Why I Hate Cover Letters And Why Job Seekers Should Hate Them Too

Who out there thinks cover letters suck? I do ... how about you?

Well, it turns out that most hiring managers and recruiters don't like them either.

Here are a few reasons why I?hate?cover?letters, hiring managers hate them and you should too:

• Cover Letters Distract Your Reader:?According to many recent studies, cover letters distract your reader from the document that 97% of employers use to decide if they'll give you an interview ... your resume. Since employers make this decision in an average 15 seconds, your reader can only do a quick skim of most resumes and a second document is a distraction that hurts your chances at getting the interview. Your cover letter keeps employers' attention away from the document they believe contain your features/benefits as a candidate ... again, it's your resume.
• Cover Letters Are Rarely Keyword Searched By ATSs:?ATS executives shared that employers almost never set up their Applicant Tracking Systems to search more than one document ... and that document is the resume. This is why recruiters will regularly say "If it's not on your resume, it doesn't exist".
• They No Longer Serve A Purpose:?Cover letters made sense when you had to take your resume to a print shop to have it printed, because when you took it to Kinko's you got a box of printed resumes that you couldn't change for an individual employer's needs. But that changed about 30 years ago when high-quality word processing apps and high-quality printers became affordable. Since then, resumes could be easily customized to meet the hiring manager's individual needs, so the cover letter no longer served its purpose. Now, even when emailed, cover letters are an obsolete relic of pre-digital age that only distract your reader's attention and hurt your chances to get interviews.

But cover letters are still recommended by many career coaches and resume writers, who sell cover letters services. Outplacement firms teach traditional job search, rather than give cutting edge advice (Your ex-employer paid an outplacement firm to?discourage?you from suing them, not to find you a job).

When employers require cover letters in job descriptions or application process, it's almost always because of boilerplate language or processes to satisfy the very few hiring managers that actually want cover letters. So they ask all candidates to submit, even for the hiring managers who don't want to see them.

There's a more effective solution to deal with this cover letter problem when they are requested or required by employers, and I'll show you in my next free webinar.

I help people solve the most difficult job search problems, including job search acceleration, getting past ATSs, ageism, remote positions, product/job function/career/industry/ geographic change, unemployment, "bouncy" recent career path, job search turnaround, seeking raise/promotion, industry in decline/consolidation, long term gaps, family leave, or other of the most challenging job search issues.

Join me for my next free Resume Webinar (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/register for no charge) and learn how to accelerate your job search, so you can find your next job faster in 2023.

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