We’ve been having more applicants just leaving the cover letter section of the application blank or just uploading an identical copy of their resume to the cover letter section. It’s pretty stupid, the cover letter may not be the most important part of the application but it still gives you a chance to make your application stand out more in a positive way, and if you just don’t have one, instead it makes you stand out in a negative way
MrStrange15 on
In my field and my part of the world, if you don’t write a cover letter, you won’t get hired (especially if you’re a young professional). And if you apply for a government job, no one will even look at your application without a cover letter. I’m very envious of this tech/finance/American system, where cover letters are not necessary – or at least where it appears they are not necessary.
But it is also very strange to me that it seems (at least on reddit, and from the few lines I could read in the article) that so many have this idea that a cover letter is one big exercise in ass-kissing. That’s at most one or two lines in mine, the rest is me expanding on how my experience is directly related to that specific job. On the CV it says, simplified, “20xx-20xx at ABC: list of my main responsibilities XYZ”. In the cover letter, I expand on XYZ and angle it towards that specific job, and add any additional tasks I did, that is related to the job.
Additionally, writing a short and to the point cover letter shows that you can be clear and concise. In a lot of fields, this is an important part of the job.
2 Comments
We’ve been having more applicants just leaving the cover letter section of the application blank or just uploading an identical copy of their resume to the cover letter section. It’s pretty stupid, the cover letter may not be the most important part of the application but it still gives you a chance to make your application stand out more in a positive way, and if you just don’t have one, instead it makes you stand out in a negative way
In my field and my part of the world, if you don’t write a cover letter, you won’t get hired (especially if you’re a young professional). And if you apply for a government job, no one will even look at your application without a cover letter. I’m very envious of this tech/finance/American system, where cover letters are not necessary – or at least where it appears they are not necessary.
But it is also very strange to me that it seems (at least on reddit, and from the few lines I could read in the article) that so many have this idea that a cover letter is one big exercise in ass-kissing. That’s at most one or two lines in mine, the rest is me expanding on how my experience is directly related to that specific job. On the CV it says, simplified, “20xx-20xx at ABC: list of my main responsibilities XYZ”. In the cover letter, I expand on XYZ and angle it towards that specific job, and add any additional tasks I did, that is related to the job.
Additionally, writing a short and to the point cover letter shows that you can be clear and concise. In a lot of fields, this is an important part of the job.