An Ineffective and Obsolete Tradition?

by Anita Smerdon - Jan 18,2010

Cover letters may be an obsolete and ineffective tradition in today's job search.

Based on interviews with hundreds of HR Managers & Recruiters, a LinkedIn poll, and interviews with CEOs and VPs of the Top 10 job boards, here are some of the statistics.

• Many Human Resource (HR) staffs don't forward cover letters to hiring managers. Most departments scan resumes, but not cover letters.
  
• Hiring managers spend an average 15 seconds making an interview / non-interview decision. You can't read both a resume and a cover letter in 15 seconds.
• 90% of executive-level hiring managers read the resume first, 66% don't even get cover letters.
• 80% of HR staff and recruiters read the resume first. So it looks like they don’t read cover letters often, but maybe a little more often than hiring managers. 
• No executive-level hiring manager would deny an interview to a candidate whose resume met their hiring criteria, but did not submit a cover letter.
• Most executive-level hiring managers reported that they have denied interviews to candidates qualified by their resume, but disqualified by information on their cover letter.
• Job Boards don't keyword search cover letters, only resumes.

Would it surprise you that...

• 96% of candidates either customize a cover letter sent with a virtually static resume, or don't customize anything at all. Only 4% send a customized resume.
  

There are some exceptions - really small companies that don't have an HR department and can't afford recruiters (typically less than 10 employees). The really small company Hiring Manager goes through these resumes and cover letters manually, and the percentages skew a bit more towards considering cover letters when outside an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). However, hiring managers that look at cover letters tell me that cover letters are more likely to be dis-qualifiers... and no one has ever related that the lack of a cover letter is a dis-qualifier in itself.

I started researching this when I managed recruiting practices. Even though my recruiters advertised asking for cover letters, they never got them through the ATS, only if a candidate sent directly to them through networking or a referral. Cover letters were blocked, in a sense, digitally discarded by corporate decision - it was viewed that the recruiter was more efficient in finding candidates doing keyword searches on resumes.

I found that most of my clients’ HR departments handled cover letters in the same way. This practice happened during a time of candidate shortages when unemployment was near 4%. Imagine now, where there are 6 times more unemployed than advertised jobs.