[chefandy]

Well of course being a desirable candidate is a prerequisite-- this thread is about cover letters as a means of conveying that. I've interviewed hundreds of candidates for dozens of positions-- from internships to regular staff developers to post-doc roles-- in an organization that drew ambitious candidates that shared our specific interests from around the globe. Our organization, at large, immediately rejected resumes with search-and-replace template or missing cover letters, by the hundreds, because people's hard skills and experience weren't the primary factors in determining whether or not they would thrive in this organization. As I've repeatedly acknowledged, there are many jobs, candidates, and job searching scenarios where that's not the case. Surely, the glass of whiskey scenario makes sense in many contexts, but in ours, it's wholly inapplicable. I'm not really sure why you insistently present your own use case for job application materials as an argument against what I said, but I've stopped caring and I'm done engaging you about it.