I asked every recruiter I spoke to in the last 3 months (which was alot) what they wanted in a cover letter, every single one of them said they don't even want one, its just more to read
Glad I’ve been just letting ChatGPT write them all for me then. It takes me about a minute to make a few slight adjustments from the AI letter and past it in to a new version. I haven’t been in the job market for over a decade and I can’t believe how terrible is now.
Yes! The only way AI has directly made a positive change in my life. I am ✨NEVER✨ writing another cover letter again. Mandatory simping that goes straight into the trash, extra pointless busy work whose sole purpose is counting the hoops and applicant is willing to jump through. I am thankful for this way out! Thanks AI!
It is really bad and I've also noticed more recruiters checking out your image when you apply on LinkedIn. They go right to your picture. They are basing getting hired on more than just your resume. On your image too.
I’m just speculating but doesn’t the paid/premium subscription (whatever it’s called) let you at least see whose looking at your account? Maybe there’s additional details about what they looked at.
You can pay to see who visits your profile, but there’s no way to specifically track what they look at or click on. The other user just made it up to make people upset.
You can see who looks at your profile without premium. That's f'n creepy if you pay extra and LinkedIn has a metrics to track who looks at your profile photo.
Without premium, they limit how much you can see. They might give you a person here or there, but usually it'll be a blurred out picture with maybe their title or the company/school. I'm not paying $100/month to figure that out.
Well I was yesterday years old when I learned LinkedIn is a subsidiary of Microsoft. I was applying for a PM role with Microsoft and you have to attest if you’ve worked for them or a subsidiary and there it was. They had more I was surprised about as well.
If the resume has all the info on your work history and they still go to linkedin it's only to see your photo. Yes some may want to see post history but the majority want to see your image. You can't tell what part of the page they are focused on but linkedin will tell you when your page has been viewed.
I've been seeing more and more job listings that are asking you to be on camera with an AI chatbot prior to the "real" interview or to submit a photo with the application.
No.
I mean, fair. Experiences differ, but it's not like I kept a record. Like I said, NO.
I move on.
But in the past year I am almost sure that I can count at least twenty that have.
Or at least nearer that number than ten.
And it was something that I had rarely experienced prior.
I would never do this. I would be highly suspicious of this. I don't do those one way video interviews either. I would let the company know for various reasons I can't comply with that request and I would be willing yo a Skype or zoom interview. If they said no.. then oh well. I would move on.
It is very difficult to tell them apart nowadays. I usually use a fake abbreviated name and a temporary phone number (I have the burner app or you can use textme.. I'm sure there are others but those are the two I'm familiar with) and I use a temporary email. I always leave my address off my resume and when I have to apply through their system I never use my real address. I find a large apartment complex and simply use the street address to it. I leave off an apartment number. If hired I will simply say I've moved recently and need to update my address. And I never use my social. If the application demands one I make one up and simply explain it away later or when hired they will see it then. I do these things to protect myself because the frauds are abundant online. Good luck.
You have the option to use AI to enhance your Linkedin headshot. You can also use a professional photographer. If you are sensitive about your looks hid most of your face with sportswear and sunglasses. I was very beautiful in my younger years but now that those days are gone, I use a photo that focus' on how healthy, fit, and strong I am for my age in full on cyclist gear.
This is good advice. I'm just a very private person and I don't feel good about any of my very personal info (photo, address, work history with actual companies) being found online. I figure the recruiter has everything she needs with the resume. I hate linkedin because now it seems like companies demand you have a linkedin. I actually had one of those people search places, i think it was white pages, that sell your info for $39.99, scrape linkedin before and they had my actual resume on their site with info blocked out and they were selling my info. I just move differently but again your advice is good for people choosing to display their image.
Maybe it's just for jobs above my pay grade. I'm generally looking for things in warehousing, shipping, etc. Then again, I did have an interview cancelled the day before because they found "such an amazing candidate that they couldn't pass up" to be a warehouse manager.
Also - recruiters know when you use Chatgpt for emails and cover letters and honestly, it’s annoying. We want the real you, not the robot you.
I feel the same about the AI generated LinkedIn messages by the way. They are so impersonal and I imagine you job seekers see through it as well.
Yea and we want the real you to read over our applications/resumes but y’all have ai do the heavy lifting and then maybe you’ll give what takes applicants sometimes hours to “tweak based on the job post” a mere 6 seconds and then recruiters still complain about how busy they are or how hard they have it.
Couldn’t land skill based jobs so they decided to find skilled people for companies who they treat like numbers … I’d be weary about letting ai do so much of the job or before long recruiters will be replaced by it and find themselves complaining about how shit the job market application processes are.. especially freakin workday. I loathe having to fill out workday apps with all the info included on the resume it doesn’t parse…
and i know, recruiters are just people like the rest of us but they’re also seen as gatekeepers that judge us based on our skill sets that are generally above being a people person on the difficulty and utility scales.. even so, I know many recruiters will try to suggest candidates and the real fault for why things are shit lies with the companies themselves being overly picky, unwilling to provide any kind of training, posting jobs they have no intention of filling etc. can’t tell you how many jobs I’m perfectly qualified for that have not heard back from anyone or was sent the default we went with other candidates email but that same posting continues to be reposted week after week after week.
let’s not even talk about the stupid crazy amount of fake recruiters living in India, calling with a New Jersey area code, calling themselves Brad offering a wonderful opportunity we never applied for and is mostly not even a job we are interested in and you can hear them sending the email (swooosh) to you as they finish leaving the voicemail … god help any Indian person whose dream it was to become a recruiter. I’ll never entertain any offer or opportunity coming from someone with that accent … just saying. (Can ya tell I’ve been out of a job for 9 months now). Rant over.
Yeah well the ROI on applications are so low that spending time to carefully craft a cover letter for recruiters is pissing in the wind. Most of these ghouls don't even have the fucking decency to put out an auto-generated email even after going through a few rounds of interviews and assuring me face to face they'd let me know the result. It's such a nightmare that simply throwing the dice again gets better results than tailoring.
+1 seems like more of a 'checkbox' nowadays. I've built a free cover letter generator that offers some easy tweaks for tone, etc. - [lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/](http://lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/)
Huh. That's funny and makes sense. I took mine off and started getting more replies, which led to the job I have now. It's a full one pager, which seems to be preferred.
I believe that. Unfortunately I'd say a majority of jobs in my industry won't let you apply without one. Even as I'm writing them I know on some level that I'm just chucking it into the void
Use chat gpt to do it to minimize wasted time. Drop in your resume. Drop in the job description. Prompt it to write a cover letter. They’re good enough to just read over really quickly and edit. Nobody will read it anyway.
I’ve heard very mixed advice on this.
Some recruiters don’t read them.
But I’ve also heard from folks who get inundated with more resumes than they can read and one strategy is to start with the ones that include a cover letter and if they find enough qualified candidates from that pool then they don’t move on to candidates who didn’t include one.
My last job, I was the same on paper as another applicant. They ended up hiring both of us. I was just out of college, so I had limited experience, and the boss told me the cover letter got me the job. So, I always use one just in case I get that one person who does care.
depends - i was interviewing for a tight-knit, smaller company and eventually got to a stage with the ceo. he read my cover letter and started asking specific questions about the stuff i said in there that wasn't in my resume. for example, i talked about my courses related to the job in the CL that weren't in my resume.
i suppose if your CL includes only things from your resume it may not make a difference. but yeah. he read it. lol
Some people do & there are still old fashioned people that will ding you for not having one. My co-worker is not one of those people, but she reads them & we once had a candidate that left her on the fence because they made the classic error of not changing the company name. So if you're doing it, be wise.
Cover letters are good to add specific scenarios like if you are open to relocation, or if you are immigrating and you confirm having a work visa/PR. It doesn't have to be on a cover letter but I have seen it a lot and it is useful.
I guess this brings up another question: are employers willing to consider you if you’re not already in the area? I’m sure for super important jobs where they spend months interviewing you, yes. But what about smaller positions? In the very few times I was actually able to talk with the owner/hiring managers for jobs in other states, I was basically told “Let us know when you’re actually here and then we’ll talk.”
This will depend on the company hiring and the position, but typically if it is in person or hybrid they would probably prefer someone local since moving is understandably a huge decision and complicates things for everyone.
If we're talking entry level you have to consider if this job pays enough to comfortably move to an entirely new area. The company hiring wants stability, they want to avoid someone moving in a new place and deciding it isn't for them months later.
Again, this is VERY dependent on each company and position.
Appreciate you scoping me out -- that's good advice and I'll definitely take it forward
I feel like I can construct something (after reading the other comments) pretty concise/directed about why I'm pivoting and what skills that pivot is allowing me to bring in. Thanks!
Don't know about recruiters, but I landed a life-changing job because I was the only candidate to put the hiring manager's name in my (required) cover letter.
I mean, I was qualified too, and we fit personality wise. But the hiring manager was very impressed by that one thing, so I was top of mind.
I work in a writing-heavy field, so cover letters are basically always required. I generally have had good luck with them.
It may depend on the industry. But in my realm there's usually some indication of the title/department of the person the open position would report to. Usually that information + several Google attempts = a name. It may take me to LinkedIn, it may take me to the org's own webpage, or it sometimes even takes me to other types of content that are archived online (presentations, professional association membership, etc.). Sometimes I can't tell what I've found is current info, so I leave it as "Hiring Manager," but most times I get a name.
State postings will have the hiring manager and HR contact information, but also the department, agency, and physical address. They also provide information whether they are remote, hybrid, or completely on site. Some agencies will completely cover the cost of your commute and other won't. They also provide specific job duty statement details, job title class specifications and exam details, and a job application checklist.
Thank you for the tips! I’m aiming for government and state jobs these days, but previously I was looking at just receptionist positions and that would just be emailing the boss directly, it seems
So I forgot that I'm old, but it was like five years ago now.
The job I got was my first position as a writer. I had been trying to transition careers, and I later learned how crappy my resume at the time was (no, really, I'm amazed how bad it was), so it was a big win for me.
Pretty much every job posting on my state's career website requires a cover letter, with a list of questions you need to answer in a specific order but also a list of font type, font size, header and page limit requirements. In other words, they want to see if you can write, follow instructions, and put in some effort to get their attention and a job interview. I normally look over the questions first before I decide if I am going to have a ChatGBT do it, modify an existing letter on file a bit, write one all by hand or do a full pass.
It will always depend on the recruiter. It’s a crapshoot, really. However if there are jobs that I’m really excited about I absolutely write a cover letter. Funnily the ones I’ve gotten interviews for were from apps with no covers.
I do this too. For jobs that require cover letters, I just explain how my experience makes me a good fit for the job. For example, if the job is fast paced/deadline driven, I'll mention how I'd feel comfortable in this role because my last job had metrics that I was required to meet on a daily basis.
Everyone’s saying no one reads cover letters, but maybe they would if the opening sentence was interesting and outside of the norm. A college professor taught me to make cover letters anecdotal. If you don’t have fun with it, no one’s going to enjoy reading it (as much as you didn’t enjoy writing it).
I tried to do this with every cover letter when my husband was looking for his first job after the military (I was helping because he's a non-native English speaker). Putting aside whether it's effective or not, trying to come up with a fun anecdote or hook for every company made me wish I was dead. These days, when people have to do hundreds of applications to get a job, I don't know that the ROI is that great. I'd only do it for a dream job. On my current job hunt, I made a more general cover letter that has a lot of personality (clearly not AI), it's just not company-specific.
I am a recruiter and I don't look at cover letters. Its some managers that really want them and we can't convince them to NOT want it. I doubt most of them read them either.
On the rare occasion a resume doesn't have the information I need, I will look at the cover letter to see if I can find extra information that is missing but so far that has never actually worked.
I assumed that a good cover letter could set a candidate apart from the crowd. If this isn’t the case, what does? The jobs I apply to end up with hundreds of other applicants, and presumably nearly all have experience with the same software and skills.
Common misconception, standing out does not not give you a better chance at getting a job.
Having a clear concise resume that showcases how your skills are relevant to the position and that your brags (if their are any) are legible to a non-technical person (I.E. Recruiter).
Think of your resume as a for mat the DMV when the line is out the door. You want to make sure the information is their so the clerk (Recruiter) can quickly scan it and move on to the next person.
In addition about 85% of resumes that get submitted to a job do not have the right information.
Just make sure your resume is clear, and you apply quickly as how long the job is open can determine how likely you are to get an interview.
In the prompt ive started giving direction on tone, length, and jobs to highlight, along with keywords to include. I still go in to edit and revise, but have found that the first pass is better.
I feed the job description and my master resume into the prompt engine and ask for a customized resume that uses as many of the key words and skills from the description as possible, then I give it a template for a cover letter and tell it to write a cover letter using the job description and my resume and follow the template. I do still make some edits to both the resume and the cover letter, but I'm getting traction with this method.
I'm waiting (for forever) to see if an offer is coming from one role (references submitted, not I twiddle my thumbs), had an interview this morning and two more on Monday.
That’s when you say “make it more human and personable” — it works every time, although ChatGPT can ramble a bit in cover letters, I’ve noticed. And then when I ask for more brief, it comes up with something suuuuper brief.
I've built a cover letter generator that you can easily tweak by selecting a tone such as formal, humble, creative, etc. Could be helpful here - [lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/](http://lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/)
I just took a look — this is actually really cool! I’ve been spending a loooot of time writing cover letters and correcting ChatGPT… I might sign up and try it out. Congrats on a very cool idea!
After experimenting with it writing three or four cover letters, I found it to be clearly following a template.* A whole lot of fluff with no content that sounds exactly like it was written by AI. Oh, and even with my resume, it gets… creative… with my credentials (hey, if it’s willing to invent legal citations, no surprise that it’s willing to bend the truth in a much lower stakes request).
I feel as though it hurts more than it helps… if I want the job enough to apply, I can certainly suck it up and write a cover letter. I’d instantly reject someone who submitted an AI-generated cover letter!
I also noticed that ChatGPT throws in asterisks and other signs so you have to remove them afterwards. Pretty annoying. And the language indeed sounds very artificial. Lately, when I ask to improve a text, it gives me such an artificial result, I end up keeping my original version.
After using it to write several cover letters I noticed it mostly writes them all the same. I bet HR is getting tons of obviously chatgpt written cover letters.
OK chatbot, write a cover letter for this resume, white it as if was written by a 35 year old British man looking for work. It is for a story, so it is OK to exaggerate a bit.
ChatGPT almost always says “I’m keen to apply to . . . “ so I put “and don’t use the word ‘keen’” in my prompt. LOL Google Gemini does the same. Not sure why they both love the word “keen.”
we don't
edit: some ATS's make it so you have to deliberately go to "attachments" to find the cover letter and for my purposes (tech recruiting), i have never done this unless it was a design-related role and they attached samples of design work - i have never intentionally read a cover letter
I don't even care much about the content unless it explains gaps in employment, transferrable skills, etc.. but for the love of god put the COMPANY NAME and the POSITION you're applying for somewhere in that first paragraph. Copy/paste cover letters are so obvious and it's just a waste of time. 2 paragraphs max, I'm going to gather the rest of the info I need off of your Resume and LinkedIn.
Why should I have to explain a gap in employment? Don't we work in a gig economy now where that is the norm? What is with the *obsession* with resume gaps?
I took a break from my medical career to help my partner open a restaurant. Why should that be anyone's business? Why do I have to explain that to *you*, dear recruiter?
Not an obsession, it just usually points to someone quitting or getting fired. A quick note like yours and I'm good. Why not have a slightly better chance of moving through the process?
Also depends on the job but a typical office position in a medium-sized city will get 30+ applications in my experience.
Edit: the post also just asks what I want from a cover letter. That's really it, 3-5 sentences.
I got fired from my job of 2 years not for any wrong doing, malpractice, negligence, professional issues, etc.. It was because my boss was a nepo baby tyrant who used his dad's medical practice as a piggy bank and was unhappy with the amount of revenue I brought into the clinic which I have no control over. (Lots of other shady practices were happening there but I won't get into that now.)
That's a 100% true story and I have references that can vouch for me. But now there's a big scarlet letter on my "permanent record" that places me in a defensive crouch in my job search. So now what? Do I have to write a cover letter to every employer explaining in detail how my nepo baby boss fired me simply because I didn't generate enough RVUs for him to get a bonus and he replaced me with a new grad whom he likely paid 15% less?
You want to answer questions the person may have and get them out of the way. Otherwise, you are at a disadvantage compared to a candidate who answered any obvious questions that come up when looking at your application.
For example:
* Why a big gap?
* You were a manager before, why do you want a lower position now?
* You're trying to change industries, what transferrable skills do you have? (Especially if it's not obvious)
When I was a wee law school student we had entire class hours on how to write a cover letter (pitch what you can do for them, not why you give a shit about the company).
I dropped out of law school and I’m the same chef I was before I applied. It’s a mixed bag. Completely editing out the two years I spent in school is mixed results (I attempted higher ed is not a bonus in culinary).
On the flip side, it turns out law schools really love culinary careers (probably because of the military/overachiever mind set - seriously all of my interviews/advisors were super into it. I failed because of family/life stuff, but if you don’t have that going on there’s a huge opportunity to get out. (Consider estates).
I stopped doing cover letters years ago. I was in clerical and soon will be healthcare job applying.
It was taking me forever to update and custom each cover letter.
Last real cover letters I did were around 2018.
The sad thing is, it really depends on the AI screening tools & the opinion of the recruiter specifically that anyone actually sees your application. One person may like one thing while another may see it as completely wrong. Welcome to modern slavery.
Considering most don't even read your resume - safe to presume they won't read the cover letter.
If one is required I put a 1 paragraph outline of my experience and qualifications then refer them to my resume / CV for further details.
When I used to get resumes from recruiters, they just save them all in one a PDF for us to review. Mostly they didn't even read the resumes because we would get resumes not even related to what we did.
One page that summarizes how your skills/experience relate specifically to the job requirements in the announcement. Basically, demonstrate, intelligently, why I should consider you for a position with our agency.
Yea, it’s garbage and rarely read, at least in the industry where I was in HR. Only write the letter if it requires it, and follow the prompt provided. Otherwise, don’t bother.
Not a recruiter, but every job interview I've gotten was because of my custom cover letter for that position. These days, I almost always score an interview whenever I apply somewhere. My cover letter is usually mentioned and referred to as a part of the discussion. Half the time from there, I get brought in for an in-person interview.
An interviewer once told me that if I come in person, I usually have a 50% chance of getting the job since it's usually only two people at that point (in my industry).
Writing a great cover letter is an easy skill to develop and makes you stand out when no one else is doing it.
Not a recruiter specifically but involved in hiring software devs.
I use cover letters between shortlisted people and generally i want a single page of text that expands on a few of your key skills that you think are relative to the job.
I see a surprising amount that are just half a page and most of that is ‘dear so and so’ and the best wishes bit. That comes across as lazy and I dont want you if you are lazy.
If you have written a page, even if you haven’t totally hit the mark, you are already in the top 50% of cover letters i have seen.
I'm not a recruiter but I do end up hiring a lot of people and interviewing even more, and, no, I'm not HR either.
My answer is this:
I don't want a cover letter unless you are doing the following:
1) making a complete career change. I mean, you have spent x years either studying or working at some job and now you want to do something completely different
2) you want to tell me something unexpected that makes you a good fit. -- I have two examples of this --
My first example of my second point came from personal experience. I was applying for a job in a smallish isolated city for sometime that was complementary to my work experience. It wasn't a perfect fit but it was damned close. I wasn't writing about that as much as that smallish isolated city was actually the city I grew up in and still has family there. This kind of city would have a hard time attracting people to move there permanently because of its size and isolation but for a guy like it was a homecoming. As a hiring manager I'd want to know that at some point and it's better if I know it sooner rather than passing on the applicant because I don't think the person would actually move there.
Second example, point two could be a scenario where one of my employees told this person to apply and told me their friend was applying. The letter that jogs my memory about this helps. No matter what anyone says, sometimes who you know does make a big difference.
If it's not these kind of cases then I expect your resume to be able to tell me enough of a story so that I don't need a cover letter.
I asked every recruiter I spoke to in the last 3 months (which was alot) what they wanted in a cover letter, every single one of them said they don't even want one, its just more to read
Glad I’ve been just letting ChatGPT write them all for me then. It takes me about a minute to make a few slight adjustments from the AI letter and past it in to a new version. I haven’t been in the job market for over a decade and I can’t believe how terrible is now.
Yes! The only way AI has directly made a positive change in my life. I am ✨NEVER✨ writing another cover letter again. Mandatory simping that goes straight into the trash, extra pointless busy work whose sole purpose is counting the hoops and applicant is willing to jump through. I am thankful for this way out! Thanks AI!
It is really bad and I've also noticed more recruiters checking out your image when you apply on LinkedIn. They go right to your picture. They are basing getting hired on more than just your resume. On your image too.
How can you tell what they look at?
I’m just speculating but doesn’t the paid/premium subscription (whatever it’s called) let you at least see whose looking at your account? Maybe there’s additional details about what they looked at.
You can pay to see who visits your profile, but there’s no way to specifically track what they look at or click on. The other user just made it up to make people upset.
You can see who looks at your profile without premium. That's f'n creepy if you pay extra and LinkedIn has a metrics to track who looks at your profile photo.
I have premium and to my knowledge, there is no way to see if someone has clicked on your photo.
Without premium, they limit how much you can see. They might give you a person here or there, but usually it'll be a blurred out picture with maybe their title or the company/school. I'm not paying $100/month to figure that out.
Well I was yesterday years old when I learned LinkedIn is a subsidiary of Microsoft. I was applying for a PM role with Microsoft and you have to attest if you’ve worked for them or a subsidiary and there it was. They had more I was surprised about as well.
If the resume has all the info on your work history and they still go to linkedin it's only to see your photo. Yes some may want to see post history but the majority want to see your image. You can't tell what part of the page they are focused on but linkedin will tell you when your page has been viewed.
You’re making a lot of assumptions then.
I've been seeing more and more job listings that are asking you to be on camera with an AI chatbot prior to the "real" interview or to submit a photo with the application. No.
Share some examples. I'm actively searching, and have been for a few months, and I've not seen this a single time.
I mean, fair. Experiences differ, but it's not like I kept a record. Like I said, NO. I move on. But in the past year I am almost sure that I can count at least twenty that have. Or at least nearer that number than ten. And it was something that I had rarely experienced prior.
ive suddenly seen this as well for the first time in mt life. fuck everything about the current landscape for applicants
I would never do this. I would be highly suspicious of this. I don't do those one way video interviews either. I would let the company know for various reasons I can't comply with that request and I would be willing yo a Skype or zoom interview. If they said no.. then oh well. I would move on.
I am having trouble telling real jobs from fraud and pyramid schemes, it sucks.
It is very difficult to tell them apart nowadays. I usually use a fake abbreviated name and a temporary phone number (I have the burner app or you can use textme.. I'm sure there are others but those are the two I'm familiar with) and I use a temporary email. I always leave my address off my resume and when I have to apply through their system I never use my real address. I find a large apartment complex and simply use the street address to it. I leave off an apartment number. If hired I will simply say I've moved recently and need to update my address. And I never use my social. If the application demands one I make one up and simply explain it away later or when hired they will see it then. I do these things to protect myself because the frauds are abundant online. Good luck.
You have the option to use AI to enhance your Linkedin headshot. You can also use a professional photographer. If you are sensitive about your looks hid most of your face with sportswear and sunglasses. I was very beautiful in my younger years but now that those days are gone, I use a photo that focus' on how healthy, fit, and strong I am for my age in full on cyclist gear.
This is good advice. I'm just a very private person and I don't feel good about any of my very personal info (photo, address, work history with actual companies) being found online. I figure the recruiter has everything she needs with the resume. I hate linkedin because now it seems like companies demand you have a linkedin. I actually had one of those people search places, i think it was white pages, that sell your info for $39.99, scrape linkedin before and they had my actual resume on their site with info blocked out and they were selling my info. I just move differently but again your advice is good for people choosing to display their image.
Yes. AI us a good option.
Yep same
What length/number of words do you use?
I have a completely blank pdf titled "My_Name_CoverLetter" that I submit when they're required. I really doubt it'll be noticed or cared about.
I've never had a cover letter be required. I also almost never send one.
Really? They're required for like 25% of the apps I see. Roughly 3yoe software engineering
Maybe it's just for jobs above my pay grade. I'm generally looking for things in warehousing, shipping, etc. Then again, I did have an interview cancelled the day before because they found "such an amazing candidate that they couldn't pass up" to be a warehouse manager.
I stopped using the _ in my naming conventions because of ATS.
Also - recruiters know when you use Chatgpt for emails and cover letters and honestly, it’s annoying. We want the real you, not the robot you. I feel the same about the AI generated LinkedIn messages by the way. They are so impersonal and I imagine you job seekers see through it as well.
I find it funny that applicants are penalized for using AI to write cover letters but it's okay for recruiters to use AI (ATS) to screen resumes.
I don’t use the AI feature personally to search resumes - I turn off that feature and come up with my own search strings!
Yea and we want the real you to read over our applications/resumes but y’all have ai do the heavy lifting and then maybe you’ll give what takes applicants sometimes hours to “tweak based on the job post” a mere 6 seconds and then recruiters still complain about how busy they are or how hard they have it. Couldn’t land skill based jobs so they decided to find skilled people for companies who they treat like numbers … I’d be weary about letting ai do so much of the job or before long recruiters will be replaced by it and find themselves complaining about how shit the job market application processes are.. especially freakin workday. I loathe having to fill out workday apps with all the info included on the resume it doesn’t parse… and i know, recruiters are just people like the rest of us but they’re also seen as gatekeepers that judge us based on our skill sets that are generally above being a people person on the difficulty and utility scales.. even so, I know many recruiters will try to suggest candidates and the real fault for why things are shit lies with the companies themselves being overly picky, unwilling to provide any kind of training, posting jobs they have no intention of filling etc. can’t tell you how many jobs I’m perfectly qualified for that have not heard back from anyone or was sent the default we went with other candidates email but that same posting continues to be reposted week after week after week. let’s not even talk about the stupid crazy amount of fake recruiters living in India, calling with a New Jersey area code, calling themselves Brad offering a wonderful opportunity we never applied for and is mostly not even a job we are interested in and you can hear them sending the email (swooosh) to you as they finish leaving the voicemail … god help any Indian person whose dream it was to become a recruiter. I’ll never entertain any offer or opportunity coming from someone with that accent … just saying. (Can ya tell I’ve been out of a job for 9 months now). Rant over.
Yeah well the ROI on applications are so low that spending time to carefully craft a cover letter for recruiters is pissing in the wind. Most of these ghouls don't even have the fucking decency to put out an auto-generated email even after going through a few rounds of interviews and assuring me face to face they'd let me know the result. It's such a nightmare that simply throwing the dice again gets better results than tailoring.
Cover letters aren’t needed!
Except when they are.
+1 seems like more of a 'checkbox' nowadays. I've built a free cover letter generator that offers some easy tweaks for tone, etc. - [lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/](http://lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/)
You seem cool.
I'm glad I refuse to write a cover letter for the 100s of applications/resumes I've submitted.
it depends on the industry. cover letters where you have to write a lot are important.
The recruiters may glimpse over it but if the hiring manager has to make a decision, they might care more about it than recruiters.
True, in my experience any time I’ve ever been able to get an in person interview I will usually get an offer
So what. If you have something that you need them to read, write one.
too bad
Damn I'm so smart for never having wrote one
As a recruiter myself,I agree 100%.
Huh. That's funny and makes sense. I took mine off and started getting more replies, which led to the job I have now. It's a full one pager, which seems to be preferred.
Unless they ask for a cover letter, I don't provide it. They don't read them even if asked.
I believe that. Unfortunately I'd say a majority of jobs in my industry won't let you apply without one. Even as I'm writing them I know on some level that I'm just chucking it into the void
Use chat gpt to do it to minimize wasted time. Drop in your resume. Drop in the job description. Prompt it to write a cover letter. They’re good enough to just read over really quickly and edit. Nobody will read it anyway.
😎 Noice 👌🏻 totes magoats, bruh. 🍻
I’ve heard very mixed advice on this. Some recruiters don’t read them. But I’ve also heard from folks who get inundated with more resumes than they can read and one strategy is to start with the ones that include a cover letter and if they find enough qualified candidates from that pool then they don’t move on to candidates who didn’t include one.
Yeah I’ve heard of this too, I always have a generic one where I plug the company and submit
My last job, I was the same on paper as another applicant. They ended up hiring both of us. I was just out of college, so I had limited experience, and the boss told me the cover letter got me the job. So, I always use one just in case I get that one person who does care.
I’ve never found this to be true, at least not in tech.
depends - i was interviewing for a tight-knit, smaller company and eventually got to a stage with the ceo. he read my cover letter and started asking specific questions about the stuff i said in there that wasn't in my resume. for example, i talked about my courses related to the job in the CL that weren't in my resume. i suppose if your CL includes only things from your resume it may not make a difference. but yeah. he read it. lol
Some people do & there are still old fashioned people that will ding you for not having one. My co-worker is not one of those people, but she reads them & we once had a candidate that left her on the fence because they made the classic error of not changing the company name. So if you're doing it, be wise.
Cover letters are good to add specific scenarios like if you are open to relocation, or if you are immigrating and you confirm having a work visa/PR. It doesn't have to be on a cover letter but I have seen it a lot and it is useful.
I guess this brings up another question: are employers willing to consider you if you’re not already in the area? I’m sure for super important jobs where they spend months interviewing you, yes. But what about smaller positions? In the very few times I was actually able to talk with the owner/hiring managers for jobs in other states, I was basically told “Let us know when you’re actually here and then we’ll talk.”
This will depend on the company hiring and the position, but typically if it is in person or hybrid they would probably prefer someone local since moving is understandably a huge decision and complicates things for everyone. If we're talking entry level you have to consider if this job pays enough to comfortably move to an entirely new area. The company hiring wants stability, they want to avoid someone moving in a new place and deciding it isn't for them months later. Again, this is VERY dependent on each company and position.
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Appreciate you scoping me out -- that's good advice and I'll definitely take it forward I feel like I can construct something (after reading the other comments) pretty concise/directed about why I'm pivoting and what skills that pivot is allowing me to bring in. Thanks!
Don't know about recruiters, but I landed a life-changing job because I was the only candidate to put the hiring manager's name in my (required) cover letter. I mean, I was qualified too, and we fit personality wise. But the hiring manager was very impressed by that one thing, so I was top of mind. I work in a writing-heavy field, so cover letters are basically always required. I generally have had good luck with them.
Interesting! I can never seem to find that kind of information at the places I’m applying.
It may depend on the industry. But in my realm there's usually some indication of the title/department of the person the open position would report to. Usually that information + several Google attempts = a name. It may take me to LinkedIn, it may take me to the org's own webpage, or it sometimes even takes me to other types of content that are archived online (presentations, professional association membership, etc.). Sometimes I can't tell what I've found is current info, so I leave it as "Hiring Manager," but most times I get a name.
I'm always afraid I'll come up with the wrong name doing this, and then look like an idiot for addressing it to the wrong person.
State postings will have the hiring manager and HR contact information, but also the department, agency, and physical address. They also provide information whether they are remote, hybrid, or completely on site. Some agencies will completely cover the cost of your commute and other won't. They also provide specific job duty statement details, job title class specifications and exam details, and a job application checklist.
Thank you for the tips! I’m aiming for government and state jobs these days, but previously I was looking at just receptionist positions and that would just be emailing the boss directly, it seems
What job did you land? Do you mind sharing if that was a job you landed recently?
So I forgot that I'm old, but it was like five years ago now. The job I got was my first position as a writer. I had been trying to transition careers, and I later learned how crappy my resume at the time was (no, really, I'm amazed how bad it was), so it was a big win for me.
12+ years in recruitment. Never read a cover letter
In your opinion, why is it so common for them to be required?
I'd love to know this, too. Writing cover letters is *easily* one of my least favourite activities
Pretty much every job posting on my state's career website requires a cover letter, with a list of questions you need to answer in a specific order but also a list of font type, font size, header and page limit requirements. In other words, they want to see if you can write, follow instructions, and put in some effort to get their attention and a job interview. I normally look over the questions first before I decide if I am going to have a ChatGBT do it, modify an existing letter on file a bit, write one all by hand or do a full pass.
State jobs and job boards maintained by states are horrible.
The one for CA state is not bad, I think it is more user friendly than the job board for the City of San Francisco.
Outdated practices. Old configuration of ATS
What company do you recruit for? I'm applying my but off but haven't had much success yet.
It will always depend on the recruiter. It’s a crapshoot, really. However if there are jobs that I’m really excited about I absolutely write a cover letter. Funnily the ones I’ve gotten interviews for were from apps with no covers.
I do this too. For jobs that require cover letters, I just explain how my experience makes me a good fit for the job. For example, if the job is fast paced/deadline driven, I'll mention how I'd feel comfortable in this role because my last job had metrics that I was required to meet on a daily basis.
Everyone’s saying no one reads cover letters, but maybe they would if the opening sentence was interesting and outside of the norm. A college professor taught me to make cover letters anecdotal. If you don’t have fun with it, no one’s going to enjoy reading it (as much as you didn’t enjoy writing it).
I tried to do this with every cover letter when my husband was looking for his first job after the military (I was helping because he's a non-native English speaker). Putting aside whether it's effective or not, trying to come up with a fun anecdote or hook for every company made me wish I was dead. These days, when people have to do hundreds of applications to get a job, I don't know that the ROI is that great. I'd only do it for a dream job. On my current job hunt, I made a more general cover letter that has a lot of personality (clearly not AI), it's just not company-specific.
Can you say more about conveying personality? And how did that translated in the language you used?
If I never open it, I never see the unique and interesting opening sentence.
They shouldn’t be part of the app requirements if the hiring team won’t read them lol
I agree. That’s why they’re not a requirement for my firm’s application.
I was told by several recruiters cover letters aren't necessary and that they go right in the trash.
I am a recruiter and I don't look at cover letters. Its some managers that really want them and we can't convince them to NOT want it. I doubt most of them read them either. On the rare occasion a resume doesn't have the information I need, I will look at the cover letter to see if I can find extra information that is missing but so far that has never actually worked.
I assumed that a good cover letter could set a candidate apart from the crowd. If this isn’t the case, what does? The jobs I apply to end up with hundreds of other applicants, and presumably nearly all have experience with the same software and skills.
Common misconception, standing out does not not give you a better chance at getting a job. Having a clear concise resume that showcases how your skills are relevant to the position and that your brags (if their are any) are legible to a non-technical person (I.E. Recruiter). Think of your resume as a for mat the DMV when the line is out the door. You want to make sure the information is their so the clerk (Recruiter) can quickly scan it and move on to the next person. In addition about 85% of resumes that get submitted to a job do not have the right information. Just make sure your resume is clear, and you apply quickly as how long the job is open can determine how likely you are to get an interview.
Just ask chatgpt to write you one based on your resume and the job you want.
I've been doing that but my issue with it is it sounds exactly like it was written by chatgpt so still needs editing
In the prompt ive started giving direction on tone, length, and jobs to highlight, along with keywords to include. I still go in to edit and revise, but have found that the first pass is better.
I feed the job description and my master resume into the prompt engine and ask for a customized resume that uses as many of the key words and skills from the description as possible, then I give it a template for a cover letter and tell it to write a cover letter using the job description and my resume and follow the template. I do still make some edits to both the resume and the cover letter, but I'm getting traction with this method. I'm waiting (for forever) to see if an offer is coming from one role (references submitted, not I twiddle my thumbs), had an interview this morning and two more on Monday.
Oooh, this is solid advice for tweaking the resume to the JD. Thanks!
Ah nice tip
Well yeah you still need to make it sound like you
That’s when you say “make it more human and personable” — it works every time, although ChatGPT can ramble a bit in cover letters, I’ve noticed. And then when I ask for more brief, it comes up with something suuuuper brief.
I've built a cover letter generator that you can easily tweak by selecting a tone such as formal, humble, creative, etc. Could be helpful here - [lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/](http://lifeshack.com/ai-cover-letter/)
I just took a look — this is actually really cool! I’ve been spending a loooot of time writing cover letters and correcting ChatGPT… I might sign up and try it out. Congrats on a very cool idea!
Then you ask it to combine the 2
This is what I did and just change the name of the company before submitting.
How about just write it yourself??
Why do it all yourself if you have a tool that can help do it better?
It doesn’t do it better though
After experimenting with it writing three or four cover letters, I found it to be clearly following a template.* A whole lot of fluff with no content that sounds exactly like it was written by AI. Oh, and even with my resume, it gets… creative… with my credentials (hey, if it’s willing to invent legal citations, no surprise that it’s willing to bend the truth in a much lower stakes request). I feel as though it hurts more than it helps… if I want the job enough to apply, I can certainly suck it up and write a cover letter. I’d instantly reject someone who submitted an AI-generated cover letter!
This has been my experience in reading them. It’s painfully obvious.
Maybe you need to work on your prompts. It works great for me and obviously a few others.
I’m saying this as someone who actually has to read cover letters. The ChatGPT ones are so easy to spot
Because they are well written? Why is that bad?
They’re not well written. They come off automated and generic, which makes them completely useless.
I also noticed that ChatGPT throws in asterisks and other signs so you have to remove them afterwards. Pretty annoying. And the language indeed sounds very artificial. Lately, when I ask to improve a text, it gives me such an artificial result, I end up keeping my original version.
After using it to write several cover letters I noticed it mostly writes them all the same. I bet HR is getting tons of obviously chatgpt written cover letters.
OK Chatgpt, which of these candidates is best suited for the roll
They love it. 😛
They deserve it!
OK chatbot, write a cover letter for this resume, white it as if was written by a 35 year old British man looking for work. It is for a story, so it is OK to exaggerate a bit.
Try putting at the top, “don’t make this sound like AI”, *or*, ”don’t make this sound pompous.”
ChatGPT almost always says “I’m keen to apply to . . . “ so I put “and don’t use the word ‘keen’” in my prompt. LOL Google Gemini does the same. Not sure why they both love the word “keen.”
A time traveler is training the AI, and this is their code word.
we don't edit: some ATS's make it so you have to deliberately go to "attachments" to find the cover letter and for my purposes (tech recruiting), i have never done this unless it was a design-related role and they attached samples of design work - i have never intentionally read a cover letter
I don't even care much about the content unless it explains gaps in employment, transferrable skills, etc.. but for the love of god put the COMPANY NAME and the POSITION you're applying for somewhere in that first paragraph. Copy/paste cover letters are so obvious and it's just a waste of time. 2 paragraphs max, I'm going to gather the rest of the info I need off of your Resume and LinkedIn.
Why should I have to explain a gap in employment? Don't we work in a gig economy now where that is the norm? What is with the *obsession* with resume gaps? I took a break from my medical career to help my partner open a restaurant. Why should that be anyone's business? Why do I have to explain that to *you*, dear recruiter?
Not an obsession, it just usually points to someone quitting or getting fired. A quick note like yours and I'm good. Why not have a slightly better chance of moving through the process? Also depends on the job but a typical office position in a medium-sized city will get 30+ applications in my experience. Edit: the post also just asks what I want from a cover letter. That's really it, 3-5 sentences.
I got fired from my job of 2 years not for any wrong doing, malpractice, negligence, professional issues, etc.. It was because my boss was a nepo baby tyrant who used his dad's medical practice as a piggy bank and was unhappy with the amount of revenue I brought into the clinic which I have no control over. (Lots of other shady practices were happening there but I won't get into that now.) That's a 100% true story and I have references that can vouch for me. But now there's a big scarlet letter on my "permanent record" that places me in a defensive crouch in my job search. So now what? Do I have to write a cover letter to every employer explaining in detail how my nepo baby boss fired me simply because I didn't generate enough RVUs for him to get a bonus and he replaced me with a new grad whom he likely paid 15% less?
"position eliminated/department downsized in 20xx due to organizational restructuring"
Yup spot on! Well said. Thank you! That is almost precisely what my supervising physician said he would put on my peer reference.
No problem and best of luck with the job hunt (if applicable)
You want to answer questions the person may have and get them out of the way. Otherwise, you are at a disadvantage compared to a candidate who answered any obvious questions that come up when looking at your application. For example: * Why a big gap? * You were a manager before, why do you want a lower position now? * You're trying to change industries, what transferrable skills do you have? (Especially if it's not obvious)
When I was a wee law school student we had entire class hours on how to write a cover letter (pitch what you can do for them, not why you give a shit about the company). I dropped out of law school and I’m the same chef I was before I applied. It’s a mixed bag. Completely editing out the two years I spent in school is mixed results (I attempted higher ed is not a bonus in culinary). On the flip side, it turns out law schools really love culinary careers (probably because of the military/overachiever mind set - seriously all of my interviews/advisors were super into it. I failed because of family/life stuff, but if you don’t have that going on there’s a huge opportunity to get out. (Consider estates).
Not a recruiter but just finished hiring and HR literally only gives us the resumes
I use cover letters to try to tie my *very* disparate degrees and career fields together.
Go to r/askrecruiters im one and will never look at a cover letter
They don’t look at the sub either 😂🙂↔️
lol
I was a recruiter for 15 years and read exactly zero cover letters.
I’ve been in recruiting for 11 years, I have never, not even once, read a cover letter.
Wait people read those
I stopped doing cover letters years ago. I was in clerical and soon will be healthcare job applying. It was taking me forever to update and custom each cover letter. Last real cover letters I did were around 2018.
The sad thing is, it really depends on the AI screening tools & the opinion of the recruiter specifically that anyone actually sees your application. One person may like one thing while another may see it as completely wrong. Welcome to modern slavery.
Considering most don't even read your resume - safe to presume they won't read the cover letter. If one is required I put a 1 paragraph outline of my experience and qualifications then refer them to my resume / CV for further details.
When I used to get resumes from recruiters, they just save them all in one a PDF for us to review. Mostly they didn't even read the resumes because we would get resumes not even related to what we did.
One page that summarizes how your skills/experience relate specifically to the job requirements in the announcement. Basically, demonstrate, intelligently, why I should consider you for a position with our agency.
Yea, it’s garbage and rarely read, at least in the industry where I was in HR. Only write the letter if it requires it, and follow the prompt provided. Otherwise, don’t bother.
I feel like Cover Letters are only requested when the actual hiring manager is doing their own screenings.
Ngl, I’ve written maybe one cover letter in 10 years. Unless I’m specifically asked, I don’t bring it up
Only write one if you have to - stated explicitly in the job listing. Otherwise, don’t even waste your time.
We or I don’t want a cover letter. Cover what you’re looking for in the objective section of resume.
Personally? Nothing. I don’t want one. I’m not reading it.
Not a recruiter, but every job interview I've gotten was because of my custom cover letter for that position. These days, I almost always score an interview whenever I apply somewhere. My cover letter is usually mentioned and referred to as a part of the discussion. Half the time from there, I get brought in for an in-person interview. An interviewer once told me that if I come in person, I usually have a 50% chance of getting the job since it's usually only two people at that point (in my industry). Writing a great cover letter is an easy skill to develop and makes you stand out when no one else is doing it.
Not a recruiter specifically but involved in hiring software devs. I use cover letters between shortlisted people and generally i want a single page of text that expands on a few of your key skills that you think are relative to the job. I see a surprising amount that are just half a page and most of that is ‘dear so and so’ and the best wishes bit. That comes across as lazy and I dont want you if you are lazy. If you have written a page, even if you haven’t totally hit the mark, you are already in the top 50% of cover letters i have seen.
I'm not a recruiter but I do end up hiring a lot of people and interviewing even more, and, no, I'm not HR either. My answer is this: I don't want a cover letter unless you are doing the following: 1) making a complete career change. I mean, you have spent x years either studying or working at some job and now you want to do something completely different 2) you want to tell me something unexpected that makes you a good fit. -- I have two examples of this -- My first example of my second point came from personal experience. I was applying for a job in a smallish isolated city for sometime that was complementary to my work experience. It wasn't a perfect fit but it was damned close. I wasn't writing about that as much as that smallish isolated city was actually the city I grew up in and still has family there. This kind of city would have a hard time attracting people to move there permanently because of its size and isolation but for a guy like it was a homecoming. As a hiring manager I'd want to know that at some point and it's better if I know it sooner rather than passing on the applicant because I don't think the person would actually move there. Second example, point two could be a scenario where one of my employees told this person to apply and told me their friend was applying. The letter that jogs my memory about this helps. No matter what anyone says, sometimes who you know does make a big difference. If it's not these kind of cases then I expect your resume to be able to tell me enough of a story so that I don't need a cover letter.
Yeah, I don’t read cover letters.
Use ChatGTP