Does Anyone Read Cover Letters Anymore?

Here’s a scenario: there’s one particular company in your city that you’d love to work for. They do great work, and their mission statement looks like you could have written it yourself.

You have been watching their job board for months, waiting for a job to open up in the right department. Then one day, it happens! They’ve posted the same position you have with your current company, with a higher salary, great benefits, and room for promotions. Now what?

You may think writing an outstanding cover letter will get you in the door for an interview. But unfortunately, many job seekers have been met with disappointment after watching somebody else get the job.

That begs the question, how much of an impact does your cover letter have in today's day and age? Will it be read, or will it ever even reach the hiring manager?

A proper cover letter is a formal business letter which is addressed to a specific hiring manager within a company. Here are a few problems with that structure if you’re a job seeker:

• Who is the hiring manager? If you don’t have any contacts at the company, this can be unclear. LinkedIn can be a great resource to search for the right person, but it’s not a guarantee.

• How should you contact them? Sending a letter in the mail seems unnecessarily time-consuming in an age when we have so much technology. However, it could make a positive impact on the right hiring manager, assuming you know who they are. Here are some other ways that could work:
  

  1. Include a cover letter with your online application. Most online job boards give you a place to copy/paste or upload a cover letter that you’ve written. This could instantly get your cover letter in front of the hiring manager. (But whether or not they will read it is up for debate).

  2. Send an email. This is most effective if you know the specific person who is hiring for the job. If not, you can email a generic company email address, such as info@example.com or support@example.com. Just make sure that you’re properly addressing your email to whomever you’re sending it.

  3. Send a message (InMail) on LinkedIn. This can be a hidden gem that many applicants won’t think to do. If you are able to locate the exact hiring manager, send them a message and explain that you wanted to follow up about your application with them personally. If you’re not sure whether you have the right contact, try to find someone in their department and ask them to pass it along to the appropriate party. There’s no guarantee that it will make a difference, but we have found that people generally like to help each other.

So, can you actually successfully contact a specific person in a company today? Information moves so quickly. We are exposed, on average, to thousands of messages a day (this can include advertisements, social media, etc. - we’re not saying it’s normal to receive thousands of emails every day). But does a cover letter really work?

The answer is…maybe!

There are many, many factors which can influence whether your cover letter will be read. Here are two:

• The industry you’re in. How quickly does it move? How much time does that hiring manager have to read their own company’s emails, let alone cover letters from job applicants? If you’re in IT, healthcare, or another high-tech field, understand that you will probably need to adapt to a very fast pace if/when you get an opportunity to interview.

• Your delivery method. Some of us have multiple email accounts and our entire work life connected to our personal cell phones, accessible at all times. And some of us don’t fuse the work and the personal at all. For those who separate their work lives, they probably have multiple emails waiting in their inbox when they log in. They might prioritize other messages first, and they could miss yours. The same goes for online job applications and LinkedIn messages. It’s not personal.

Applying to jobs has become a numbers game in many ways. Yes, it’s best to have a strong application with a great résumé and a sharp cover letter. But for most of us that’s not enough.

It’s also very important to send out multiple applications. Getting our hopes up for that one job can be easy, but the odds are pretty good that you’re up against some competition.

If you feel strongly that a job is a great fit for you, you should get your best application together ASAP. It’s a great idea to have a professional look at your résumé and write a cover letter for you. Once that’s done, apply now!

The next step is to follow up. As a general rule of thumb, when you’re contacting a stranger asking for feedback, you should leave 3 days between each communication. You don’t want to stalk them - you just want to let them know that you’re very interested in discussing the job with them.

There is no guarantee that you will ever hear from that hiring manager. But hopefully now you have the tools to put your best foot forward.

For a certified expert to help with your résumé, cover letter, and more, connect with CareerPulse today: