Are Cover Letters Dead?

Amy Thaci, Director of ECS, asked our Employer Partners to answer the question….Are Cover Letters Dead? Here was an answer from Kathryn McCormack, Campus Recruiter from Niagara Bottling.

While cover letters are not “dead”, they are increasingly less utilized or considered by hiring managers (this is highly dependent on industry). If you choose to include a cover letter with your application, you need to ensure it helps you stand out in a good way.

• Don’t just rehash your resume; this is a chance for you to include additional information/history that will help you stand out.
• Find something that excites you about the job and focus on explaining how.
• Cover letters should be unique for each position (it’s super easy to tell if it isn’t as a recruiter) so if you do not feel you can dedicate enough time/energy to the two above points, better to skip it.

So as you can see, cover letters are still important in some regards. What’s challenging is knowing which recruiters read them and which don’t. There’s no easy answer to that question but always send one when requested. Looking for additional tips for writing a cover letter? You can find cover letter resources in Handshake by keyword searching "cover letter" in the Handshake Resource Library. I'm sure these tips will help you write ones that get noticed! It’s a chance to tell a little bit more about your story. Good luck!

“If you can DREAM it, you can DO it.” – Walt Disney