2 ms·

I'm kind of surprised to hear that cover letters still matter. It seems like most of the places I've applied to recently don't even have an option for including

I'm kind of surprised to hear that cover letters still matter. It seems like most of the places I've applied to recently don't even have an option for including a cover letter. Since most of this is driven by keywords anymore, I guess I figured the cover letter was kind of an anachronism. I suspect you're in a small to medium sized company?

JohnFen 3y ago
My company is a large one, but we aren't keyword-driven or the like. A human screens the applications. Cover letters matter to us.
- deleted 3y ago
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- whynotmaybe 3y ago
  What criteria are you looking for in a cover letter? I find the concept of cover letter completely disassociated of a candidate competency to do their job. I can spend 1h to write a cover letter with perfect structure, good intention and really speaking my vision of me in the company, this won't show that I can do a leetcode medium or that my clipper code is well structured.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Cover letters convey the non-technical aspects of an applicant that can give an indication of how well they'd fit into a team. Why did they apply to us, specifically? What about the position or company do they find interesting? What skills/hobbies/etc. do they have (or want to highlight) that indicates an interest in the nature of the work? That sort of thing. The resume/CV tells you the "what", the cover letter tells you the "why". Basically, the cover letter is the sales pitch. If you don't provide one, that certainly doesn't eliminate you from consideration, but providing one can give an important edge.
    - culopatin 3y ago
      Applied to you specifically because I haven’t heard from the other ones yet and what you posted sounds like something I can do to get money to pay my dues to the rest of the society. I don’t know you very well off of your “about us” and the job posting to tell you any more than that. I don’t know if the manager I’ll be working with is going to make my day great or dreadful.
irvingprime 3y ago
It's rare for anyone to read cover letters. I put one in once in a while. Mostly I have ChatGPT write a draft and then I cut half of it and make some adjustments. Even with the AI helping, it's more work than I usually want to do for something that is probably going to be ignored.

JohnFen 3y ago

My company is a large one, but we aren't keyword-driven or the like. A human screens the applications. Cover letters matter to us.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
whynotmaybe 3y ago
What criteria are you looking for in a cover letter? I find the concept of cover letter completely disassociated of a candidate competency to do their job. I can spend 1h to write a cover letter with perfect structure, good intention and really speaking my vision of me in the company, this won't show that I can do a leetcode medium or that my clipper code is well structured.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Cover letters convey the non-technical aspects of an applicant that can give an indication of how well they'd fit into a team. Why did they apply to us, specifically? What about the position or company do they find interesting? What skills/hobbies/etc. do they have (or want to highlight) that indicates an interest in the nature of the work? That sort of thing. The resume/CV tells you the "what", the cover letter tells you the "why". Basically, the cover letter is the sales pitch. If you don't provide one, that certainly doesn't eliminate you from consideration, but providing one can give an important edge.
  - culopatin 3y ago
    Applied to you specifically because I haven’t heard from the other ones yet and what you posted sounds like something I can do to get money to pay my dues to the rest of the society. I don’t know you very well off of your “about us” and the job posting to tell you any more than that. I don’t know if the manager I’ll be working with is going to make my day great or dreadful.

irvingprime 3y ago

It's rare for anyone to read cover letters. I put one in once in a while. Mostly I have ChatGPT write a draft and then I cut half of it and make some adjustments. Even with the AI helping, it's more work than I usually want to do for something that is probably going to be ignored.