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Especially with the rise of "ghost postings" so quantity over quality is greater than ever these days
Cover latter? Is it the 50ties? If a company wants a cover letter, I ain't applying. You got my CV. Need more info? Call me, the number is on the CV.
This is what AI is for. If they're going to use it for screening applications, I'm going to use it to write my cover letter.
Their robots can talk to my robots.
Hard agree.
Cover letter requirement makes no sense in this day and age. We have access to thousands of job openings on the palm of our hands, why the fuck would I pause on one random job just to lie about why I want to work at that specific company.
I guess this depends where you live and what professions your are applying for. In my region and field, a cover letter goes with saying. It always has been like that, ever since I was looking for summer jobs, and continues to be the standard.
Plot twist: make a one size fits all resume, but have AI tailor it and transmit it everywhere.
Double twist:
Just go work for the AI
AI works just like intended,
Soon we'll work for it instead.
As someone from outside the US, I have no clue wtf is a cover letter, this isn't a thing in Brazil, you just send your resume.
I'm Australian and was always told the cover letter was unnecessary, especially if your CV has a bio.
The cover letter was for additional information not covered by the resume - name dropping the manager at the company you know who inspired you to apply, explaining why it appears your changing industries, justifying "overqualifications", mentioning a personal hobby that's relevant to the industry and isn't technical work experience.
Basically the things you plan to bring up in the interview to wow them, you can introduce them while introducing yourself in a cover letter.
But if your resume lines up with the position description, you don't need a cover letter.
Basically I was told a cover letter is necessary when you're a burnt out nurse or teacher applying to be a cashier at kmart to avoid having your resume immediately thrown out.
That said. I've literally never written one, even as a serial industry hopper. If there's no email address to send my resume too, then the system is too auto for a cover letter and they don't want to read it anyway, if there is an email address, just include a few lines of a short cover letter in the body text of the email before attaching your resume.
The US does not use what you call a CV. A resume is something else. For one thing, there is typically no “profile”.
A resume may not even show a complete work history. It is one ( maybe two ) pages and heavily tailored to what makes sense for the particular job. That is what this post is about.
It isn't a thing in the US anymore either.
Maybe it's the shit market that I'm applying to, but when I apply for a retail job, they want a fully filled out application (that auto fill always Borks, so I have to type everything in manually) as well as a cover sheet and some places want you to take a personality quiz that you have to pass for hr to even see your application. I couldn't imagine applying to 4 jobs a day, let alone 40.
I imagine we are talking about corporate postings where you just paste a link to LinkedIn and that does most of the work?
And then when you get past all that, they suddenly want a group interview.... like, sit in a room with many other candidates and have an interview.
Lol holy shit I forgot about those "personality tests." They are (well, were at least, I imagine its still like this) basically just a way to filter out people too stupid to not know what answers they want to hear. Questions like, "You see a coworker stealing money from the register, do you: a) pretend you didn't see anything, b) join them and start a gang, or c) tell the manager on duty"
Shit is so laughably stupid.
Yeah, the trick is to pretend you are A mixture of Ned Flanders and a ditzy cheerleader when you answer.
The most recent one I took almost felt like a placement test trying to see if you had management material, which could be problematic for someone applying to be an entry level team member, but giving management answers.
Maybe I'm over thinking why I got passed on by a grocery store after two in person group interviews.
Jesus that sounds so demeaning. I haven't had to apply for a job in about 15 years now. All networking, and I was poached and offered my current job. Union now, so I'm set. I don't remember having to jump through so many hoops when I was younger and applying for a job, but recently I passed by a Wendy's and there must have been 50 people lined up outside with resumes because there was a job posting. That many people for one burger job, that's hard times.
In biology, the top one is called K-strategy and the bottom one R-strategy.
Both are valid strategies.
But generally, K is better suited for highly developed, intelligent, cooperative and social animals.
R is better suited for animals that live alone in a hostile environment full of predators.
There's a message about the modern job market in here somewhere I guess.
This interests me as I recently started reading Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, by Piotr Kropotkin, and the beginning of the book is all about how "survival of the fittest" does not necessarily mean constant competition. But that species that evolve to cooperate (either intra- or inter-species) tend to do just as well, if not better. I love hearing that the biology actually backs that up.
Social darwinism:
❌️: Ayn Raid libertarism.
✔️: Kropotnik mutualism.
Evolution is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented processes in nature.
Here's some bullet points:
Tried both, tried a normal resume and a resume with an ATS-focused layout, tried AI-based tools meant to help you improve your resume, and a few other things, and after more than forty applications in six months, what finally got me an interview and then very quickly an offer was an internal referral from a friend/ex-coworker. For context, I am a software engineer.
Fun fact: the average response time after submitting an application was 48 days.
Same here. I changed my LinkedIn status and a former coworker pinged me and said he set up a Discord for other job seekers. I joined and posted my skills and desired role and he forwarded my resume to his employer because they were in the early stages of finding someone for that role.
After a week of interviews I had a new job. Of the 60 or so applications I sent to similar roles during that week only about half replied, and all of those were rejections.
I think cover letters are still absolutely relevant to the job process.
I liken cover letters to cheat sheets that you prepare for an exam. You may not need to make one to be successful, but can be very helpful.
Usually with cover letters, I try to make the argument that I'm good for the company, and the company is good for me. This usually allows me to frame the way I look a new job as a business agreement where both parties can benefit, and that I'm not a parasite taking from them and not giving.
I don't make cover letters for each and every position I apply to or look into, but for those ones i think I have a good chance of landing and those companies I believe in, I'll absolutely put in more effort with cover letters.
I couldn't count the number of people I've interviewed, but I can tell you that I've read exactly zero cover letters.
Again, part of my argument in favor of cover letters is that they help the candidate better prepare for the (sometimes multiple) interview process. They can help a candidate distill the main reasons as to why they want the job, which can make conversation easier if you're more comfortable speaking to those more personal things.
Again, the candidate can keep that to themselves.
Nobody in my industry bothers to read them. You'd be lucky if they spend more than a minute on the resume so they're a waste of time.
Some organizations in my industry require them, so guess it depends.
Regardless of if it's required, however, I would still argue that it's good even if you don't have to send it to the company. To me, it helps me put my head in the right mindspace to argue for myself and make a case that I'm the person for them.
Is your industry the 1950s?
My industry is STEM?
Why are you asking me? Also, that's not an industry.
Interesting. I'm a hiring manager, and I've seen many cover letters that actually hurt the candidate because they have typographical errors, poor grammar, or are addressed to a different organization entirely. Probably 85% of cover letters I see do no harm; most of the rest hurt the candidate. The way you're describing a cover letter sounds like it would be beneficial, but I don't see ones like that very often. I definitely would appreciate that you took the time to tailor it to us.
My advice for everyone is, if you're going to write a cover letter, proofread it just like the resume. If you're short on time, focus on the resume and skip the cover letter (if you can - they might be required for some applications). I definitely notice a sloppy cover letter, so not having a cover letter will hurt far, far less than a sloppy one.
I wouldn't toss someone's application just because their cover letter had a typographical error in it, especially if the candidate is otherwise well qualified. But, if I'm borderline on whether I want to interview someone, and the cover letter is sloppy, I'm probably going to pass. We're pretty detail-oriented, and a sloppy cover letter makes me worry about the details.
To me, I don't understand why someone would proofread their resume but not their cover letter.
Then again, I'd be someone that would put in the same degree of effort to the resume as the cover letter. Not everyone is like that.
Guess it just depends on if you find it worthwhile or not. If you can't seem to land jobs following interview after interview, it might be worthwhile to look into cover letters if only to help you orient yourself better to the job and company.
To me, I don’t understand why someone would proofread their resume but not their cover letter.
Yeah, I hear that...but you'd be surprised at how often I see perfectly-rendered resumes, and then multiple obvious issues in a cover letter.
The cover letter helps you get the interview - after I make the decision (offer or not), I pretty much forget about the cover letter.