Cover letters are a ritual that survives mainly because no one has bothered to question them.
Recruiters ask for them out of habit. Candidates write them because they're required. Both sides spend time on a document that, in most cases, adds nothing to the hiring decision.
Let's be honest about the problems.
The Case Against Cover Letters
They take time that neither side has. A recruiter processing dozens or hundreds of applications doesn't have the bandwidth to meaningfully read cover letters. They skim or skip them. Meanwhile, candidates spend real time crafting documents that often go unread.
They don't show technical ability. For technical roles especially, a cover letter tells you nothing about how someone codes, designs systems, or solves problems. It tells you how someone writes persuasively about themselves—a skill that has almost no overlap with the skills the job actually requires.
They reward people who are good at self-promotion, not people who are good at the job. The strongest engineers I know are often not the ones who write the most compelling cover letters. The best self-promoters are not always the best hires.
They're mostly generic anyway. Most candidates reuse templates, adjust a few lines for each application, and submit something that sounds enthusiastic but reveals nothing specific. Both sides know this. The ritual continues regardless.
What Actually Works
If you're a recruiter or hiring manager: focus your evaluation on what actually predicts performance.
A well-constructed CV that shows real experience, real projects, and a coherent professional trajectory tells you far more than any cover letter. Look at what someone has built, where they've worked, and how their career has progressed.
A portfolio is even better for technical roles. Working code, deployed projects, open-source contributions, case studies—these are direct evidence of competence, not claims about it.
A structured interview process that gets to real work quickly—whether through technical discussion, paired problem-solving, or a paid trial project—gives you signal that no amount of cover letter prose can provide.
For Job Seekers
If you're applying for roles: your time is better spent elsewhere.
Invest in a CV that's clear, honest, and specific about what you've actually done. Build a portfolio that shows your work. If a company requires a cover letter, keep it short—three focused paragraphs that add context your CV doesn't cover—and don't agonize over it.
The companies worth working for are hiring for competence, not persuasive writing. Show them your work.
The cover letter is a legacy requirement that persists through inertia. Dropping it costs nothing and frees both sides to focus on what actually matters: whether the candidate can do the job.