. Terrible.
But in the end, you need to impress them more than they need to impress you.
They have the job. You don’t.
So it sucks, but one has to set their best foot forward for the ones that at least give them a chance. You can’t hold that against the fair and decent people. But they might hold against you - if they feel you didn’t put in the effort of others.
But what’s the solution - to stop looking for a job because a company ghosted you, another company was rude, and the third company never acknowledged your application?
If a person wants to work for a company which asks for a cover letter- send the cover letter. If someone interviews for a job- and the interviewer appears to be over 40- send a thank you email.
Really, this stuff is not as hard as people make it out to be. I counsel kids who have failed to launch (got a BA and somehow expected the dream job in tech in Austin paying 6 figures to fall into their laps…) and a VERY common theme is how time consuming cover letters, thank you notes, etc. is.
These are college graduates who can spend 20 minutes on Yelp and checking Instagram before buying a sandwich (bread has to be home made, sour dough ciabbatta, organic cheese, locally sourced condiments) but they don’t have time for a five line email:
Dear Ms. Blossom,
Thank you for taking the time yesterday to walk me through the Business Analyst career path at Clowns Incorporated. As I mentioned, I know my internship experience in the entertainment industry will help me add value to the Aerial Performance team immediately. My volunteer stint in the cancer ward of XYZ Pediatric Hospital has given me an enormous appreciation for the work your clowns do every day. I look forward to the next step in the process. Regards, Bozo
100%. We’re talking about AI - or even existing CRM-type emails : what is so hard about setting something up to email every rejected candidate with at least a form rejection letter? Dear (name), we regret blah blah, blah.
The blowback we get over the form rejection letters- OMG.
Some folks think it’s “inhuman” to send the rejection on a Friday- “It ruined my entire weekend”. Some folks think it’s “grotesque” to send them on a Monday “I was so disheartened I couldn’t do a thing all week”. MANY people complain (and yes- they actually reach out on Linkedin or send comments to our customer inquiry mailbox) “I got my rejection at 5 am so clearly it’s from a robot and nobody bothered to read my resume since nobody is at work at 5 am”. Except for our London recruiting team who is responsible for “Early Professional” recruiting- and they are most definitely at work at 5 am EDT.
Etc. Threatened lawsuits, “Clearly there is age bias going on in your screening process”, even a restraining order for a member of the recruiting team (not only were there email threats, but some lunatic made it past security in one of our locations and was hysterically insisting on an in-person interview based on “false assertions” in the rejection email.)
So my company now probably has a 99.9% response rate (there is always the rogue application where the resume has no email address, and where the application was sent from a “no response” email box). But many companies try to keep improving the process to get to 99.9% despite the difficulties I’ve noted.
That’s fair. I can’t imagine ghosting someone I’ve gone through the trouble of interviewing but it might only be a form letter /email after the hiring process is completed. And I work for a small organization so it’s not like we have hundreds of applicants we are interviewing. I don’t respond to unsolicited resumes that aren’t in response to a particular posting though.
That’s crazy. Personally I’d think a form letter rejection would be better than the black hole. Also, I don’t see why a kid can’t spend 2 minutes shooting off a thank you email if they’ve been interviewed. It’s a pretty light lift.
I will say that sometimes it can be challenging to send the thank you emails. When I got my first interview with my organization (in part due to the cover letter!), it was a panel interview with about 6 people from the organization interviewing me. All I had were my quickly scribbled notes of their names and rough titles. Their email addresses were not publicly available, so I ended up having to send 6 separate emails to HR to ask them to send them on to the different people on the panel, and tried to remember which person asked me which question or made certain comments that I could link back to in the thank you letter. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t the easiest task, and I never got any acknowledgment from HR that they would send the emails on. That said, I did them.
I’ve sat on a number of interview panels, and I’ve yet to receive a thank you note from an interviewee. It’d be nice to experience it before I retire .
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