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.
Thanks for your comments, I completely agree and I should expand on what I said, or attempt to make myself more clear.
First, I always submit a personal cover letter, *always*. There's one stock paragraph I tend to use, but at least 2/3 of the cover letter is customized for the job posting at hand. I definitely feel I would be short changing myself if I were to not send a cover letter.
What I wrote was "don't worry as much about the cover letter ...". Although I didn't emphasize it enough, the key to this statement is "as much". I used to put far more concern and effort into the cover letter, and kept a mostly static resume that I never customized. After speaking with a recruiter (who's opinion I respected) and an HR person who both gave me similar suggestions, I realized that the cover letter should be of secondary focus for me, due to the fact that they both said their primary focus is the front page of the cover letter. I was told that cover letters are usually given nothing more than a passing first glance, and that the real focus of attention went to the resume's first page. If the first page met the expectations, maybe then the cover letter and whole resume would be reviewed more thoroughly.
I guess my statement implied too much, and said too little. I'll try again:
Be sure to write a personalized/customized cover letter, but give more focus and attention to your resume and how your experience and skills relate to the position's requirements.
I used to (naively?) believe that trying to use the cover letter to express myself as an individual who stands out from the crowd was the best way to get a leg up in the numbers game, but I've came to believe that the best way is to balance individuality with conformance to the specs of the job opening.
Dave
