Is a cover letter really necessary?

Question

With so many posts about recruiters not really having enough time to look at the resume, I was wondering how ( or if ) cover letters really play a significant role in the decision process. How do recruiters view cover letter as? Does a really bad cover letter spoil the chances even when supported by a good resume? In what situation a cover letter is better left off ?

Answer 1

Yes as a hiring manager, a good cover letter is key.

I always say the cover letter is your sales pitch (why I should hire you), the CV/resume is the evidence to back up your claims. The cover letter should be laser focused on the role you are applying to and why you are what I'm looking for.

If an applicant can't put together a decent cover letter I will think twice before even reviewing the CV.

Answer 2

I'm going to go against the grain here a little.

In 13 years of IT experience, and 5 different employers, I have never written a single cover letter.

I have had these jobs and while hunting for the last one, got several offers. Also didn't send a single cover letter to any of those.

In short it is probably a good idea for MOST jobs. But if you are working in an in demand field, you may not need one because the resume may be enough.

Answer 3

Skip the cover letter if the job posting site says to skip the cover letter.

Otherwise, providing a well-written cover letter will only help your chances.

In general - it's easy for a reader to gloss over information he doesn't care about if that information is well separated. Typically, a candidate will provide a cover letter and resume/CV in two separate files, or in a single file with a page break, so it's really no work at all to avoid reading something that doesn't interest the reader. I can't think of a time when a reviewer will see a cover letter and think "ick, why did you make me read this??", unless this is a case where you were explicitly told NOT to provide one -- in which case you fail the reading and following instructions test.

I'll admit, as a technical hiring manager, the first thing I read is not the cover letter. Generally my HR recruiter and possibly and external recruiter have already reviewed the candidate and the resume, and I'm only seeing the materials after a review has been done.

The thing that a cover letter does most helpfully is fill in the cracks when I'm thinking "huh, that's weird..." - it's the chance of putting a spin on the details that give me an insight I might not be able to draw. In particular, it's pushed me towards taking an interview with a candidate when:

• The candidate's history was particularly unusual - no one's history is ever perfect, but if someone abruptly changed careers, went into the military, or dropped out of the working world for an extended period of time, I'm likely to wonder why - and the cover letter should help.

• The candidate is currently making an unexpected change - a candidate that is dramatically changing industries or careers, moving from a big company to a very small one (or vice versa), or taking a big step down in pay and responsibility - are all "huh?" moments. They may be utterly explicable if I step back from the resume and read that cover letter.

In those cases, I or my colleagues have often seen an explication in the cover letter that has meant the difference between passing on the resume, or putting it at the bottom of the "maybe" pile, and actually making the effort to take the interview.

The time a cover letter will hurt you is if it's poorly written, poorly composed or reflects poorly on your character. As with any materials you provide, if they aren't high quality, it will make you look sloppy and careless.

Being dull as dirt, however, is not a drawback. There are plenty of times when it is hard to be interesting in a cover letter. I'd like to think you could say something worth reading about any job you are interested in, but I realize, particularly in technical work, we don't hire many people for their juicy composition skills.

Answer 4

A cover letter can summarize a CV and make it more focused on a particular position. You can indicate this is an industry you want to work with or you've heard positive things about working for this company. Of course these will get discussed in an interview, but you need to get there first. It's a good way to separate yourself from other candidates.

Also, a cover letter can help explain many potential questions about a CV:

1. Gaps in employment
2. Change in career and/or focus on different type of job/skillset.
3. Reasons for leaving current position.
4. Relocation concerns. Your job history and current address are in another location, but you are planning on moving.

Many of these concerns have shown-up as question on this site and one piece of advice is to address them in a cover letter.

Answer 5

The Job interview process is a process of elimination. If you are a computer programmer, you don't need a cover letter. It's hard to find computer programmers to fill positions. They won't eliminate you from consideration without one.

However, if you applying for a job where there are more applicants like sales or management, you will get eliminated because you don't have a cover letter and someone else does. They have to limit down the number of people that they interview somehow. A bad cover letter will get you eliminated even faster.

I guess I'm saying Jobs are awarded based up competition. You have to run faster than the guy beside you. If he has a cover letter you need a better one.

Answer 6

Yes, companies want to hire people who want to work at their company. People work better and harder when they believe in what they are doing and people stick with companies they are interested in through hard times.
A cover letter says that you have set some time aside to write something for this specific company and not just included them in a mass application to as many companies as possible. So it shows that you are in fact interested in this specific company.

As well as that a decent cover letter will pick out the skills you think apply directly to this position. CVs come in many shapes and sizes and when you receive bulk applications it's pretty tedious to go through them all and root out information relevant to the job, things can be missed and you'll stand out if your application is less tedious.
It's also good for the employer to see what parts of your skill set you feel is relevant because that says something about you and what you understand about the position.

Customize your CV for positions you apply for and always include a cover letter that mentions this specific company. You are trying to a. show that you are interested in this specific company and b. make it easy for the reader to analyze you. Lastly, keep it short. Reading massive amounts of large cover letters is just as tedious as rooting out information from CVs.

Answer 7

How do recruiters view cover letter as?

This is how you should understand what a resume is & what a cover letter is:

– A cover letter is a casual summary of who you are. - A resume is a dry list of employment history & achievements.

Once you understand that, a cover letter will always make sense. A cover letter basically says the follow, “Hey, I heard of this opening & I thought I would apply. Here is a summary of who I am, what I current do & what my goals are.”

A resume will never do that. A resume will just enforce the ideas presented in a cover letter, but it’s typically a chronological history of employment. And the main focus of a resume will be: What did you do in past jobs, what are specific achievements & how long did stay there.

These items compliment each other. And when you interview for the position, your whole song & dance during that interview will most likely be an improvisation between you and the interviewer on the points in both.

No one thing assures you will do better than others. But all of the items taken together—the cover letter, the resume & the interview—will paint a complete picture of who you are. Leave out a cover letter & the message sent is, “This person simply sees this as a job & paycheck… Do we want to deal with that?” Which is not the impression you want to make.

Answer 8

It all depends on how you use the cover letter.

I'll use that space to show a little bit of my personality (in my writing style), and to summarize why they really, really, really want to look at my resume for the role in question. Often, I'll repeat back the bullet-points of their job description to them - or at least, the ones I have, with any necessary modifications (example: if they ask for 2 years web content publishing experience and I have more than four, I may put 3+ or 4+ depending on whether or not the position strongly utilizes that particular skill. If a position asks for 3 years' project coordination but I only have 2.5, I'll put 2.5 years' project coordination.) I may include one or two extra bullet points if they're truly outstanding in terms of my experience AND applicability for the role in question, but never more than that. The bullet-point reiteration of the JD helps the HR screeners quickly identify a resume for the "to the hiring manager" pile. I may also list off a reason or two that I find this position, or their company (or both) highly interesting.

Cover letters can make the difference between your resume being routed to the hiring manager for additional review, and being put into the "not quite a good fit" pile - even if the particular HR person in question is having a ridiculously busy day, a well-written cover letter makes their job that much easier.

If you're emailing a resume, your cover letter can either be an additional attachment (slightly more formal) or in the body of the email (slightly more casual). If you're using an online submission tool, always have a separate cover letter file.

@JeffO and @bethlakshmi also both have good points: do not include a cover letter if the site (or JD) explicitly says not to; and if you've recently changed careers or are entering the workforce after a long-ish gap, the cover letter is a good place to provide a short explanation.

EDIT: yes, to speak to your point, a badly-written cover letter can get your resume sorted into the "don't bother" pile - but it almost has to be outstandingly bad. Have it checked for grammar, spelling, and general writing flow. Customize it for each job you submit for. (This answer, by the way, would make an absolutely shite cover letter because of the length. But schools don't really teach people how to write any kind of business correspondence any more, so...'verbose and explanatory' it is.)

Answer 9

I think that the cover letter indeed could be a plus nevertheless I am not insist on it and mostly doesn't spoil the chances. This my view because I think that to write a good cover letter is hard work. If I check the CV and find some significant points in it I get in touch with the candidate and at this stage she\he can say the sales pitch. I have better experience with the live conversations instead of paper based communication but I am sure about that the cover letter could be a standard documentation in some industry.

Answer 10

Most of the answers here are getting near a decade old and are highly anecdotal, as opposed to data-backed.

I'm going to argue nowadays the cover letter is on its way out and nearly dead, based on these posts by job hunting websites (with select quotes):

• Crossover: Is the Cover Letter Dead? What Works Instead?

Because almost 75% of recruiters don’t think reading your cover letter is even worth their time.

That means, for every four soul-sucking, time-demanding, stress-inducing cover letters you write during a job search, believing everything hinges on this "first impression," only one of them was worth all that time and effort. Maybe not even then.

In fact, of the small fraction who actually care about a cover letter, only about 36% of them read it first during the hiring process—and only if your resume seems promising.

• Monster.com: Is the cover letter finally dead?

If the job does in fact require a cover letter, keep in mind that only 18% of hiring managers rank the cover letter as an important element of the hiring process, Addison Group, a Boston-based employment agency, found.

While cover letters may be on the decline, Shannon Nolde, lead recruiter at Zendesk, a software development company in San Francisco, says they have more value in specific jobs and industries—e.g., a creative job in marketing, public relations or content fields where writing is prevalent.

• NYPost: The cover letter is dead

The cover letter is dead.

That’s the conclusion from a survey of 2,000 workers released Tuesday by recruiting software company Jobvite. The company found that roughly half (47 percent) of Americans did not send a cover letter when they applied for the job they’re currently doing. And among workers 18-22 that number jumps to 58 percent.

Plus, there’s some evidence that hiring managers don’t care much about cover letters. A survey from OfficeTeam found that about one in 10 senior managers said that cover letters were not valuable “at all” when evaluating a candidate, and only about one in five said they were “very valuable.” And some job postings now note that cover letters are “optional.”

Obviously some HR managers are going to appreciate it or even insist on it, and a good cover letter may boost your chances. But unless you work in a writing-prevalent field, the trend seems to that a cover letter is more and more a waste of time.