Somewhere, embedded in the annals of cover-letter madness, job seekers continue to embrace the notion that employment decision makers have Mandarin time on their idle hands. Aside from legal correspondence, those individuals rarely take time to study your emailed cover letters.
Job seekers to continue entertain baffling notions to the contrary. Their subliminal motivating behaviors can be traced to deep-seeded fears, self-serving envy or simply grief avoidance. Every time we make major decisions (and seeking employment is no exception), our behaviors can be linked to underlying motivations.
To illustrate, we will focus on emailed job cover letters. The five-step process is mindlessly simple. Enter recipient’s email address, state subject, write cover, attach résumé, and press send. Short of mental telepathy, it is hard to imagine something simpler.
Complications arise when individuals have too many options.
(1) What about omitting the cover?
(2) If a cover is included, how long should it be?
(3) Should my unique situation be explained?
(4) What about recapping my life’s exciting story?
(5) Should I incorporate all the right buzzwords in the cover?
It is not prudent to omit a cover letter. At minimum, you need to indicate why you established contact. Beyond that, covers can become fuzzy.
As for overall length, 45 words (that is four sound bytes) is a solid benchmark. Anything longer and you risk stating something that will irritate the unknown recipient.
For those using short covers, the motivating factor is usually based on grief avoidance. To avoid mistakes—be that grammatical or saying too much, the simple solution is to avoid these potential headaches. This is grounded in belief that the less one writes, the less one has to remember or defend. In either case, the job seeker has managed to avoid a potential grief situation.
Options three through five inevitably require several paragraphs. In the third and fourth option, job seekers have an overwhelming compulsion to explain their unique situations. With these types of job seekers, a combination of embedded fears and grief seem to be overriding factors.
Their perception is that the recipient will not appreciate their predicament without knowing all the details. Hence, those individuals have a tendency to rationalize and explain things. Any time a candidate resorts to explaining anything in email covers it takes up space and devours time.
At the bottom of this continuum, there are job seekers motivated by envy. Those steeped with envy tend to be extraordinarily difficult. No amount of rhyme or reason filters through. In their quest to succeed, they will go to whatever lengths deemed necessary. Thus, to gain a perceived advantage over others, they know no bounds. It should come as no surprise that their covers will be lengthy.
About 20 years ago, I began hearing senior managers grouse about the amount of time they spent plowing through lengthy cover letters. Fast forward to 2012. Today, rather than opening envelopes, the process involves opening emails. What follows represents this year’s ten candid retorts on the cover-letter topic.
"Personally, I don't have time to read lengthy emails."
"If they start telling me what should be in the résumé, I stop reading."
"I'll read the opening paragraph, and that's it."
"All I want to know is why they contacted me and what do they want. Beyond that, I'm not interested."
"If the cover is too long, the individual probably doesn't think my time is valuable. Well poop on them."
"I never read cover letters anymore. Most are self-serving and redundant. It’s a waste of time."
“I avoid reading cover letters. This helps me avoid forming a bad first impression.”
"I read cover letters for mistakes. After the second or third typo or grammatical error, I’ve read enough and toss it all out."
"If they tell me something interesting, I'll read it. But that rarely happens."
"I only have time to read short ones."
It is time to challenge your mental acumen with a little role-playing. Suppose you are a busy executive. How would you react if you received a couple hundred lengthy emails each time you posted a job opening? Which of the above statements apply to you?
Now, write your next cover letter in 45 words or less. Sans excuses and explaining, state what has to be said and move on.