[Frocer]

Ok, may be "scam" is too harsh. Keep in mind these angel groups are usually group of rich people who made their fortune from big corporations such as Cisco, IBM, etc. They are not the type of angels you read about on TechCrunch (Ron Conway, Ariel Poler, etc).

And typical corporate mindset is "processes". And an long application that no one ever reads is just part of that process. This is very similar to job applications -- no recruiters care about your cover letter, but you have to write one because it's the "way" it is.

[radu_floricica]

I don't know about corporate recruiting but I find the cover letter much more informative then the CV.

[DrJokepu]

On the other hand, I find the CV much more informative than the cover letter due to it's fixed format; you have much less liberty when writing your CV so any ever so little deviation from a textbook CV can tell a lot of good or bad things about the candidate. I totally ignore cover letters, I'm not even bothered to read them.