>

Just stop writing them. I stopped a while ago.  Nobody reads them anyway.
And I always used to love handing my resume with all my work history on it to places only for them to make me fill out a 15 page pamphlet with exactly the same information. >

Yes! And every company has their own website you need to make an account for and fill out the same bs too >

The fact that 95% of companies use Workday but the application information isn’t transferable under one account makes me so fucking infuriated. >

workday should just allow you to make an account and then autofill the info for you >

Workday is one of the most infuriating systems at every possible opportunity. I hope it does the death we all wanted for Adobe in the early 2000’s. >

Never dealt with Workday until my most recent job. Talk about a clunky inefficient program for business processes. The only thing it has going for it is a lack of physical paper, but if anything that actually makes it worse for the casual user. >

"Please write some fan-fiction about how much you'll overextend and exhaust yourself for this firm." >

I want to know if the person I’m considering for a job can write a letter. Part of a job is communication and putting on a smile even if you’re in a bad mood. If you don’t include a cover letter your application goes in the trash.
It's hilarious how much this triggered people. And based on your responses, it's probably best you don't write cover letters to demonstrate your lack of personality and communication skills.
It's hilarious how many people are willing to die on the hill that they shouldn't have to demonstrate a required skill that takes ten minutes before they get moved onto the next stage of hiring. Ya'll are going far in life. >

I have an app for that >

Great. Demonstrating you can at least get the job if you didn't do it still sets you apart from the dozens of other people who submit the same exact looking resume but think they are too good to spend ten minutes writing a cover letter. I'd give you an interview. Does Wednesday at noon work for you? >

Can't,  I don't get up before 2pm
Does 3pm work? Zoom call, no video? >

I usually do interviews at the brewery, but 3pm works. >

this should be the default opinion >

this is the default opinion >

If it was, there wouldn't still be cover letters. >

Employers like it because it gives them the opportunity to see why an applicant wants to work with them and how they might be a good fit beyond what is said in their resume.
Applicants like it because it allows them to say those things and stand out from the crowd. It takes additional effort that most people don't want to put in. This is a good indication that the applicant actually wants to work for the company. 
So they benefit the company, and they benefit the people who most want to work for the company. There is no incentive for either the company to stop accepting the letters (which costs them literally nothing), nor for the applicants to stop sending them (which increases their chances of being hired). Thus, the practice will almost certainly continue >

The employee wants to work there because they need money >

Some people actually want to work in places because they support the work the company does, have heard good things about the workplace culture, or want experience in a particular niche. Not saying money isn't important, but it isn't the only thing that is important to some people. >

Money is 100% the top priority when it comes to a job. You could have the best work culture in the world but if it doesn't pay the bills it means nothing >

money however is also the same motivator across the board. If you only want to work because money I will take the person who wants to work for the same money and who is actually interested in what we do, because chances are they will be a better worker, because people tend to be more motivated in stuff that interests them. >

Not at all. People with track records of high performance work better, even in jobs they don’t like. >


People with track records of high performance work better

People who work better, work better? Who knew?!? >

The good news is you can do cover letters with Chat GPT now. >

explain >

You can ask AI to write you a cover letter for a specific role / company. >

That's the future, candidates will automate job searching, and HR will automate  screening.
After the bots bullshit themselves for a few days you'll be invited for an interview where you can bullshit each other in person. >


That's the future .... and HR will automate screening.

That's been happening for a long time. Large companies don't have the manpower to sort through the piles of resumes they get. There are all kinds of tools out there to scan through resumes and look for buzzwords and phrases to accept/reject before a person ever lays eyes on it. Even after that there are all kinds of pre-interview screening questionnaires and in the tech world, quizzes/assignments. All of this happens even before talking with a real person. >

That's not real screening, as far as I saw they just randomly select one in 100 resume and call it a sucessful screening. I think there is room for improvement. >


as far as I saw they just randomly select one in 100 resume and call it a sucessful screening

Cool, that's not what I'm referring to. There are lots of AI screening tools that exist

I think there is room for improvement.

Yes, there is, but you ignored what I said and then made up some other scenario based on an anecdote. AI tools do exist for pre-interview screening. This is not an opinion. >

I fucking hated cover letters. 
Nearly every application needs a cover letter, or rather should have one. 
Some you can copy-paste, some need to be adjusted a bit per company. 
Glad I don’t expect to be looking for another job anytime soon. Hopefully ever lol >

For real. I’m casually looking right now, and the ones that make a point of requiring a cover letter, I don’t even bother with. >

It sucks, but it’s worth it. Don’t suggest limiting employment simply due to cover letters. Can miss out on a lot of opportunity.
Always having a cover letter puts you at better place than most without. Stupid, and total pain in the ass, but it shows the extra effort. >

If it's an opportunity that can be sunk with the mere exclusion of a piece of paper, it seems like a poor choice of opportunity. >

Depends upon the field and stuff. Not critical everywhere. 
But a lot of applications even make you fill out a resume on their application page, on top of the resume you already attached lol. Often it’s auto filled, but then has issues you need to spend time to rework.
You could say exclusion of doubling up the resume is a poor choice of opportunity as well. 
Overall we all agree cover letters suck. 
Some of us disagree how valuable they are. 
A weak comparison is like two people applying for a job. Asking for same pay, but one has a bachelors, the other has a bachelors and a masters. Everything else is the same. 
The one with the masters has the edge. In my opinion, and opinion I’ve heard from employers, that’s often the general comparison on difference between resume vs resume and cover letter. >

I just meant in general, if you're going to reject a person simply based on an arbitrary rule, it's not worth it, that's you (or the company, more likely) being shitty. It's like rejecting someone because they don't write in cursive. >

if you have an abundance of qualified candidates, you have to whittle the list down somehow. >

No, you really don't. Call the first x amount, if that doesn't get you your man, move to the next batch.
I realize that the business world doesn't work like that, but there's really no reason that it can't, other than "people are impatient." >

but it's a lot easier to get rid of the people who don't know how to follow rules up front. it leaves you with fewer, but better qualified candidates to go thru. >

Indentured servitude fan fictions. >

I stopped doing them a decade ago, my resume is more than enough these days and if it's not then I probably wouldn't work for you. >

If they ask for cover letters and you don't include them, you might get immediately weeded if they have enough applications. >

This hasn't ever affected me. I never write the optional cover letters, at this point I get calls on about 75% of the jobs I apply to. >

Then at least 75% of the time the thing I said hasn't applied to you. >

Right, we can't all afford to be picky and not include a cover letter when asked >

I mostly agree. The only thing a cover letter does is prove to the company that you are capable of constructing proper sentences and paragraphs & communicating efficiently. A lot of jobs have more writing than one would think, so having a cover letter as a buffer can help weed out the people who never learned to write coherently and professionally. 
That said, there are always people, businesses, resources, etc. out there that help people with cover letters and will disguise a poor writer/communicator. >

The other argument I've heard made in favour of cover letters is that they prevent candidates from trying to play a numbers game and resume-bombing as many places as possible (thus further increasing the number of unqualified candidates that need to be weeded out).
The idea is that your resume is usually standardized, while a cover letter requires at least some degree of customization (even if relatively cursory). Requiring a cover letter weeds out the people that otherwise would be like "well, I'm almost certainly unqualified, but hey... if all I have to do is click "submit resume", might as well take my chances!". 
Yeah, you might only need a couple minutes to update the cover letter, but that effort is sufficiently annoying to dissuade people that aren't serious to apply.
Personally, I buy this argument mainly when it's an employer's market. When it's an employee's market (as it has been the last couple years), you're probably missing out on good candidates who can't be assed to deal with a cover letter when they have their pick of the litter job-wise. >

We can start doing this when every employer starts giving cantidates a detailed response on why they're not the right fit for the job. Companies play the numbers game everytime they open a position. >

There's no benefit to the employer to do this. It would be time-consuming and counterproductive for a company to spend time telling every candidate deemed unsuitable the reason for why they were deemed unsuitable. 
HR and hiring managers are concerned with finding and winning the right person for the job, not with assuaging the feelings of the unsuccessful candidates. >

As a hiring manager, I don't give a crap about a good cover letter. I DO give a crap about a bad one, though... >

??
So you see it as only an opportunity for someone to make themselves look bad? There is no benefit from doing it well?
How do you feel about people who omit the cover letter? Do you still require it? >

What's wrong with finding exclusions? Thats like the first step and last step in the hiring process, exclude the worst ones and narrow it down. What do you expect? >

It’s always struck me as an archaic practice that no one ever thought to get rid of because “eh we’ve always had that” (which seems to be the ground into which people dig their heels: “iT’s AlWaYs BeEn ThIs WaY”).
Cover letters are bullshit and places that have you upload your resume only to have to manually input all the same goddamn information into the application can eat the biggest wiener. Just the biggest >

I switch jobs every 1-2 years but can't remember the last time I wrote a cover letter. Once I was 5 or so years into my career people stopped asking. >

Not unpopular. >

That's that I thought too, until I saw the Gen X and Boomer commenters defending the need for cover letters. >

They don't even read it.  It's just a hoop to make you jump through to get less applicants. >

My dad works in hiring and he said that Cover letters are rarely looked at, just used to weed out people to lazy to write one... >

Because copy/pasting one is sooooooooo not lazy >

Must be because they have a significantly reduced number of applicants on posting that do and don't require one >

If you think plagiarism is a benefit for an applicant I can't stop you. >

I don't work for them me and my dad just talk about it... >

Well, if your dad/his company think plagiarism is a benefit for an applicant I can't stop them. >

Ya...it's not hard to just have a template on your computer...that's what I do it's like a madlibs >

As someone who hires interns, I don't read a single one of them. They are just filled with useless crap. The university I work for requires people to submit it, so unfortunately I get them, and don't read them. And I don't feel bad about it. >

I hate sending a resume only to then fill out application. All the info is in my resume! I’m basically copy and pasting! Lol >

As someone who eventually reads them: you are doing it wrong then. I'm not interested in what you wrote in the CV, what I'm actually interested in is why you have this CV, why did you chose this path and not another. Why the field you are now in. What is it you enjoy most about it and what do you want to achieve. Is there a reason why you apply with this particular company? Is it about the company or because you just generally enjoy what you do or just to make some money or is it because you want to move to the city we happen to be located in? Why do you leave the old company? There is not really a right or wrong but I would like to learn the stuff about you which is not written in your CV. >

That’s what the interview is for. Applications don’t tend to ask any of those questions >

But I don't have the time to interview 60 people. This would literally fill weeks if you include time for preparing the interviews. >

As a hiring manager, you're exactly right. I just scan through the resume to tell if they're bullshitting or not. >

here's my resume, twice >

I love cover letters. On my resume you see I’m a hairdresser who’s worked at the same job for 6 years, in my cover letter you hear that I’m a student studying engineering and how I found myself on that path. Cover letters are the only reason I get an interview. >

Definitely you can port that to a CV. Try a functional CV if all fails. >

If they want a cover letter I don't apply. They're fucking dumb. It's basically "we see you're applying for a position with our company. You've sent us a resume with all of your qualifications but before we read that, we need you to write us a personal letter detailing WHY we should even look at your qualifications, and if you don't write it good enough we still won't look at them anyways" >

Along the lines of asking for expected salary range level stupid >

If it helps, I have a standard one where I just change out the position and company I apply for, saves me from having to write a new one for every single job I apply for.
Other than that, I completely agree, cover letters are outdated and employers should stop requiring them. >

Do you not have to include a paragraph on the company specifically? When advised on my cover letters they said the second paragraph should talk abt how great the company is and shit. 
I have no idea what to do when a company is really new either, like idk shit about it??? How am I supposed to talk about how great it is?? >

I don't write about the company, do get calls. First paragraph is the usual, applying for X thing.
The rest goes like, I do Z, fits your Y requirement. Change Z and Y rinse and repeat. If the things you're applying to are similar anyway, that format will fit anything with minor changes.