I am shocked by how many people don't send a covering letter with their CV

Miss_Scrooge_2

Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but is it because the job desciption is very vague and no information about your company?

I know that if I don't know too much about what/who I'm applying to or, even worse, a recruitment agency has posted on the company's behalf, I don't feel as enthusiastic about the role. If a company has made the effort to explain who they are, what they do and what they are looking for in a candidate, I will feel more inclined to send a kicka$$ e-mail/letter.

SuzieSue

Miss_Scrooge wrote: »

Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but is it because the job desciption is very vague and no information about your company?

I know that if I don't know too much about what/who I'm applying to or, even worse, a recruitment agency has posted on the company's behalf, I don't feel as enthusiastic about the role. If a company has made the effort to explain who they are, what they do and what they are looking for in a candidate, I will feel more inclined to send a kicka$$ e-mail/letter.

Perhaps, but I obviously don't think so otherwise I wouldn't have posted the advert.

ViolaLass

Miss_Scrooge wrote: »

Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but is it because the job desciption is very vague and no information about your company?

I know that if I don't know too much about what/who I'm applying to or, even worse, a recruitment agency has posted on the company's behalf, I don't feel as enthusiastic about the role. If a company has made the effort to explain who they are, what they do and what they are looking for in a candidate, I will feel more inclined to send a kicka$$ e-mail/letter.

I get this. Some vacancies advertised online say words to the effect of 'admin position available, full time, must be computer literate and good at data filing'.

How can I write a cover letter for that? How can I even tell whether it would be a job that would suit me? There's so much information missing.

SuzieSue

ViolaLass wrote: »

I get this. Some vacancies advertised online say words to the effect of 'admin position available, full time, must be computer literate and good at data filing'.

How can I write a cover letter for that? How can I even tell whether it would be a job that would suit me? There's so much information missing.

You can't and if someone things that that is an adequate job spec you wouldn't want to work for them anyway.

westv

ViolaLass wrote: »

I get this. Some vacancies advertised online say words to the effect of 'admin position available, full time, must be computer literate and good at data filing'.

How can I write a cover letter for that? How can I even tell whether it would be a job that would suit me? There's so much information missing.

From what I've seen, those sort of adverts are normally posted by agencies and seem to clog up the main job websites in their hundreds.

Svenena

I would always submit a covering letter with a CV. A lot of the jobs I've applied for in the past have had person specs two pages long, and it's not possible to cover everything needed in a CV, especially if you can't make it obvious in a bullet point how you fulfill what is required. For example, the job I currently have required experience of project management. I didn't have any, but I thought I had the skills needed, and my cover letter gave me the chance to explain what related skills I had, and also demonstrate my capability for learning new skills. I think the two documents should go together, and between them demonstrate your fit for the job.

If all you're asking for is 10 years office experience and IT skills, that can be easily demonstrated in a CV, but lots of other attributes (for example enthusiasm) are harder to show. A sentence or bullet point on your CV saying "I'm enthusiastic" is not going to be as convincing as a full sentence explaining why you really want the job. Even if it is "just" a clerical job, you should be able to come across as enthusiastic about either the sector, the company, or some aspect of the role.

On a more basic level, a covering letter also shows you're capable of composing a letter, which could well be important for a clerical role. Judging by some of the emails I receive (from people wanting to apply to a university as mature students), it is a skill which many lack.

I'm surprised people aren't doing everything possible to stand out, with the job market as it is. I can't imagine many employers would throw out applications for having a covering letter attached, whereas I can easily see why, as in the case of the OP, throwing out those without would be a straightforward filtering process for lots of similar applications.

Also, and maybe this is just me being old-fashioned, but I think it would be almost... not as polite as possible... to not have a letter explaining why you're sending a CV. Even if I was attaching an application form to an email, I would write a short message in the email along the lines of "Dear X, I am interested in applying for the role of Y. Please find my CV attached for your consideration. Etc". I imagine a lot of people just send blank emails, or just "Hi, here is my CV, thanks".

hcb42

SuzieSue wrote: »

Perhaps I am unusual in receiving 300 applications, but I've only managed to look at 20 this morning and so I am only able to look at the ones with decent covering letters.

I dont think 300 is all that unusual. Even in the height of the boom, a friend of mine who worked in public sector, who I was studying my MBA with, had received over 1000 applications for a relatively junior post.

If your total application doesn't stand out, and isn't thorough, then there is no chance of achieving the obvious objective - getting to interview stage.

SuzieSue

hcb42 wrote: »

I dont think 300 is all that unusual. Even in the height of the boom, a friend of mine who worked in public sector, who I was studying my MBA with, had received over 1000 applications for a relatively junior post.

If your total application doesn't stand out, and isn't thorough, then there is no chance of achieving the obvious objective - getting to interview stage.

Well, I feel overwhelmed by 300, I don't know what I would cope with with 1,000.

I have been ploughing through the applications with a covering letter and very few have been tailored to my vacancy. I think a lot of people realise that they should send a covering letter but decide to just send a standard one. As someone who applied for job after job in the 1990s recession, people nowadays are lucky that they are able to send off covering letters by email. Handwriting covering letters was so time consuming and if you made a mistake you had to start again. So I find it hard to understand why people can't spend a few minutes tailoring their letter to the job.