But are you willing to fake it? That's what we're asking. Are you willing to put your whole soul into faking it.
Everybody fakes it down here.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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me_irl
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“Life will be so different when you’re out of school in the real world.”
… 3 mins later …
“Write an essay about how cool you think it is to do graphic design for the bank.”
My dream job?
I don't dream about labour.
Idk, sometimes it can be great. I worked on wind turbines for a while and one of my favorite memories is when I had the privilege of watching a beautiful sunrise from the top of a turbine. The day to day of working with a small team to kick ass at something that long-term helped provide power to thousands of homes was very fulfilling. I'd go back in a heartbeat if they built wind turbines in localities that don't suck (technically they do but good luck getting one of those site positions in Hawaii or the other small desirable wind farms).
I don't think any hobby can approximate the fulfillment that comes with doing something materially significant for society.
I haven't written a cover letter in years, if the application requires it, I just don't apply or shove in some AI generated letter (Used to have a genericized one, but the generic gave way to AI generated ones in today's genAI age lol)
I always write cover letters, but not about dreams or crap like that. I write a factual document that directly explains how I meet the requirements listed in the job ad. Literally the bullet points from the ad (with some paraphrasing or grouping) as headings. No more than a page.
Then my CV is also cut to fit on a page, removing stuff not relevant to the job ad (and trying to avoid duplicating what's in the cover letter).
My cover letter I feel is more important than my CV for getting a job.
Maybe the Americans do covering letters differently. I was always told it should just expand on the relevant experience in from your CV. Like you say, answering how you meet the skills they're looking for.
As an American, this is exactly how I was trained to write a cover letter.
Essentially, yes. Except that’s also what the interview is for, no one wants to work on a creative writing assignment just to be able to talk to a person who will then ask all of the exact same questions.
That is basically my cover letter. Mini bio, why I have experience beyond what you can see in the CV, what I bring to the table.
That's still too much work IMO (or rather it was until ChatGPT/Claude came along lmao)
I prefer my spray and pray method, any application that takes me longer than like a couple minutes is just going to get skipped altogether. Id rather send out 5 applications in 10 minutes than work on polishing 1 for 15
Ofc that's all industry dependent, if you're in a niche or otherwise tight industry like academia or some shit, my method prob won't work so well
I'm probably at a different point in my career. The last time I was looking for jobs, I applied for three, got three interviews, and offered two jobs (the third ended up closing without hiring anyone, which I think was the fault of their ad - it was clear to both of us in the interview I was the wrong person).
But if I was applying for an entry level job, I probably would put the same amount of effort in.
The current state of job hunting in the US is a nightmare. An estimated 80% of applications never get a response of any kind (not a rejection or even any form of recognition that they even got your resume), and something like up to 10% of job postings are "ghost positions" - jobs that don't actually exist and are created by recruiters to get their numbers up.
Companies use AI to pre-filter resumes before anyone even looks at them, so I say that using AI to write cover letters is fair to maximize your odds of getting looked at while minimizing effort since it takes potentially a hundred applications to get a single interview.
Oh I believe it's like that here too, but I have been in the same job a couple of years now so haven't had to face it this time around.
I also don't apply to roles that use (admit to using) automated screening. I will fail so there's no point.
as a recent graduate, it's hard to do that, because i don't meet the obscure software experience they require in every job opening on my field
That's where the paraphrasing and grouping comes in. If you have something sort of relevant then paraphrase the group name to make your skill fit. Sometimes I just omit things because I don't have the skill. No one expects to get 100% of the things they list.
If you're looking for your first job, my advice to people is look for jobs hiring multiple people. If there's one role you have to be the best. If there are two roles, you can be second best and still get a role.
Well, your feelings might not agree with reality.
its pretty rare to be required nowadays.
This is what ChatGPT's real use case is. I will never write another cover letter.
There are now companies that use AI tools to screen CVs and cover letters.
So you have an LLM generating the letter and another LLM reading it to extract the key points.
What a wonderful time to be alive /s
AI detection models are hot garbage at detecting AI. I'm not bothered.
Drew Gooden's most recent video addresses exactly this.
Please at least proofread it's output. It's painfully obvious when I get cover letters that were not proof-read. I had one cover letter a couple weeks ago with a font change for the main body, and p multiple "AI weirdness" lines.
Of course. If someone is using it blindly, I have no sympathy for them. Everyone who knows anything about data science (almost done with my masters now) screams to not trust it implicitly for a reason.
confident bullshitting
Maybe Fisher Price should make more "My First PowerPoint" kind of things in that case. I'm sure there's some demographics where it would sell like hot cakes.
Cover letters can be meaningful for an entirely different reason. When I was still an undergrad, I wanted to apply for an internship. I tried hard to write that cover letter, tell them what motivates me to do that job and why I wanted to work there. I just couldn't. I felt like I was lying to myself. That was when I realized I should switch professions.
I have a template I make minor alterations to that I send out as a cover letter. Mostly, it's just a pain in the ass to have to print out a personalized PDF or copy/paste it each time I apply.
it’s just a pain in the ass to have to print out a personalized PDF
That is exponentially more complicated than changing a few words in a document, hitting print, and then clicking Print as PDF.
I haven't changed jobs in quite some time, but back when I was applying, I wrote a Python script that would generate a PDF from a YAML file. Maintaining the YAML file was easier than maintaining a whole document.
edit: spelling.
This involves changing a few words in a few places. Like the name of the company and the job I'm going for. Again, that seems like it would be a lot more complicated.
Sure, writing the script is more complicated than changing a few words in a document, but after the initial effort of writing the script I would argue that changing a few words in a YAML file is approximately the same amount of effort as changing a few words in a word document.
I wrote the script because I enjoy scripting, plus now I can change the format of the output if I want to (as I was doing at the time), plus I built versioning into the script so I can easily refer to older versions. Of course if none of that applies to you, maintaining a document is probably the way to go! (Edit: Though I can easily edit YAML with vim, which I find strongly preferable to Word or the more open alternatives.)
edit: stupid client posted half a comment initially.
Are you 80% of my university professors in disguise?
I refuse to write company fan fiction without getting paid
You still call them 'cover letters'? I've been calling them 'corporate fellatio' for years...
Optimizing the optimization? Sounds heavily optimized.
I wanted to be a milkman and a mailman... On the moon!
Thanks to Futurama, I always wanted to be a whaler on the moon
and carry a harpoon
I’ve had companies ask for entire presentations and projects
She should submit a resume to the kid who hates writing in the third person
Depends on the level of the organization you're applying for. The higher the more important you share your views and direction you envision the role going in or how you'll execute.