Do employers really read cover letters? Or am I wasting my time writing them?

[Arkitech]

Thanks for the feedback guys, really informative information in this thread. I decided to also get in touch with an IT recruiter. I sent a resume over to Robert Half Technology this past Thursday, so far I have'nt received a call. I ended up calling them this afternoon and left a VM.

 

[AreaCode707]

Thanks for the feedback guys, really informative information in this thread. I decided to also get in touch with an IT recruiter. I sent a resume over to Robert Half Technology this past Thursday, so far I have'nt received a call. I ended up calling them this afternoon and left a VM.

Did you submit it through their online system? If so, PM me.

 

[sourceninja]

My former employer required a cover letter to apply, but I never saw a letter pass my desk, just the resume.

 

[1sikbITCH]

[theater trailer voiceover]

In a world...
where people still fax their job applications...
ONE MAN.
still takes them seriously.

[/theater trailer voiceover]


OP, if you're applying for a job that requires you to fax your resume, YES, definitely include a cover letter.

I'll note that I worked 3 years doing legal systems for a "large online retailer" so I'm quite familiar with the legal world. And yeah, it's somewhat retro, just not fax-your-resume retro. My favorite was the VP of M&A who still wanted SAT scores for his Assistant GC applicants...

We're a small office and it's just the managing attorney and office manager who do the hiring and they hired me so what's that tell you To their credit they have tried several things attempting to bring their hiring practices more online with the 21st century.

So far it hasn't worked out:

After dealing with a few wackjobs, they once decided to have applicants take a psych profile. They hired a paralegal that passed the psych test. At about 10am on her very first day she spoke to her very first client and she threatened to kill the woman. They tried to make her leave and she screamed that she cannot be fired and she is not leaving. She called the NAACP from her desk phone and told them a redheaded devil (office manager) was trying to kill her and that she is "claiming this business" and needs them to come right away . I believe there was chanting. Cops had to escort her out. I guess after that they went back to reading cover sheets!

 

[bonkers325]

I'm desperately trying to get back into a decent full time job again and I've been diligently crafting what I thought were good cover letters. I had one prospective employer remark that she really liked my cover letter (still didnt get the job though). The other 20-30 I sent out, got no responses. I tried to follow pretty closely to the professional guidelines based on the samples I've read. Then I recently read an article that said because companies now days get so many resumes that in most cases cover letters barely get read. So I'm wondering if it's worth the effort to send them out anymore.

I read all the cover letters just to see if the candidate is using a copy/paste cover letter or if they actually took the 10 or so minutes required to investigate what our firm does and what they have to offer us. If you're willing to dedicate the time to write a few paragraphs from scratch, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and actually go through your resume.

 

[Insomniator]

Cover letters are the most annoying and stupid part of the interview process. I imagine 99% to be the same BS about how great of a fit the position is, slightly tailored to the current company in question.

Everyone wants a job. The reasons are obvious. If the resume stacks up to the requirements requested then offer a real interview. A few BS paragraphs don't say anything about the person applying.

With people desperately applying to 100's of jobs, special customized well thought out researched cover letters are not practical.

 

[sourceninja]

I read all the cover letters just to see if the candidate is using a copy/paste cover letter or if they actually took the 10 or so minutes required to investigate what our firm does and what they have to offer us. If you're willing to dedicate the time to write a few paragraphs from scratch, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and actually go through your resume.

I wrote a program to generate cover letters. Each one looks hand tailored, but in reality I checked a few boxes that say vmware, linux, python, etc. Then I typed your name and clicked on generate.

For one programming position I just sent the program (as source code) as a cover letter. I didn't get a interview so I guess they didn't get the joke.

 

[PingSpike]

I always tailored the cover letter and usually my resume to the position. The challenge is to keep the letter really brief and make each word count because lets face it if its really long they aren't going to even try to read it. I had good luck with this but my area is mostly small companies. I'd imagine large companies have rigid automated hiring processes where the cover letter wouldn't even get read.

 

[shortylickens]

If its short and sweet and written directly to that company, they will most likely read it. In fact it will be read top to bottom unlike a long-ass resume which just gets skimmed over.

 

[alkemyst]

imo, the smaller the company, the more likely someone will read a cover letter

the bigger the company the more likely they either hire through a staffing agency and/or use some resume filtering system

including a cover letter might be one of the filters they are using. who knows whether someone actually reads it but you should still include a cover letter just in case

also the more special you are in your line of work.