There’s a reason that many of the searches associated with the phrase ‘cover letter’ are essentially framed around how you can avoid doing them: AI cover letter creator, cover letter generator, cover letter writer, free templates, and everything in between. Writing cover letters is time-consuming and draining, especially when you’re applying to multiple roles and have to tailor each letter to each company. So, let’s talk – are they still necessary, or are they on their way out?

Why is the cover letter becoming redundant?

Cover letters originated in America in the 1950s and by the 1960s were seen as indispensable during the application process; but they existed within a very different market and socioeconomic landscape back then. For one, the market was massively less saturated; only 34.7% of women in the UK were in employment in the 1950s, compared to 72.2% in 2022, not to mention the huge jump in our population. Their original role of setting a candidate apart has been lost in the shuffle; partly thanks to online templates, guidelines and samples, cover letters are now homogeneous and repetitive. They simply don’t serve the same purpose anymore – so why don’t we dispense with them, and save the candidates a headache?

In the tech industry certainly, cover letters seem to have died out. Our recruiters rarely deal with them; and in fact, 75% of recruiters don’t think reading your cover letter is even worth their time. For product or marketing roles they’re more likely to float around, but in general recruiters are becoming the stand-in for cover letters, especially in the STEM industries. They do all the heavy lifting of finding candidates, vetting them, appraising CVs and then selling them to the client.

From an employer or recruiter’s point of view, there’s a few reasons they’re going to skip reading your cover letter. For some, they think cover letters can just be a way for candidates to spin their CV rather than letting it speak for itself. For others, they just don’t have time; when they’re being snowed under by applications, they’re going to prioritise looking at the tangible data of the CV rather than reading through pages and pages of what is essentially fluff. Then when they’ve filtered the most suitable candidates based on their experience and education, they can use the interview stage to receive a version of your cover letter directly from you, which is a lot more convincing.

So what’s the alternative?

Especially in the digital age, many companies (especially startups and scaleups, where each hire is so crucial) are turning to new ways to appraise candidates rather than the outdated cover letter. This can manifest in a lot of different ways, but are all focussed around testing suitability in a quantifiable way. For technical roles, there’s tailored technical tests which can evaluate skills and aptitude in direct correlation to the role at hand. For product and marketing roles, some companies require presentations showcasing their portfolio of work, or other physical tasks. Some companies also use the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), which combines verbal, math and logic questions to assess a candidate in a holistic sense.

So to the candidates, our advice is to prioritise your CV. Your CV is where the magic happens; and there’s so many ways you can maximise its capability. We even wrote a blog post on how to let your personality shine through in it, if you need any guidance or tips. As we said, employers and recruitment agencies have very little interest in cover letters; and of the few who do, 36% of them will only read it after first establishing the CV is good. Essentially, the CV is always going to take precedence, so that’s where your effort should be concentrated.

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