Are Cover Letters a Waste of Time?
I have done a fair amount of research on the declining value of cover letters over the last 15 years or so. Much of the insight shared here comes directly from hiring managers and senior HR folks who have typically represented both the employer and job seeker points of view.
Overwhelming evidence suggests that very few people read cover letters. But saying very few read them is not the same thing as saying that no one reads them or that they play zero role in helping job seekers get interviews.
Humanitarian sectors, such as education and nonprofits, still value cover letters because it is important that a candidate demonstrates a passion for the mission and is seen as a good cultural fit. Government jobs may require cover letters because governments love paper.
Similarly, jobs in communications or content development may use cover letters as writing samples.
The private sector is an entirely different beast which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employs 85% of US workers. The value of cover letters in this sector is as clear as mud, as there is no way to accurately measure readership.
But I can estimate with great confidence that less than 5% of cover letters targeting the private sector are ever read by anyone. This estimate is based on commonly accepted statistics that show that 75% of applicants are knocked out by computers with an additional 15% eliminated by human screeners.
The purpose of companies using applicant tracking systems is to force rank candidates so that the humans have a way to equitably down-select applicants by matching skills. This matching is almost always done against a resume, not a cover letter. That means that 75% of cover letters never advance beyond the cyber-elimination stage.
While some recruiting/staffing teams do read cover letters, the overwhelming majority will focus only on the resume because it is their job to find candidates who fit the qualifications and who have the least unanswered questions. As with computers, they are going to look at the resume, not the cover letter, to do this. This means that most of the cover letters filtered at this stage (15%) are seen by no one.
I have surveyed hiring managers many times over the last several years to find that very, very few even get cover letters, never mind read them. Indeed, most can’t even tell me if their company has a mechanism to submit them. But a handful do read them. And there is no reliable way of knowing WHICH hiring managers those are!
I have found that the majority of hiring managers who do read cover letters tend to use them as tie breakers, both pro and con. On the positive side, let’s say the screening process reduces the qualified applicant pool from 150 to 15, but the hiring manager only wants to meet six candidates. Some will view the inclusion of a cover letter as a demonstration of more effort and favor that person for the interview.
Unless, of course, the cover letter is a hot mess. Then that candidate is eliminated out of hand.
That is why I suggest a boilerplate strategy when applying to the private sector that enables job seekers to appeal to that 5% without having to invest hours creating content to be ignored. Building a single template that is well constructed and error free is a one-time investment that can pay dividends as the tiebreaker.
Certainly, some employers will balk at the idea of a template. But it is the employers who set up systems designed to eliminate 90% of candidates by matching resume content to their arbitrary set of keywords. It only makes sense that applicants align their effort with likely return.
Smart job seekers therefore need to focus their energy on tailoring the document that 100% of employers will use (the resume) as opposed to what less than 5% may use (the cover letter).
The bottom line is this: if you have unlimited time or run into that dream job for which you need to pull out all the stops, build customized letters. But for most of us, a standardized and well written document with a customized resume will perform much better.
