Mara asks: I have a number of recruiters reach out to me about roles they are filling. All of them say “no cover letter” as they want to fast track my application. Most of them want a hybrid format to just highlight relevant experience and say cover letter is not necessary. When I do this, there are holes in my employment history without a cover letter. I am unable to explain what those are. Do recruiters explain to prospective employers what they see on LinkedIn? What are your thoughts?
There are a couple of elements to this question: one is just about cover letters and whether or not they’re necessary; and the other is about the job seeker relationship with recruiters. When recruiters tell you to do something — in this case, not submit a cover letter — is it best to just go along? Or is it better to push back? Even if you do push back, are they going to listen to you?
Cover letters are important, even if no one reads them
If the recruiter doesn’t want one, should you still submit one? You can, though it’s unclear if it’s going to actually get to the person that it needs to get to. That being said, if you think the information in the cover letter is important, I would suggest that you write one and resolve to get it to the people who need to read it.
If you don’t think that cover letters are important, I would still encourage you to put one together. I find that the cover letter — and this is from 20 plus years in recruiting — is a really good synthesis of how you think about yourself and what you think about the job and the overlap between these two things. The cover letter is probably the best tool for putting together what your selling proposition essentially is for this role. So you definitely want to know how to put one together and put some thought into it. The process of writing a cover letter is important, even if no one ends up reading it.
Recruiters have their own way of working – which may or may not include cover letters
That being said, what a recruiter is going to do with that cover letter depends on each recruiter. Recruiters are individual people, and they have their own way of working. They might have already confirmed with their client (the prospective employer) how the hiring process will be run, and maybe the cover letter is not part of that. So I would follow their process when you are working directly with them. But that doesn’t preclude you sharing your cover letter yourself — when you’re in the interview process or when you’re meeting other people that are not through the recruiter.
Pursue multiple paths to your dream job
The recruiter has their way of working, and you have your way of working. I would work as well as you can with the recruiter, but I would not let that relationship solely only dictate your strategy. Part of having your way of doing things is that you want to pursue multiple routes to your dream job. Even if you’re working with a recruiter for a specific employer, you also want to see who else you know at that employer. What relationships do you already have? Whether or not the recruiter thinks that you should submit a cover letter, if you feel strongly that there is information in there that you want people to have, I would find the people that you’re going to share this letter with – and share it.
But similar to having multiple people that you are talking to in order to get this job, you also want to have multiple marketing tools in play, not just the cover letter. If you are hell bent on people needing to see your cover letter in order to explain holes in your background, remember that some recruiters and some prospective employers are just not going to read your letter. So you need to be thinking about how else you are going to plug those holes in your background.
This could be in the way that you introduce myself, the interview responses that you give, the extra networking and exploratory meetings that you take on because you know that there are things about your story that you have to explain face-to-face and voice-to-voice. You cannot just rely on a letter that you’re not sure anybody is going to read.
How many tools are you using to land a job?
Yes, use the cover letter when you can. Yes, rely on recruiters when you can. But also rely on your resume, your online profile and the networking meetings that you are able to set up for yourself.
You want to use as many tools at your disposal as possible, in order to land the job that you love.
