memes

When I get them from new grads I delete them. Experienced people or weird resumes I might read if borderline.

Same. They already have my resume and application for the job, I'm not writing a whole page groveling and begging them to hire me.

It's worth writing a generic one.

It worked fine for me, I've landed three jobs that way. That was a while ago though, the last time was in 2017. My last two jobs I took because I had some connections call out of the blue. I've been very fortunate in that regard. I can't imagine that would happen again, most of my connections are getting close to retirement age at this point.

For my industry, IT, pretty well. A nice upward career trajectory and an average of about a month from search start to offer over the past couple of jobs

Right. When I was interviewing people, I honestly couldn't care less about the CV. I'm an engineer, words are hard. I want a list of your skills, your software proficiencies, and a run-down of your previous jobs along with your responsibilities. When you get here, I'm going to care about finding out how much you know about designing and cad. Then we'll take a tour of the shop to see if the machinery we build is in your comfort zone. We'll have some small talk to get a feel for if you'd fit in with the group, and off you'll go. All said and done, it should be under 45 minutes.

Also semen

Mine is 2 pages, and I think everyone I've hired has been 2 pages. Maybe it's kinda dependent on the field you're in? Idk, i can't imagine cramming all my proficiencies, jobs, and responsibilities on one page.

It's always dependent upon the person looking. The question isn't "will a cover letter get me the job" it's "do I care to work for a place where the cover letter is what gets me the job". For me, no.

I feel like this is very situation dependent.

That may be the case in your company or industry, but not everywhere.

In my experience there's been a big difference between a general resume I'm uploading to a place like a LinkedIn or Indeed (and letting the recruiters come to me), using that uploaded resume to apply to job postings on that site, and sending resume/application to specific companies on their site.

For the first one, hell no, no cover letter. How would that even work? No cover letter is better than a generic one.

For applying for specific postings on these sites? For me it depends on just how good the opportunity is. If I feel like there's some sort of special connection that makes me tailor made for the role, the money is great, it's doing really interesting work, or a company I really want to work for? Absolutely I'll include a cover letter. I'm just looking to get out of a shit job, or the role doesn't really move the needle, but I think it might be a good fit? Nah, just hit that quick apply button and move on.

But if I'm reaching out to a company directly?

Cover letter every time (unless they specifically say not to). If they don't want it, they won't read it, but I've never felt like it hurt my chances, and in a few interviews, they've specifically mentioned something about it.

This is 100% true. But you should also include a cover letter, just as a second document. I mean obviously not if you're applying for McDonald's but you get the idea

I felt the same way until a friend of mine helped me redo my cover letter before COVID. Gotten 2 jobs since then and have tripped my salary in a handful of years. The latest gig (that was a salary doubling jump) was through a recruiter who said the cover letter helped me get the interview.

I mean you say that, but I got my last amazing job because I mentioned pertinent info in my cover letter that resonated with the recruiter. I wouldn't have got it if I just sent my resume.

I know it's just anecdotal but hey

Can we do bullet bullet points for extra creativity?

My cover letter is just a picture of Rick Astley

This sorta applies to the way I typically do it (maybe). I spray-and-pray on 9+ out of 10, because most are mass-posted bullshit. I'm not redoing a cover letter for every bullshit posting.

But if it is clear an actual person is involved (e.g. there is a person's e-mail listed as a direct point-of-contact or it's on a small company's website among only a handful of positions) and/or it is for a job I think I'd really like, I spend more time tailoring everything.

Best of both worlds (potentially).

You're my hero

One Lemmy gold for you, thank you kind stranger!

I was really hoping they offered a self hosting option.

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Why is this good? Not being negative, just want to understand.

The resume shows experience and the cover letter shows personality. If the job has any kind of soft skills a cover letter is a bonus, if the job is super technical it's probably not necessary. It also depends on the workplace.

If it is a job you actually want though I would recommend writing something. I'm on a smaller team and read all the resumes of applicants. I actually read them because I'm going to be the one contacting, interviewing, and working with them. I absolutely read the cover letters and give a small bonus to people who include them.

It's the thing that gets fed into an LLM to opaquely grade you before your resume gets looked at by a human

Just do what I do and have an AI generate the cover letter. Saves me a ton of time, and gives me a personalized letter for every job while only writing two sentences.

(But then again Lemmy absolutely hates AI with a blind passion—just as much as you hate cars—so I don't know why I'm actually suggesting this. It works, though.)

I do it like that, but it has backfired before. I posted a resume that mentions I can code to a teaching position (Highschool maths). Not relevant to the job at all. Got the job. Some random admin person remembered I can write code and that meant that every other teacher should address their IT questions to me. No extra pay and I had to explain Microsoft software a lot of the time, which I don't even use.