memes

I'm Australian and was always told the cover letter was unnecessary, especially if your CV has a bio.

The cover letter was for additional information not covered by the resume - name dropping the manager at the company you know who inspired you to apply, explaining why it appears your changing industries, justifying "overqualifications", mentioning a personal hobby that's relevant to the industry and isn't technical work experience.

Basically the things you plan to bring up in the interview to wow them, you can introduce them while introducing yourself in a cover letter.

But if your resume lines up with the position description, you don't need a cover letter.

Basically I was told a cover letter is necessary when you're a burnt out nurse or teacher applying to be a cashier at kmart to avoid having your resume immediately thrown out.

That said. I've literally never written one, even as a serial industry hopper. If there's no email address to send my resume too, then the system is too auto for a cover letter and they don't want to read it anyway, if there is an email address, just include a few lines of a short cover letter in the body text of the email before attaching your resume.

It isn't a thing in the US anymore either.

It's totally a thing here too. I've been asked for one when I apply for a job.

Double twist:

Just go work for the AI

Nobody in my industry bothers to read them. You'd be lucky if they spend more than a minute on the resume so they're a waste of time.

I think cover letters are still absolutely relevant to the job process.

Nope.

Interesting. I'm a hiring manager, and I've seen many cover letters that actually hurt the candidate because they have typographical errors, poor grammar, or are addressed to a different organization entirely. Probably 85% of cover letters I see do no harm; most of the rest hurt the candidate. The way you're describing a cover letter sounds like it would be beneficial, but I don't see ones like that very often. I definitely would appreciate that you took the time to tailor it to us.

My advice for everyone is, if you're going to write a cover letter, proofread it just like the resume. If you're short on time, focus on the resume and skip the cover letter (if you can - they might be required for some applications). I definitely notice a sloppy cover letter, so not having a cover letter will hurt far, far less than a sloppy one.

I wouldn't toss someone's application just because their cover letter had a typographical error in it, especially if the candidate is otherwise well qualified. But, if I'm borderline on whether I want to interview someone, and the cover letter is sloppy, I'm probably going to pass. We're pretty detail-oriented, and a sloppy cover letter makes me worry about the details.

if indeed doesn't allow me to quick apply, it's gotta be a dream job to even want to go to their site and do even more work.

Yeah, about that cover sheet. Did you not get the memo? We're putting new cover sheets on all the applications now, mmmkay? If you could just do that from now, that'd be great.

I've worked for several big corps have never seen anything like that.

Jesus that sounds so demeaning. I haven't had to apply for a job in about 15 years now. All networking, and I was poached and offered my current job. Union now, so I'm set. I don't remember having to jump through so many hoops when I was younger and applying for a job, but recently I passed by a Wendy's and there must have been 50 people lined up outside with resumes because there was a job posting. That many people for one burger job, that's hard times.