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Note that the author of the blog post apparently works for karmabond, so I'd classify this almost as a devious advertisement for their escrow services, or whate

by earl 16y ago

Note that the author of the blog post apparently works for karmabond, so I'd classify this almost as a devious advertisement for their escrow services, or whatever it is they do. In any case, regarding the gist of the article, let me explain how job seeking works as a job seeker: I send custom cover letters to each and every company that I apply to. This take at least an hour and often much longer per company: I read about the company, executive bios, executive bios on crunchbase, scan techcrunch articles, check glassdoor, google the company a bit, see what job I think I'd be interested in, etc. I then write a custom cover letter explaining my background as it pertains to their job and why I think I'd be a good fit for them. When this works, it works well. On the other hand, I'd say 75 percent or more of phone screens clearly couldn't be arsed to read my cover letter before getting on the phone with me. If it's too much bother to read one page of text about a candidate before getting on the phone with me, then I'm not interested. Sorry. On the other hand, when deciding between offers a couple years ago, the fact that the person on the phone had read my cover letter and thought about what I said helped tip the balance in favor of Scribd. ps -- netflix recruiters? The reason I'm ignoring your calls now is when I sent you a well thought out cover letter 2 years ago, you couldn't even be bothered to email back. People remember. So when Alex whines that applicants don't send custom cover letters, well, the reason is simple: too much work since the vast majority of employers don't bother to read them. He apparently doesn't understand that job seekers have finite time and job searching is a triage process -- where can I aply that I will like the most with the highest probability of succeeding. So yes, it is difficult to invest a couple hours per company and even if you do, in the majority of cases, you will never hear back. Not even a simple, "Thanks for applying, we received your application, but we don't think you're a good fit at this time" email. As for sending $1 to some website I've never heard of, hah. Alex must be out of his mind to think people would do that.

angelbob 16y ago
On the other hand, when deciding between offers a couple years ago, the fact that the person on the phone had read my cover letter and thought about what I said helped tip the balance in favor of Scribd Scribd has at least one really, really fabulous recruiter. They didn't hire me, but not for that reason (and their reasons were good, at the time).
dkarl 16y ago
I'd say 75 percent or more of phone screens clearly couldn't be arsed to read my cover letter before getting on the phone with me. 100% of the time I've been asked to do a phone screen, I've been given a resume but no cover letter. You can't count on the cover letter getting past HR.
- ghshephard 16y ago
  Agreed - I've done over 300 interviews / and probably north of 600 phone screens in the last six years - I'm struggling to recall if I've ever seen a cover letter, even once.
  - harshpotatoes 16y ago
    So the next question is... Does the cover letter even matter? Is the cover letter the reason I got past HR in the first place? Or did they just shred my letter, speed read my resume, and slap it up to you because I got enough buzz words in the resume? Or more probably somewhere in between?
    - dkarl 16y ago
      I'll describe the situation as I believe it was at my company before we were acquired by MegaCorp. HR was in charge of processing applications but had no influence over which applications were considered. They enforced whatever absolute requirements the hiring manager specified for a particular position, but considering we have senior developers with no college coursework, much less college degrees, I bet our hiring managers were wise enough to specify very few absolute requirements. Our HR personnel knew nothing whatsoever about software development skills and were not expected to. However, HR did process the applications, and the result of that was that a manager with an open position would get a big stack of resumes on his desk every few days. The key word here being "resumes," rather than "applications." I never heard a manager say anything about reading cover letters, or saying things like "so-and-so's cover letter says he's interested in <blah>." When we met to discuss candidates, the only sources of information people mentioned were resume, phone screen, and interview. So what's the point of the cover letter, you ask? I guess it varies. In my company, the cover letter was evidently only read (or more likely simply discarded) by HR, who had no input in hiring decisions. In a smaller organization, the hiring manager might see the entire application, including the cover letter, which the manager would most likely ignore. In a larger organization, ignorant HR folks might be making judgments about candidates' suitability for the job, and in that case the cover letter might mean a great deal, since the resume would be gibberish to them.
wisty 16y ago
Using arbitrary criteria to prune down candidates is stupid. I can see how the deposit will thin out unqualified candidates more than qualified ones, but you will still lose good candidates who think that the deposit is just plain dodgy. On the other hand, I can see why you wouldn't want to hire anyone who couldn't be bothered googling the company they are applying for. Depending on the position, you could also leave the job ad off your website, and expect the candidate to cold call you. That wouldn't be great for screening developers, but it would be fantastic for hiring anyone who's expected to show initiative in interacting with people. Yeah ... developers have to interact with people too, but there's a balance to strike - they might just think you're idiots who can't be bothered editing a web page.
loupgarou21 16y ago
I'm a big advocate of making your cover letter and resume fit you personally, but I've got to say, I think you're spending too much time on your cover letter. Researching a company in-depth is a good idea before an interview, but when you're just applying to a company, the cover letter shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to research and put together. For me, I prefer to keep my cover letter to three paragraphs. One explains how I found the company and what job opening I'm applying for. One explains a little of my background. One explains why I think I'd be a good fit for the company and the job opening. If I know the person that will be receiving the cover letter, I address them directly, otherwise I come up with a generic salutation or sometimes leave the salutation off all together. I like to keep the cover letter short enough to read in a few seconds while having enough information to let the person that initially goes through the resumes easily determine whether or not I'm a good candidate.

by earl 16y ago

angelbob 16y ago

On the other hand, when deciding between offers a couple years ago, the fact that the person on the phone had read my cover letter and thought about what I said helped tip the balance in favor of Scribd Scribd has at least one really, really fabulous recruiter. They didn't hire me, but not for that reason (and their reasons were good, at the time).

dkarl 16y ago

I'd say 75 percent or more of phone screens clearly couldn't be arsed to read my cover letter before getting on the phone with me. 100% of the time I've been asked to do a phone screen, I've been given a resume but no cover letter. You can't count on the cover letter getting past HR.

ghshephard 16y ago
Agreed - I've done over 300 interviews / and probably north of 600 phone screens in the last six years - I'm struggling to recall if I've ever seen a cover letter, even once.
- harshpotatoes 16y ago
  So the next question is... Does the cover letter even matter? Is the cover letter the reason I got past HR in the first place? Or did they just shred my letter, speed read my resume, and slap it up to you because I got enough buzz words in the resume? Or more probably somewhere in between?
  - dkarl 16y ago
    I'll describe the situation as I believe it was at my company before we were acquired by MegaCorp. HR was in charge of processing applications but had no influence over which applications were considered. They enforced whatever absolute requirements the hiring manager specified for a particular position, but considering we have senior developers with no college coursework, much less college degrees, I bet our hiring managers were wise enough to specify very few absolute requirements. Our HR personnel knew nothing whatsoever about software development skills and were not expected to. However, HR did process the applications, and the result of that was that a manager with an open position would get a big stack of resumes on his desk every few days. The key word here being "resumes," rather than "applications." I never heard a manager say anything about reading cover letters, or saying things like "so-and-so's cover letter says he's interested in <blah>." When we met to discuss candidates, the only sources of information people mentioned were resume, phone screen, and interview. So what's the point of the cover letter, you ask? I guess it varies. In my company, the cover letter was evidently only read (or more likely simply discarded) by HR, who had no input in hiring decisions. In a smaller organization, the hiring manager might see the entire application, including the cover letter, which the manager would most likely ignore. In a larger organization, ignorant HR folks might be making judgments about candidates' suitability for the job, and in that case the cover letter might mean a great deal, since the resume would be gibberish to them.

wisty 16y ago

Using arbitrary criteria to prune down candidates is stupid. I can see how the deposit will thin out unqualified candidates more than qualified ones, but you will still lose good candidates who think that the deposit is just plain dodgy. On the other hand, I can see why you wouldn't want to hire anyone who couldn't be bothered googling the company they are applying for. Depending on the position, you could also leave the job ad off your website, and expect the candidate to cold call you. That wouldn't be great for screening developers, but it would be fantastic for hiring anyone who's expected to show initiative in interacting with people. Yeah ... developers have to interact with people too, but there's a balance to strike - they might just think you're idiots who can't be bothered editing a web page.

loupgarou21 16y ago

I'm a big advocate of making your cover letter and resume fit you personally, but I've got to say, I think you're spending too much time on your cover letter. Researching a company in-depth is a good idea before an interview, but when you're just applying to a company, the cover letter shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to research and put together. For me, I prefer to keep my cover letter to three paragraphs. One explains how I found the company and what job opening I'm applying for. One explains a little of my background. One explains why I think I'd be a good fit for the company and the job opening. If I know the person that will be receiving the cover letter, I address them directly, otherwise I come up with a generic salutation or sometimes leave the salutation off all together. I like to keep the cover letter short enough to read in a few seconds while having enough information to let the person that initially goes through the resumes easily determine whether or not I'm a good candidate.