[scaryclam]

This is very much counter to my experience as a hiring manager. The only time a cover letter has contributed to a negative response, the candidate stated they didn't care about the company and just wanted the money. That was also pretty much what they said in the phone screen, so yeah, not impressed. Other than that, we made some really good hires because the cover letter gave valuable context to an otherwise bland CV.

[1123581321]

I understand. As I said, we value the cover letter and use it. In this case, though, the reasoning is that the cover letter provides unwanted signals about the demographics of the candidate, and avoiding influence from those signals is considered worth not knowing the kind of valuable context you mentioned.