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Comment by tsak | Hacker News Reader

I had this happen with an applicant recently, where they fed our job description into ChatGPT to generate a cover letter which was very non-descript and flowery, quoting phrases from the job spec verbatim which made it sound rather insane.

Trying to give the candidate a chance, I asked them why they had a applied to the position in the hopes that they would write me a short answer about what piqued their interest. Alas they chose to use ChatGPT to generate that answer as well, hitting me with another wall of text of mindless bla bla bla.

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> that they would write me a short answer about what piqued their interest

Honest question: do people actually apply to jobs because it piques their interest? I pretty much just... need a job. I'll assess whether I want to join based almost purely on the team - if the team doesn't feel right, I'll skip.

I don't apply for any jobs that require a cover letter. There's already enough information asymmetry and the effort required from the candidate is a lot higher than from the company as the company can distribute the work across multiple employees. A cover letter is a way to shift even more work to the candidate.

I also don’t apply for jobs where I have to write a cover-letter. Last time I was laid off (when I was forced to find a new job), I applied in 2 pools - jobs that piqued my interests and jobs that paid me money so I can live. In the first group, when asked I could easily drone on about the interesting work they publish or whatever. The second group… I could scrap together a smile and a thin lie about how they’re a really impactful place based on what I learned from their homepage.

When applying for jobs because I want a change, not because I need a salary, then yea it’s exclusively applications to interesting companies and teams.

Same.

I assumed cover letters were for non-programmers and that places that demand them are trying to hire programmers with an antiquated/non-programmer interview process, which I interpreted as a red flag.

People who already have a job and are wanting to move will have reasons for wanting a shift (frequently besides just salary).

But that is about leaving the last place, not why I want to work at the next one.

If you have the luxury to choose and are not in the loop of "I need a job by MM/dd otherwise I'm screwed", this is more evident, be it because the business area is more interesting or more aligned to your own values, the product looks great and engaging, you're changing industries, etc.

I was only curious about _why_ the candidate had applied, given the ChatGPT generated cover letter. And a simple "because I am looking for a job and I think I match who you're looking for" would have sufficed in my opinion.

We actually don't require a cover letter in the first place. But if there is one, I'll read it of course.

> Honest question: do people actually apply to jobs because it piques their interest?

Yes? I mean, I have to work somewhere, but I'd prefer to work on problems that I find interesting.

> I don't apply for any jobs that require a cover letter.

Where I work cover letters are optional, and give the candidate a bit of extra space to explain how their experience is relevant to the role.

I find this becomes less and less relevant with seniority: if you are an obvious fit with oodles of experience then the letter won't tell us much. But I find the letters pretty interesting for more junior candidates, or people coming in from different industries.

Honestly can you blame the candidate? Cover letters are barely read and make no difference in the overall selection process, except as a measure of elimination. For a job seeker, a discerning reader like you isn't a priority when he has to apply for 30 other jobs each day with a custom cover letter for each one.

I remember back in recruitment for banking, we simply used to look at stacks of hundreds, maybe thousands, of resumes. Judging HR folks' calibre, I doubt any of them had the time to read and filter through hundreds of cover letters to send the candidates over to us.

The cover letter is a thing of the past and should be eliminated altogether, simply because they have been rendered useless by employers themselves.

This is a natural side-effect of both sides "cheating" to the point that genuine and legitimate efforts are punished and "gaming the system" is encouraged and rewarded. Come to think of it I think it's basically a variant of "tragedy of the commons". In the sense that some actors exploit the weaknesses of the market due to their self-interest and as a result disrupt the signal to noise ratio of the market and damage it for the other participants.

Once this exceeds a certain amount it will accelerate because more and more people reluctantly start gaming the system to avoid the penalty.

The more automation and AI and bulk/mass stuff is thrown into it the worse it will get (since you get to put a multiplier behind any bad behaviour). When it was slower and more expensive to participate in the job market it was better.

You can find parallels to this in other areas such as the dating market.

"Well, it sounds like they've mastered the art of 'Ctrl+C' and 'Ctrl+V'!" *

* generated by ChatGPT itself

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