Talent Industry Feature: "Death By Cover Letter"

I had the pleasure of meeting my friend, Robert Godden at the Austral-Asian Talent Conference in 2007. He was kind enough to accept my offer to share his most recent article which I found significant and timely given its exemplary coverage of a key candidate/job seeker concern. Based in Adelaide, Australia, Robert splits his time between freelance recruiting, writing and being a partner in a boutique tea blending business. He finds that variety is certainly the spice of life, and likes to bring unique perspectives to anything he does."As a recruiter, I love cover letters."

By Robert Godden

Now, I know a lot of HR folk, recruiters and people who do their own recruiting -let's call them keen amateurs to be kind - often skip the letter and go straight to the bit where you find out if the person is doing or has done exactly the same job.

In that happy event, a recruiter can cheerily absolve themselves of any blame whatsoever if that person is recruited and it goes pear-shaped. After all, someone else thinks they were good at it. At least until they were fired for fraud, or harassment, or failing to turn up to work due to an all-week meth binge or just being nowhere near as capable as they should have been in that role.

But me, I love a cover letter. A cover letter tells me a few things that are waaaaaay more important that merely where they last worked. Consider these useful nuggets:

1. Can they write?
2. Are they intelligent, or are they "knitting with only one needle", to quote my favourite philosopher?
3. Do they care?

In order for me to have a long term relationship with clients as a freelance recruiter, I've got a fair bit at stake in putting forward smart, literate and committed candidates and not so much of the chancers, the ambivalent, the proud illiterati and those who are one wave short of a shipwreck.

And a cover letter lays it all out.

Firstly, let's consider this: should one always include a cover letter?

Yes!

It's quite simple, you need to do everything you can to win the job. Even if you suspect a cover letter won't help, do one. Unless specifically told not to, as can happen in some stupid processes that are designed to weed out anyone with any personality or talent, but hey, who wants to work for the Government anyway? (As an aside, I'm not suggesting all Government employees are talentless drones. Plenty of creative and energetic people manage to get through the processes designed to weed them out, because those processes are designed by the aforementioned talentless drones.

I quite often ask for a cover letter in a job advert. And then I just automatically reject anyone who fails to include one. As previously mentioned, I don't like to appoint stupid people, and this is an example of someone who hasn't got a clue.

With the growth of employment services in Australia and presumably elsewhere, people are getting help with cover letters, and this is leading to some well-written, effective letters. Sadly, they are also quite often another great signal that someone is not quite the shilling because the letter is for an entirely different, possibly imaginary job.

Yes- I'm afraid that candidates will often use the same letter for every job. So, I might have a job in tech support for a college, and someone sends me a great cover letter that lavishes praise on their ability to be a bank teller. They wax lyrical about their love of bank tellering and how they've always had a lifelong ambition to cram as much bank-telling into their existence before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Sometimes they even remember to change the name of the position to match the job advert. Some of them think they can use a catch-all and not even bother: "I am applying for your advertised position" is just great. A big red flag saying to me "Lazy? Stupid? Or the quinella?"

It's also pretty insulting to have a brilliant cover letter which is not backed up by a good CV. Five superb paragraphs about your ability to lead a multinational pharmaceutical conglomerate is not going to help if you are 19 years old and your CV only shows a part-time job and Chem-Mart and a bronze-class 25-metre swimming certification. I do notice these things, you know.

Cut and paste is your enemy. On my first day in 2001 as a recruiter, my first applicant sent me a letter which was addressed to someone else at another firm. He had recycled a letter and changed everything except the address block and name. Once a letter to me starts with "Dear Scott" it's going to undermine your "attention to detail" claim five paragraphs later, isn't it?

I think there is a definite pattern to a good cover letter.

1. Explain what you are applying for in the shortest possible terms.
2. Say something that indicates some understanding of the role
3. List one of the skills or qualifications actually asked for in the advert
4. Write something that proves you have #3
5. repeat #3 and #4 a few times
6. End politely.

Whether you follow that pattern or not, what matters is writing a genuine letter addressing the position.

I promise you, sometimes when you do this, it will be ignored. And sometimes it may even work against you.

But for the one or ten or twenty or forty or eighty percent of recruiters who think like I do, a good cover letter gives you the edge.

And I can't think why you wouldn't take an edge if you can get it. After all, you're not a talentless drone, are you?