Unpopular Opinion: Cover Letters Are a Waste of Everyone's Time

Let's establish what cover letters are actually supposed to do.

The stated purpose is to give candidates a chance to express their personality, explain their interest in the role, and surface information that doesn't fit in a resume. That's reasonable in theory. The problem is that almost no cover letter does any of these things — and the format itself makes it structurally impossible.

What Actually Happens

A candidate sits down to write a cover letter for a role they genuinely want. They've been told to "express their passion" and "show why they're a great fit." So they produce a document that begins with some variation of "I am excited to apply for the [Position] role at [Company]" and ends with some variation of "I look forward to discussing how my skills can contribute to your team's success."

In between: a rephrasing of their resume in paragraph form, a generic statement about the company that could have been pulled from its Wikipedia page, and a claim that their specific combination of skills makes them uniquely positioned to add value.

The hiring manager who reads this learns nothing they couldn't learn from the resume. The candidate has spent forty-five minutes producing a document that is immediately forgotten.

This is not the candidate's fault. The cover letter format has a ceiling that very few people can break through, and the incentive to try dramatically is low because the cost of getting it wrong (seeming weird, trying too hard, saying something that reads badly) exceeds the benefit of standing out.

Cover letters don't reveal who people are. They reveal who people think hiring managers want them to be. That's a test of social conformity, not a test of job-relevant anything.

What Cover Letters Actually Select For

Writing ability and the confidence to perform enthusiasm convincingly.

For roles where writing is a core job function, this is somewhat relevant. A cover letter from a content strategist or a communications manager tells you something real about their written voice.

For most roles — engineering, product, data, operations, finance, sales — it tells you almost nothing about whether the person can do the job. The person who writes a fluent, warm cover letter may be a mediocre engineer. The person who writes a clunky, awkward one may be the best engineer you've ever hired.

There's a specific demographic asymmetry here too. Candidates who are native English speakers, who attended schools that emphasized written expression, or who had someone in their life who taught them professional writing conventions are systematically advantaged in cover letter screening. This isn't a meritocratic filter — it's a social and educational background filter dressed up as a merit filter.

The Counterarguments and Why They Don't Hold Up

"It shows effort and motivation." A well-crafted, generic cover letter shows nothing about genuine motivation for this specific role. It shows the candidate knows how to follow a format. If you want to test motivation, ask a specific question that requires thought about your actual company and role. ("What specifically about the way we've built our product for SMBs would you approach differently, and why?") That test requires engagement. "Dear Hiring Manager, I am passionate about [Your Company]" does not.

"It catches candidates who can't write." Legitimate concern, easily addressed by a better method: one short writing sample question embedded in the application. "In 150 words, describe the most complex project you managed in the last two years and what you learned from it." This tests writing directly and produces something useful. A cover letter tests cover-letter-writing, which is its own learned skill with minimal job-performance relevance.

"We use it to filter candidates who didn't take the application seriously." You're filtering for people who are good at performing seriousness. High performers with multiple opportunities in the market are exactly the candidates who'll send an imperfect cover letter because they're moving quickly and have strong enough credentials that they know a mediocre cover letter is survivable. You may be filtering out your best candidates.

What Predicts Fit Better

The research on hiring validity is pretty clear.

Work samples — actual examples of the work the candidate will do — are the highest-validity predictor of job performance. A 45-minute take-home coding problem, a sample marketing strategy for a provided brief, a brief structured case interview. These test actual job capabilities.

Structured interviews — where all candidates are asked the same questions in the same order, scored against defined criteria — reduce interviewer bias and produce more consistent assessment than the freeform "let's see how we click" format.

Reference checks done properly — not the "confirm dates of employment" kind, but the "tell me about a specific time this person struggled and how they handled it" kind — provide real signal.

None of these require a cover letter.

The So What

If you're a hiring manager: consider removing the cover letter requirement from your applications. Replace it with two or three specific, short questions that require thought about your actual role and company. You'll get more signal, you'll reduce the time cost on both sides, and you'll stop filtering for a skill that probably has nothing to do with the job.

If you're a candidate: write the cover letter when it's required, because the cost of not following instructions is higher than the cost of the exercise. But don't spend three hours on it. Spend twenty minutes writing something specific and clear, and allocate the remaining time to researching the company and preparing for the actual interview.

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