Cursed Cover Letters! Who Needs 'Em?

#Coverletters. People hate them yet we are consistently told that they are necessary when sending in a resume to apply for a job.

So, does anyone REALLY read them?

Funnily enough, this was a recent post to an online recruiters' group.

The consensus on this dreaded part of the #jobsearch was clear.

No one could agree.

Some recruiters saw cover letters as a throw-away.

Others saw them as a vital tool for providing insights to business writing and how candidates communicate.

Still other recruiters said they look for how the job seeker connects their background to the hiring need.

With that information, where does that leave us with respect to cover letters?

Answer: In the same place. 

They are still expected by some #recruiters, and until (and if/when) job search processes are standardized, job seekers are still playing a game of trying to guess what each hiring manager or recruiter's hot buttons / expectations might be regarding #coverletters.

So be prepared to keep writing cover letters and know that sometimes they are read, and other times, they are not. 

You don't want to go to all the trouble of preparing your #resume and sending it in to make the misstep of not sending a cover letter as well.

Missed expectations always mean missed opportunities.

As much as everyone hates writing cover letters, it's still considered business etiquette and it's better to err on the side of caution than to miss the opportunity altogether.