Chief
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Chief
Cover letters are fluff nonsense in this day and age, especially when there's so much automation around the selection process. If they really want one, I give them my standard-issue template letter.
Nope. Almost never. Unless it’s a position that I’m really excited about and really want to work there. If it’s just another role on LinkedIn, I don’t bother. Even if they ask for it or require it, I skip it. I write something clever in that field to let them know I saw the request. If that’s a deal breaker, I don’t want to work there then anyways.
I have a standard letter that I update with company and job details. A cover letter is meant to be a broad overview, which lends itself to the need for less tailoring.
I was doing it at first but ended up stopping. I had several recruiters tell me they don’t even have the time to review them with all the amounts of resumes received. Not sure if it’s really true but I have continued to get interviews without submitting one.
lol
I’d still do cover letters for the jobs you actually care about, but I wouldn’t spend 45 mins rewriting one for every single app. If the role is a quick apply and the company is huge, I’d usually skip the full custom letter and just focus on a tight resume tweak + a few lines that hit their stack and team needs.
In tech, the bigger bottleneck is usually your resume getting skimmed by ATS before anybody reads the rest anyway. I’ve had way better luck tailoring the top third of the resume to the posting than sweating the cover letter, tbh.
If you want to save time, I’d make 2-3 cover letter templates max, then swap in company/product specifics only when the job is actually worth the effort. I’ve also used ResumeJudge to sanity-check whether my resume is even matching the JD before I bother with a letter, which saves a ton of pointless customizing.
Do you mean roles at big ATS-heavy companies, or smaller startups where a human is more likely to read the whole thing?
Haha imagine thinking humans read anything in 2026 hiring process 😂
The only interview I got recently I didn’t submit a cover letter
50/50 but honestly thats probably being generous. The jobs that really stand out that I REALLY want and develop excitement for I often do just on the off chance that it matters and helps me stand out of the pack but I think I agree with a lot of what is said below. It seems like no one reads them and they are just filtered through AI. I think we need to instill a guaranteed auto reply system that says that your resume was received but that it did not proceed further. Even the generic "we're moving on with other applicants" would be fine I get that response SO rarely its maddening. I'd LOVE to know why I am not being selected but I know that takes too much effort to do with so many applicants to each job.
I’m not…maybe it’s hurting me but I did get 2 first round interviews recently. Return on time doesn’t seem to be there, but if you’re unemployed it’s probably worth it lol
It’s one more way to present your skills. Someone who writes it may get a leg up. Given you have posted a million times about being unemployed and not getting offers, perhaps start putting some effort on it than on social media
If I’m applying to a role my where the experience on my resume matched the job description, I don’t include a cover letter.
In the past I’ve found cover letters most beneficial when I was pivoting to a new role/industry.
I went with a professional summary that highlights key skills & made it the first page of my resume. Package deal. For some separate it or do a cover, usually not.
How come I’m not getting any interviews? I have 7 years of lead experience, is that not enough?
Chief
You're competing in the most brutal tech market ever seen. There are thousands of highly qualified people out there applying to the same jobs you are.
Enthusiast
I've never written a cover letter in my life outside of high school. And if a job application had it as a required field, I paste my resume in.
I've been hiring people for over a decade, and I've never read a cover letter if they include one.
So I created 3 cover letters for tech based, dev based and both based. After about 100 applications I realized I just used the combined both based style for all of the submissions. I then realized that all it's used for is keyword generation and I doubt these cover letters or applications are even seen by a human anymore. I think all that's now seen is a list of matched keywords with an artificially created brief summary and probably a one word statement by AI to HR, "is this person hireable?" And then HR sees "Nope".
If it's a slow day, an AI tool can make one if the role is better than most, but usually, no. I'm seeing job descriptions that don't list any sort of compensation range, expected working hours, technologies used, or better yet, outdated technologies, and then ask me how much I desire. I desire way more than I will ever get in their crappy role. I sure as hell don't want $15/hr or to be working on Windows 7 or to be on call or 3rd shift. It's amazing the experience they want, yet won't think of a decent starting pay.
I just make my own model of a cover letter and replace a few words in it and done.
Still haven't found anything yet