[ep103]

As I said, I'm not against cover letters. I think they can be a reasonable tool that benefits both parties, if the interview process genuinely takes them into account and uses them honestly. I also think that the vast, vast majority of posts relating to interview processes in the tech industry on this website (and most others) show a staggering degree of lack of knowledge on how hiring works, and that interviewing in our industry is particularly poor given current normal processes.

But really, I was just trying to point out that the parent's comment didn't hold water.

[ghaff]

I think some of the divergence of opinion here is that a lot of people have primarily experienced filling out a form on a website--in which case a cover letter is pretty divorced from it's original purpose of going in an envelope with a resume.

On the other hand, an email to someone you know may be more important than your resume. For one job, I'm not sure if they ever ended up with my resume at all unless the business office wanted it for some pro-forma reason.