[hp6]

When you have a sub 1% chance of getting an interview, asking for a cover letter or some kind of non trivial time comitment is just wrong. IMHO a better approach would be to select lets say 10% of the candidates and ask only them.

[yakshaving_jgt]

If an applicant can’t take the time to write a cover letter — and by “cover letter” I just mean an email that’s says here’s who I am and here’s what I like/do — why should the person hiring take the time to read what the applicant has copied and pasted to countless other employers?

[voidnap]

> and by “cover letter” I just mean an email that’s says here’s who I am and here’s what I like/do

This makes it sound like it would be something that would be "copied and pasted to countless other employers", just like a resume often is.

But your last point made it sound like the applicant should invest more of their time than that.

Conventionally, a good cover letter will be, at least to a degree, bespoke for that job. But that is a non-trivial time investment on the part of the applicant. And it can be a significant waste of time in cases where something on their resume disqualifies them from consideration regardless of their cover letter.

Also, in the last several years, the impact of a good cover letter on getting an employment offer has diminished tremendously to the point that expect it of applicants isn't not respectful of their time.

[dangus]

Do you really want an employee who is dumb enough to do a repetitive, menial, low-value task manually for dozens or hundreds of iterations?

Do you want to disqualify great programmers who are bad at writing prose?