Yes, certainly depends on context. If it's a job that involves a lot of clear, compelling communication, such as management, marketing or even design, it makes more sense than for 'pure' programming. Having said that, unfortunately some candidates object to cover letters, others object to CVs, others object to programming tests, others object to IRL in-person interviews, others object to you asking if they have any side-projects or open-source you might look at, some object to hiring based on personal references, others object to highly structured processes. Some appear to object to all of the above. Whenever I hire I try really hard to make the recruitment process make sense for those applying, and yet I've come to accept that you can never please everybody.