I am going to have to disagree with a significant comment made here. Cover letters are Important. I am both a consultant who looks for new contracts, and I am also a person who does Interviews.
I know other people who are hiring that think along the same lines, and I think its a mistake to dismiss the importance of the Cover Letter. What value does a cover letter have (when I am looking)? The foremost thing is whether the person has taken the time to personally show interest in the position I am looking to fill. Secondly, it is my experience hiring that resumes are often sent into professional companies to do. It use to be I judged peoples communications skills by how they write the resume. I can often tell which ones are professionally done by looking at the first page(And these days the % is growing it seems). The cover letters I get are often NOT professionally written and I get a better idea how the candidate expresses themselves. I have noticed often that the resumes that are the most professional (And probably done by a 3rd party) are the ones that have the WORST personalized cover letters. I usually use the cover letter and the first page of a resume to determine if the person has the skills I need for the job posted. If someone sends me a 10 page resume (I have nothing against long resumes) and no cover letter, and no skill set summary then I find I do not have the time to figure out if they are the right fit and move on. As a recruiter I want to know quickly whether you have the skills I need (especially if it is in response to advertised positions with requirements). Good personalized cover letters let me know what you have to offer the position I am recruiting for, or what you can offer MY company (Not the general world at large). If you send me a resume without a cover letter you have just short changed yourself. When you have to deal with hundreds of applicants you need some way to narrow the field quickly. I don't dismiss resumes without cover letters. I usually review the first page of the resume and if there is no cover letter look for a summary of skills. During the first pass, its rare for me to read an entire resume. The exception is if there is a candidate that stands out above the rest and has shown me they have the skills *I* need, and they have compelled me to find out more about them. In my humble opinion Cover Letters are very important - and you should not blindly assume they don't make a difference. On Fri, 2003-10-24 at 17:45, Dave Wilson wrote: > Jon Copeland wrote: > > im also experiencing the same 'lag', i immigrated from south africa 3 months > > ago and after sending out mass personalised resumes the only prospect that > > has returned any interest is london drugs of all places, ill take the job > > anyway because im in dire need of work but this coming from a background of > > network administration and IT lecturing in SA. > > > > i feel the industry here in calgary is saturated. > > I completely agree with you about the job market being saturated. Jason > says that it's better than it was two years ago, and since I wasn't in > Calgary at that time (Ontario), I can't comment that far back, but I do > think the market is at as low of a point as it has been in the last > year. I have heard of other people jumping ship and looking for other > careers, and my gf-unit has suggest the same to me. > > right now I think finding a job involves chance as much as it does > anything else, that is unless you have tons of contacts, which isn't the > case for people new to the city, or those relatively new to the > industry. for example, lets say you apply for a job that your skills > and experience match perfectly for, and maybe you even have some extra > "features" that the prospective "buyer" (or you could say "user") will > find attractive. first, they have to recognize that you are a strong > prospect for the position, which may not happen if you are not in the > first chunk of resumes[1]. some places may have machines or "assistants > reduce the resumes, and I think it's safe to say neither machines nor > assistants are best for this task. second, they may have too many > apparently near perfect candidates, which means they may recognize your > experience for it's quality, but some additional (arbitrary?) filtering > could take place to reduce the number of good resumes into a list of > people to actually be interviewed. if there is a dozen really good > resumes, I'm guessing most places will try to reduce that to at least 8, > maybe less. this all assumes that your resume gives them what they are > looking for, they'll likely be over critical given the large number of > choices they'll have. this is all how I view the process, maybe I am > wrong, but I think I am close. > > here are my suggestions, some may be obvious: > (you better not use these to beat me for :-) > > 1. send resumes ASAP, try to win the race for getting your resume to them. > 2. don't worry as much about the cover letter, as I understand it, most > places don't look at them much ... > 3. on the other hand, do worry about your resume. make sure you list > everything appropriate to the job at the top of the resume, or at least > on the first page. I use a "highlights" section. I always customize my > resume. > 4. unfortunately it seems that most places don't care about experience > unless it's work experience. really try to show things from a work > perspective. don't focus too much on non-work related experience. > 5. I try to be as unique as I can (which is drasticly different than how > I approach my real life perception). I think it's bad to use generic > looking resumes, especially Word resume templates. I try to give mine a > bit of style. > 6. try to know your target, some place really want to know about your > various certifications, however some places really don't wanna see your > various certifications and their logos plastered all over your resume. > again, this depends on the company, try to guess right :-) > 7. overall, you want to do your best to mirror their job posting back at > them, but of course it has to be backed with experience. > > if I can think of anything more, I'll send another posting. > > oh yeah, here's a trick I do. I send my resume as HTML whenever > possible. I use keep my resume's CSS file on my server, and for each > resume I customize, I change the CSS link to > "http://.../myresume.css?company_X"; so that I can monitor who an when is > looking at my resume. doesn't help in getting a job, but it's still > interesting. > > Dave > > [1]. I think it's an agreed upon fact that many HR departments are not > equipped to properly evaluate all of the overwhelming resumes that are > sent their way. I got my last job (december 2002) because I had dropped > off a paper copy of my resume, and the HR person I interviewed with > admitted that she hadn't seen my emailed resume because they received > more than they could properly deal with. -- Mike Petch CApp::Sysware Consulting Ltd. Suite 1002,1140-15th Ave SW. Calgary, Alberta, Canada. T2R 1K6. (403)804-5700.
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