What hiring managers actually read in a cover letter

Cover letters occupy a strange place in hiring. Plenty of managers never open them. Plenty of others read them closely and use them to break ties. Since you cannot tell which kind you are dealing with, the sensible strategy is to write one that costs you very little and works hard in the cases where it is read.

What gets read

When a manager does open it, they are skimming for three things, usually in the first two sentences: do you understand what this job is, is there a concrete reason you would be good at it, and are you a real person who wants this particular role rather than any role.

• The first sentence. If it is "I am writing to express my interest in the position advertised," you have spent your best line on nothing.
• Any specific detail about the company or the role that proves you read the posting.
• One concrete accomplishment with a number, ideally the one most relevant to their problem.

What gets skipped

• Your life story and why you majored in what you majored in.
• Adjectives about yourself. "Passionate, detail-oriented and hardworking" carries no information.
• A restatement of your resume in paragraph form. They already have the resume.
• Anything past roughly 250 words.

A good cover letter answers one question the resume cannot: why this job, at this company, now. If your letter would work for any employer, it is doing nothing.

A structure that holds up

1. 1Open with the specific thing that made you apply — a product, a problem in their posting, a detail about the team.
2. 2One paragraph of evidence: the closest thing you have done to what they need, with a number in it.
3. 3One short paragraph connecting your background to their situation, in their vocabulary.
4. 4A plain closing line. No flourish required.

When to skip it

If the application marks it optional and you are applying to a large company with an automated pipeline, your effort is usually better spent on the resume. If you are applying to a small team, a role you badly want, or anywhere a human will plausibly read it, write the letter. The smaller the company, the more it counts.

Mulika's paid tiers will draft one from the posting and your own resume, in a few different angles, which removes the blank-page problem. The structure above is what it is aiming at, and you can write it yourself in fifteen minutes once you stop trying to sound impressive.