[Darkstryder]

To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why.

AI doesn’t help because if you can articulate your genuine motivation as a prompt for an AI, you should just use the prompt as the cover letter which will be a lot more effective than using the AI-generated letter, as the AI will muddy your authentic motivation and diminish its impact.

[friendlyHornet]

> To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why.

Money. I want money. That's the reason I am applying to your job offer. I found a job offer that meets my skillset and I applied to it because I want an income.

But this isn't what you expect me to write, is it? You want something more, so I'm going to bullshit you so I can get the job that will allow me to get money

[yakshaving_jgt]

Ok, you want money. That's fine.

But what does the potential employer get out of the deal?

[gampleman]

Did anyone ever get hired by answering the question of "Why do you want to work for us?" with "Because I need a pay check"?

Because that's realistically like 80% of the motivation for most job/candidate pairings. In my case the remainder is usually like 15% "and it doesn't require selling my immortal soul to the devil" and 5% "your tech/problem is vaguely interesting".

Given the above, I feel like a typical cover letter is really an exercise in spin.

[foldr]

A cover letter is also supposed to explain why the company should want you to work for them. But this question isn't usually posed explicitly, which I guess is confusing for some people.

Also, almost no-one is motivated so purely by money that they are equally interested in all jobs that pay the same. You can probably think of some reason why you would want to work at company X as opposed to any other number of other companies that may be offering similarly-paying roles.

[notgoliath]

Absolutely. While in an ideal world, everyone would love to land a job that perfectly aligns with their personal values and interests, the reality is different. The current market conditions are dictating a lot of our job search and choices in companies. A vast number of talented engineers are out of work due to circumstances beyond their control and applying for multiple jobs becomes less about passion and more about survival. While a personalized cover letter sounds great in theory, when you're trying to send out dozens of applications to ensure you can keep the lights on the idealism takes a backseat to practicality.