Forget the resume, kill on the cover letter

The post says resumes usually only clear a basic screen, because many candidates can make them look acceptable and small differences in experience do not matter much. In a large pool of applications, the cover letter becomes the part that can actually separate one candidate from another.

It also says the cover letter should fit the company’s tone. A stiff, formal opening can hurt a candidate quickly, while personality and originality matter more when the hiring manager will work directly with the person.

Reading notes

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• A strong resume mainly keeps a candidate from being rejected.
• A cover letter can be the part that gets someone hired.
• Many resumes look reasonable, so they are weak as a filter.
• Years of experience are treated as a poor way to distinguish candidates.
• With many applications, the resume does only a small part of the job.
• A cover letter needs more originality than a simple line asking for a call.
• The letter should match the company’s tone.
• A formal opening like “Dear Hiring Manager” can lower the candidate’s standing.
• The first paragraph matters a lot because a weak start is hard to recover from.
• In formal HR screening, checklist items may matter more than personality.
• When managers will work with the hire directly, personality matters more for getting an interview.