Shadowing a recruiter for a day changed my whole view on cover letters

I spent last Tuesday at a staffing agency in Phoenix watching how they actually screen applicants, and maybe it's just me but I thought cover letters mattered way more than they do. Out of 40 resumes they looked at, only 3 of them even had the letter attached, and the recruiter told me she skips them most of the time to check for job gaps first. Has anyone else tried sitting in on the other side of the hiring table and found something that surprised you?

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the_oscar2mo ago

Recruiter gave me the same advice a few years back when I asked about my own job hunt. She said she reads cover letters only after shes already decided the person might be a fit from the resume. So I stopped stressing about writing the perfect letter and started putting that time into tailoring my resume for each job instead. Got way more callbacks that way, and the one time I did skip the cover letter entirely, I still landed an interview. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, the resume is what gets your foot in the door, the letter is just extra noise.

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