
Cover Letters: Always Send One - mostlystatic
http://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/cover-letters-always-send-one/
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pc86
The site appears to be down, so my comment is without having read the actual
article.

As someone who is involved in the hiring process pretty regularly, I would say
about 10% of the resumes we receive come with cover letters, but only a small
fraction of those letters make it _obvious_ that they've been tailored to our
company. Maybe 3 out of 10 will do this. Giving people the benefit of the
doubt, half the cover letters we do receive are not unique to us.

Honestly it's probably better not to send a cover letter than it is to send
one you've copied and pasted from the internet or that you're sending in
identical copies to 50 employers. We don't count not sending a cover letter
against anyone, but a bad one can hurt your chances of a phone call.

In my experience though, a good, unique cover letter will all but guarantee
you an in-person interview. We'll do an initial phone screen that is mostly
for baseline technical competence (talk about projects, etc, we're not going
over algorithms or anything here), then a single panel interview that we try
to keep under 1 hour and are successful with the majority of the time.

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vonmoltke
> In my experience though, a good, unique cover letter will all but guarantee
> you an in-person interview.

I wish. The amount of time I put in to an application seems to have no bearing
on my almost-nonexistent response rate, so I rarely bother with much effort
anymore.

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logfromblammo
I have actually seen an inverse relationship with the amount of time invested
in the application process. I spend 45 minutes laboriously transferring every
little detail already on my resume into the fill-in forms of their candidate
blackholing system, also upload my resume, and include a cover letter: no
contact.

I locate my HTML resume on my file system and click "send": I get an e-mail
response within days, and take the first call the same week.

So I'm willing to write a custom cover _paragraph_. I say where I saw the job
posting and the single detail in it that most influenced my choice to respond.

But I only do so at the end, if the application process hasn't already gone
over 20 minutes.

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vinceguidry
Always send a cover letter. Resumes are form content, by themselves they do
not offer enough differentiation from the next joker with a word processor.
The cover letter is the easiest and most traditional way to define yourself as
more than a bunch of facts.

Part of working at a company is getting good at written communication. It
should not be a lot of work to whip up a personalized cover letter for each
company you apply to, assuming you're not just putting your resume on blast.
If it feels like it is, then you should work on those skills rather than just
cop out of the responsibility.

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vonmoltke
I'm probably unusual, but I have major writer's block and anxiety when writing
about myself. I can write clear, detailed communications about nearly anything
with little effort, but it takes me 45 minutes to write three paragraphs about
myself.

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fancy_pantser
Well, the beauty is that you only have to do it once. Nobody that receives a
cover letter from you is likely to see another one you ever send out, so it's
okay if they have some of the same content.

I personally keep each cover letter I write in a Google doc. When I have to
whip up a new one I just go back and find some useful bits that apply to the
position I'm interested in. That gets the ball rolling enough that the last
15% is easy to get through.

I only have so many skills I want to highlight in a cover letter, so having
10-15 sentences already laying around to cherry pick from gets me 80% of the
way there on new letters.

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ManoMarks
Honestly I've reviewed a lot of applications, working for a small non-profit,
then a large tech company, and now a tech start-up. I never read the cover
letter, and the recruiters rarely pass them on to me. And it never makes a
difference.

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trjordan
Here's the problem with the cover letter: the dominant strategy is to describe
that you're a natural fit for the job, which sends up all sorts of BS flags in
the reader.

The alternative, suggested here, is to be a little self-deprecating. Mention
why you might not be the perfect candidate, but you'll shine anyway. Have you
heard of price anchoring? It's everywhere, and if you start the hiring manager
off with "could take a chance on this person, maybe a diamond in the rough"
... well, that's not a great place to start.

So if you're writing a cover letter, I'd recommend you make it sound like
you're perfect for the job. But the strongest feature is "I've been doing this
at my last job and want to do it somewhere else." That's a hard thing to make
up if you don't have it already. And either way, it's not unique -- the "best"
cover letter for a job is generally pretty discernible from the job posting.
Which makes that cover letter table stakes and doesn't set you apart from the
crowd of candidates they're actually going to talk to.

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vinceguidry
> And either way, it's not unique -- the "best" cover letter for a job is
> generally pretty discernible from the job posting. Which makes that cover
> letter table stakes and doesn't set you apart from the crowd of candidates
> they're actually going to talk to.

I really don't think that most people even send a cover letter, much less put
that much effort into determining what the 'best' such letter to send is.

Life isn't a poker game, 99% of your success comes from just showing up. Most
people don't even do that.

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eachro
I'd say for large companies(Google, Fb, MSFT, etc), theres no need to send a
cover letter. These companies get thousands of applications every single
recruiting cycle. Is it even possible for HR to review every single cover
letter? Anecdotally, I've had many friends get interviews with big companies
without sending a cover letter so not having a cover letter probably won't
hurt your case.

For small companies/startups, a cover letter is probably a good idea though.

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khaki54
Yeah I disagree when sending a cover letter to a big company. When you send in
your resume, it will take on a life of it's own and honestly this can work in
your favor. The resume gets passed around by HR and hiring manager to hiring
manager. It would be hard to avoid poisoning the thought process of the hiring
managers if you have a cover letter attached.

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pc86
How would a cover letter "poison the thought process of the hiring managers"?

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ryanackley
Alternate point of view here from someone who has done a lot of hiring.

I find this advice really odd because it's a struggle to find someone who can
actually do the job and you are always desperate for technical talent.

I have never seen any emphasis placed on cover letters or resumes when
screening candidates. Instead it's usually things like online coding tests and
phone interviews.

I can see this being more important for executive/sales/marketing positions
that require soft skills that aren't easily gauged.

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savvyraccoon
Let me try; :)

Hi, I'm John Doe

I saw your ad for Backend Software Developer at LaterPay and was very
interested, because I believe paying for digital content should be fast,
convenient, and fair. I think people should be able to buy the exact piece of
content they want.

As a Software Developer who lives in Slack and keeps code in GitHub, I really
enjoy running stuff in AWS.

and so on and so forth :) It all sounds like BS for me

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dennisgorelik
Cover letter should be short: one or two sentences. One sentence is better
than two.

Just briefly explain why this job interests you and give a hint of why you is
a potential match.

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digitalpacman
No. I hate receiving them it's just garbage. Resumes' themselves are garbage.
They tell no stories and give no information in the tech field.

