> The answer was in my original comment: It's expensive to write one, and while you may read cover letters, you are in a minority, and a job applicant has no way of telling which camp you're in.
Why is it expensive? You can write it in 10 minutes. I've looked at the last cover letter that I wrote, it's 12 sentences in total.
> Also, I'd like to ask: How often do you disqualify a candidate based on their cover letter? If you do, given that you don't disqualify for not having one, wouldn't you agree that those you disqualified after reading their cover letter put themselves at a disadvantage by writing one?
I don't recall ever in my career disqualifying someone based on the cover letter. I can't even think what they could put in the cover letter that would automatically disqualify them.
> Why is it expensive? You can write it in 10 minutes. I've looked at the last cover letter that I wrote, it's 12 sentences in total.
10 minutes multiplied by how many applications one makes? If you apply for 60 jobs, that's 10 hours of work. Moreover, it's 10 hours of work where there's a good chance no one will read it.
I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong here. It's a question of whether one wants to take a gamble in curating and thinking someone will read it vs going for raw numbers and applying to as many places as possible.
Of course, if you know the other party will read it, it makes sense to write one.
> I can't even think what they could put in the cover letter that would automatically disqualify them.
Experience that is different from what you are looking for (or not at the scale you need, etc), which wasn't clear in the resume.
The last time I had this discussion on HN, I did get responses that said they have disqualified people for what's on their cover letter.
Why is it expensive? You can write it in 10 minutes. I've looked at the last cover letter that I wrote, it's 12 sentences in total.
> Also, I'd like to ask: How often do you disqualify a candidate based on their cover letter? If you do, given that you don't disqualify for not having one, wouldn't you agree that those you disqualified after reading their cover letter put themselves at a disadvantage by writing one?
I don't recall ever in my career disqualifying someone based on the cover letter. I can't even think what they could put in the cover letter that would automatically disqualify them.