Every year someone announces that the cover letter is dead. And every year I read a few that changed my mind about a candidate I was ready to pass on. Both things are true at once: most cover letters are useless, and a good one is still one of the highest-leverage half-pages you can write.
The problem is not the format. It is that almost nobody writes a cover letter — they write a cover-letter-shaped object, stuffed with the same four sentences everyone else uses.
Why most of them fail
“I am writing to express my strong interest in the position.” I know — you applied. “I believe I would be a great fit.” Based on what? These lines are not wrong, they are empty, and empty is worse than nothing because it burns the reader’s goodwill in the first ten seconds.
What a good one actually does
It answers a question the resume cannot: why this job, at this place, right now. A resume is a record. A cover letter is an argument. The best ones I read did one of three things well:
- Told a short, specific story that proved a claim the resume only stated.
- Showed the person understood the company’s actual problem, not just its job title.
- Explained something the resume raised a question about — a pivot, a gap, a relocation — before I had to wonder.
A shape you can steal
Open with a real sentence, not a throat-clear. One paragraph on a relevant thing you did and what came of it. One paragraph on why this company specifically — proof you did five minutes of homework. A short close that asks for the conversation. Four paragraphs, half a page, done.
When to skip it
If the application does not ask for one and gives you nowhere to put it, do not force a PDF nobody requested. But when there is a box marked “optional,” read that as “this is where the people who want it separate themselves.” Optional is an invitation, not an excuse.
Found a role you would actually write a real letter for? Start on Jobsspotter and give it the half-page it deserves.
— Ethan