Most people I know hate writing resumes but I think cover letters are far worse.



That said, I am sure this 250-300 word letter will take me several hours...I have never had a cover letter I was actually happy with and proud of.

Is this a hint?

Are you wanting our help in writing the letter?

I just made mine a high level reader friendly version of my resume, highlighting my skills and career aspirations.  Tailored to the job I was applying for of course.

I strongly disagree.

Practice makes perfect...and in this economy....you may get it down sooner than later.



Good luck with the hunt.

Self-evaluation.

I'd rather write 100 cover letters.

Me too


 

All this formal bullshit is asinine. For example we have a certain great company in Oregon, I started fucking around through the online hiring process and filled out the into for a couple jobs. So that got me on the managers radar a little bit. However, my families been doing business there for over 50 years so company is good to us. Anyway, basically I went in dressed in button up shirt jeans and boots, thats me not anything else. Talked to the manager like I was having a beer with him, basically he was straight up with me and I was straight up with him. Went through the UA process and expect to start tomorrow.

Does anybody really read cover letters?

Keep it short, to the point, and tell them why they want to look at your resume. When writing it, have the attitude that if they are not interested, they can go fuck themselves and it will be their loss.

Yes.  

The positions I hire for require the ability to write study protocols, study reports, technical reports, technology transfer documents, and give research presentations.

It's pretty easy to someone to have a resume put together for them that's free of spelling errors and formatted nicely.  Since I look for a cover letter that's written to specifically address the position, the applicant is less likely to hire someone to write a cover letter for them.  From the cover letter I have the ability to see the applicants ability to write.  If they just regurgitate what's on the resume it means less to me than a cover letter that adds additional information about their specific abilities not suitable for placement in a resume.