Cover Letter. Ahem!

Will this not be a great cover letter?

Hi!

My name is ____________ & I have to work for a living. If you would like to see me do that, check my CV and call me for interview (rude but straight). We will discuss salary thereafter.

Sd/-

Me in this desperate state

But life is not a bed of roses, is it? I always wondered why writing being an art and of course characterized to be aesthetic at many level is enforced on everybody in the most unlikely situations. All of us were able to write letters but not all of us can or are taught to write a Covering Letter. I am dreaded by the situation even today, after 20+ years of work experience. I mean, I especially can write very long letters and I do not stop typing unless interrupted. I can almost type as I think. But writing for a job has to be crisp and concise. There lies my problem with this supposed art of mine. I can either never talk or be elaborate, leave alone writing scenario, then how to be crisp & concise; moreover why? 

But my quest for knowing undue aspects leaving aside, applying for a private job in a good MNC requires an impressive CV, no doubt but they also expect you to attach a Covering Letter. This brings me to the subject matter. Where and how this requirement originated, lets find out.

Quick googling led me to Wikipedia and thus buying this book called Cover Letter Magic: Trade Secrets of Professional Resumé Writers by Wendy S. Enelow, Louise Kursmark. A 2004 publication. There might be many books, but I stumbled on this. It is surprising to see there is a book written for a "letter" . But there are people who do that. So kudos to them.

As the name suggests, the book does give you the so called "trade secrets", though it may not be a secret now, considering it is out in the open but the striking section of the book for me was the three part division of the book. In the first part, the authors have meticulously assembled the art of Creating and Distributing Your Cover Letters. In the second part, its the usual inclusion which copy-paste morons would seek, Sample Cover Letters. And finally in the third part, was the most loved section of mine, The Total Job Search: Thank You Letters, Recruiters, and Resumes.

To generalize the authors direction ship towards their book that they rightly pointed out in their preface, The Cover Letter Is How It All Starts. I agree to a large part after the reading the book entirely. Long back when I was into sales and when somebody asked me my opinion on sales, and me being interested in being a scientist or techie, I gave all the negative opinion of mine on sales. One of my seniors then pointed out that Sales is about selling - period! and though we sell products/services to make a living, what people do in general is in any other job during interview, they sell themselves and their qualities. They try to convince their prospective employer about themselves. So why selling a product as a salesman is bad and not selling yourself in a CV in other job? True indeed! And to come back to subject matter, its the covering letter that sells you. If CV(you) is the product, then Covering Letter is the Sales Brochure or Pamphlet (or the more american lingua-francua, Flier). A good print or readable form of the product makes a prospective buyer to buy the product. True, indeed!

Cover Letter is now the subject of both anxiety and punditry. I have many friends in HR, some in a very good position in large MNC and this has been an often but on-record statement from them, “If I hate a cover letter, I won’t even look at a résumé.” Though the purpose of Cover Letter is murkier for me, my understanding says that it is to introduce the human being behind the accomplishments revealing himself(or herself) through a letter. It is also a fact that many recruiters don't even look at the letter, considering their targets/deadlines to fill the bench or vacancies. 

It is a common trait for people who keep sending CVs everyday on the job portal to have only one cover letter and write it as abstract as possible so that it does not address a particular company or person. I know professional writers who help you to draft one for a fee. But at the same time, from the employers side, especially the place where the HR is delicately looking at every CV received, would expect a Cover Letter specifically written to them. If it is via portal, then there is a space allocated to write this letter. Some firms have their own portals where the Cover Letter is supposed to be uploaded. I find that as naive on the Employers side. The prospective employee should be asked to write one separately.

I would prefer separate cover letter for each firm I apply. In my 20+ years of experience, I realized that cover letter writing is a different process than writing a CV, since it will be a unique letter to some individual. I hate it when that person's name is not mentioned on the portal or advertisement. All that is mentioned is hr@__________.com or something like that. Thus, I have to start my usual, Greetings from B. Sundar. While the 433 pages book does give you a real insight on this art, I on the other hand will still prefer to use my writing skills and vocabulary. 

If we dig into the history of writing cover letters, we will find that it all originated in the second half of the 20th century. The U.S. was transitioning away from manufacturing toward a service-sector economy. The percentage of white-collar jobs in the economy nearly doubled. It is obvious that Cover Letters lie in the Service Sector only and unionized manufacturing workers were human cogs in complex systems, talented at their specific task but not required to come face-to-face with clients. It’s reasonable that the growth of services would correspond with the mainstreaming of cover letters, if their purpose is indeed to qualify the person behind the accomplishments. The idea of a “cover letter” became popularly used for a descriptive document that would precede some form of previously unaccompanied data.

The first true sign that cover letters were mainstream enough to cause job applicants some anxiety was an advertisement in 1965, in the Boston Globe: 

Today India is pacing towards Service Based Economy, though that has created problems in the unorganized sectors and of course the nascent dependency on the new foe: China. So it is customary to send a CV with Cover Letter for such white collar jobs. At the same time, with growing culture of short-cut typing on WhatsApp is not encouraging in terms of education of the youth and also middle level management job seekers. The art of writing cover letters is itself a never known art for the 70s born and 90s graduates like me so how will it impact the white-collar job seeking is something not in my scope of thoughts. For now all I can say, if someone is seeking for a job and I am the interviewer, I would prefer to a nicely written (without any grammatical errors) cover letter before I dig into his/her CV. And as for me, well, I do write well. Read my blogs....!