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Comment by bubblethink | Hacker News Reader

At least in tech circles, I haven't heard of anyone requiring or preferring a cover letter.

I'm a big fan of cover letters. I'll ALWAYS read an applicant who has sent a cover letter, and so in my books it's a good way to stand out from 100s of applicants (that are likely to only get skimmed and thrown out just due to the pure volume). It shows me that you care about the job and haven't just applied to 50 random roles.. not saying that it's bad to apply to lots of roles, but if you're that keen on the job I've posted to write me a cover letter I'll always make sure I read it along with your resume.. and then you loose all the points you've earned if it's clearly an identical cover letter that you've sent to lots of companies and it has nothing to do with this particular role, my company or shows you've done no research on us :)

Why would I do research on you, write a cover letter, and make a tailored resume when you haven’t even considered interviewing me yet?

There’s no job I’m keen enough on to go through all that trouble.

Also because the few times I did actually write something like that it just disappeared into a black hole.

Each to their own. I’d be more than happy to write something for you pre-emptively if I was really keen at exploring your company, but I’m quite picky and also I’m in sales (of sorts) so if I think I have a good pitch or angle/approach that will give me an edge I’ll take it (as opposed to playing the random lottery) - similarly I’ll also see if we have mutual connections on LinkedIn or if I know your investors etc :) … all I’m saying is that people should think about how to improve their odds!

I agree here. It can definitely improve the odds of landing an interview. In my opinion the cover letter should not be part of the standard form filled process though.

If I am reaching out to you Daniel because I think I can add value to your company/team then it makes sense to write a custom introduction email. This can apply to an individual or reaching out to some startup via a contact email. For positions where one is applying through a form on a recruiting website I think the magic is lost at that point. Companies should not be asking for one in the recruiting pipeline. Sure it could help the applicant or the interviewee but in the general case it will just create noise.

Agree it shouldn’t be mandatory to submit a cover letter in the process because that would indeed just be noisy and also defeat my process of checking who goes the extra mile - and as we all know too there are people with so interesting resumes or experiences that they’re likely to get a call/interview no matter whether they attach a cover letter or not! (I still suggest you don’t risk it for jobs you’re really keen on - watch one less Netflix episode that night and write that cover letter! ;)

Not to mention the same game has been played from the HR side. Imagine taking the time to write a beautifully written cover letter only to be filtered by some resume keyword matching software. At this point if you are sending cold resumes it’s completely a numbers game where quantity > quality.

It seems to me that research scientist is a post-postdoc in industry, so all these textboxes for cover letter (or "introduce yourself") are the way for a researcher to say "Here's how my extremely specific research area actually applies to your business objectives"

Depends on where you apply. Universities and national labs probably expect a research statement which can be seen as a cover letter. But that is not something that can be generated by a bot. It will be your personal research statement akin to a grant proposal.

There was a thread the other day where someone claimed to reject applications without cover letters. Although I'm just assuming they were in tech based on them posting here.

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