You could have a PhD grad from Caltech A and a community college grad B such that B is more skilled for the job than A. That’s where the cover letter comes in,

You could have a PhD grad from Caltech A and a community college grad B such that B is more skilled for the job than A. That’s where the cover letter comes in, right? If B’s cover letter says “I see from your Web site that your business is involved with X, Y, and Z; here are some examples of projects that I recently worked on that are directly relevant to those needs”, and A’s cover letter is all buzzword buzzword buzzword, I would take B a lot more seriously as a candidate.