Writing The Cover Letter: Fill & Download for Free

I don’t think hiring managers read cover letters much, because they are qualified to evaluate the resume. I think of the cover letter as the first stage of a rocket, boosting your resume past the other gatekeepers and into the hands of the hiring manager.When I write a cover letter, it’s a bullet list of the job requirements, matched to my skills and experience that satisfy each one. When I started writing cover letters in that way is when I started getting screening interviews routinely.

I caught a number of lawyer resumes and cover letters that had obviously been churned out by the same mill. The cover letters were word-for-word identical.I wrote a standard response, noting that it was obvious what had happened, and therefore I could only conclude that the applicant’s own work product was so bad that they preferred to send an easily determined mass product rather than their own work.I noted that as lawyers, they would have to generate their own work product and take full responsibility for it, and that they needed to do so at the outset.I must have written dozens of these responses. Only one of the applicants had the guts to write back, apologize, and ask if there was any chance for an interview. I gave that person an interview. They weren’t suitable for my firm but I gave the applicant some tips that helped them. But I felt it was imperative to acknowledge the belated demonstration of character and encourage it.

As a headhunter since I was 23 and now owner of my own recruitment agency, the answer to this question is NO 99% of the time.Here’s why:#1. The cover letter is an outdated legacy process to job applications that is no longer relevant or useful.As a modern day job seeker, candidates need to understand first of all the origin of why a cover letter exists. Back in the day, before the internet existed, everyone needed to read the newspaper for roles available and apply by literally faxing and mailing letters with resumes attached and, lo and behold, the cover letter.Of course sending in a random resume would be weird and out of context, so a cover letter was created to explain what was going on. Fast forward 50, 20 years, we no longer need cover letters because we have a MULTITUDE of sources to get a feel of who a candidate is and obviously the internet substitutes the need to write a diligent letter upon every application.#2. Other than the one or two hiring managers who like to read cover letters, the rest of them (recruiters included) have zero time to read every letter.Here and there, you’ll hear of a hiring manager who lauds and praises how a cover letter changed the candidate’s perception or was so critical to a candidate being hired. That’s called hype, folks. In the real world, NOBODY reads these things. It’s a complete waste of time.If I wanted to interview a candidate, the first thing I do is ignore the self-proclamations of awesomeness and go straight to the internet (surprise, surprise), hop onto LinkedIn and bam, that tells me a LOT more about a person than what they write.The main reason why so many people in a hiring capacity are NOT reading cover letters is 100% related to the speed at which modern corporate cultures work. Everyone is so stressed, running low on time, and in a rush to hire, that they’re not going to carefully dissect cover letters. In the real world, you’re lucky if your interviewer really studied your profile. Sadly, in many cases, interviewers are so harried they’re literally just refreshing their mind immediately at the interview with you and they’ll repeat themselves more often than not.TIP: Many junior hiring managers (or old school hiring managers) are excited to read cover letters, but again, that’s not the norm. Most HR staff/internal recruiters, hiring managers, headhunters, and even colleagues will not read cover letters, the resume (and LinkedIn profile) is much more important.#3. A cover letter is not indicative of anything other than the ability of someone to write one document that is hopefully coherent.Other than the skill of writing one cover letter, a cover letter doesn’t really prove anything about a candidate. Worse yet, God forbid if you have spelling or grammatical errors in your cover letter, that actually hurts you a LOT more than it helps you.Similarly, if your reader just doesn’t like the way you write, you’ll end up really screwing yourself over if your reader infers all types of incorrect assumptions about you based on what you wrote about. Don’t forget, unconscious bias, personal views, play such a big part in the job-getting process that you really want to limit issues on that front.Again, due to the limited use and outdated nature of what a cover letter is used for, there really is no utilitarian purpose this document can do so don’t waste too much of your time with this. Keep it as simple as possible.What does this mean for you, the candidate?Knowing how the job ecosystem works, it’s not like you have a choice about the cover letter subject, ESPECIALLY if you’re a new grad or a job-seeker mainly using portals to apply for jobs. It’s a mandatory field for the most part that you’ll need to either attach or copy-and-paste the cover letter in the portal to continue along the online application process.Only candidates being represented by headhunters like myself that are highly prospected and sought out by employers in extremely candidate-tight markets, can bypass all these steps. Recruiters will submit your resume directly to the hiring manager. I don’t know about other recruiters, but nobody I know in my industry (and I recruit recruiters for a living) EVER sends out a single cover letter. I certainly didn’t.Why don’t recruiters submit cover letters of their candidates to their client, the hiring manager?It’s because it’s our job to screen the candidate and write the coversheet that summarizes our findings. It’s in our words, not in the candidates’ own words. The client who is the hiring manager ultimately who will hire the candidate, wants to understand what we covered in our interview process. They don’t want to read all these self-written self-promoting documents. They want to understand the candidate’s story from our vantage point after the interview.So recruiters will submit the resume, a coversheet that go overs key points (they should, some don’t bother), and also a write-up that summarizes why you think the candidate is a strong one, worth interviewing. Most times, candidates who are prospected by recruiters in such hot demand that they can bypass every step, and again as long as they’re willing to talk, they can just use the LinkedIn profile in lieu of both the resume and the cover letter.NOTE: Sometimes, it’s like pulling teeth to get candidates to send their resumes. Most recruiters just end up doing whatever they can to get the interview booked, with or without the resume. If you ask a top candidate to write a cover letter, you may just get laughed out of the room. These top candidates in their fields don’t have any extra time to write college-level essays that junior candidates or the unemployed must do. I (nor any colleagues of mine or my team) don’t ever dare to ask, let alone submit, cover letters.In certain markets where there just aren’t enough talented niche specialists, our clients will literally say to us, “we’re so desperate for candidates, you don’t even need to send me their resume, just send me their LinkedIn profile and we’ll interview.” This has happened so many times, it’s almost the rule, not the exception.However, most candidates are not in a position that they’re being highly sought after by legions of recruiters, thus you need to be prepared how to work each step of the recruitment process.What should you do in regards to the Cover Letter?The best strategy here is to toe the line and write a solid, basic cover letter that provides as little information as possible. Don’t write an essay, it is sure to be ignored most of the time. Again, worse yet, it can hurt you if it’s egregiously long-winded, self-aggrandizing, or just irrelevant to the task at hand that the employer is looking to hire for.Write a simple cover letter according to the how-to here and just get on with the rest of your application portfolio. Build out your LinkedIn profile, obtain LinkedIn recommendations, create an amazing resume, and send out as MANY reachouts as you can directly through LinkedIn to direct hiring managers. If you qualify for recruiter representation, leverage them as well.TIP: In most cases, if you’re to be represented by recruiters, they would have already reached out to you assuming you are searchable via LinkedIn with the right title/profile built out. If headhunters haven’t already tried to solicit you, it could very well be that there aren’t a ton of recruitment agencies operating in your job type/skillset/career level/location to help represent you. Headhunters don’t exist in all markets, in fact, it’s more often than not that they don’t exist in most markets.In ConclusionThere’s the mumbo-jumbo la-la-land advice that most schools, teachers, educators, theory-based recruitment “experts” will present to you as the gospel when it comes to careers and job stuff.But the real world usually is completely different. You’re better off utilizing your time to build up your job experience, learn communication skills, written prowess to write strong content for your resume and LinkedIn and to learn how to use LinkedIn and direct reachouts to engage in creating phone calls. That’s the real opportunity to increase your odds of finding a job by selling yourself verbally to present yourself as a cut above the rest.