The mystery of the cover letter

1. Dear SIR/MADAM—You asked for a short cover letter to accompany my application to work
2. in your sales department. I could spend time telling you that your company is the one place I
3. have always wanted to work. I have named all of my pets after your various product lines. I am
4. grateful just to be given the opportunity to be rejected by you.
5. Or I could use up precious words exaggerating my experiences and skills. To pick out just
6. a few, in a previous role I quadrupled the annual revenues in less than three minutes. I have
7. lived in all of the world’s most important emerging markets, and speak fluent Mandarin, Hindi,
8. Spanish, and Portuguese. I can ___ (sing) in all these languages, too. In my spare time, I like
9. to meditate, kickbox, and teach underprivileged children how to read. If I am extremely busy, I
10. do all three of these things at once.
11. Or I could devote paragraphs to describing my problem-solving credentials using the STAR
12. method that your own website says is a crucial part of your interview process. As an example, I
13. previously worked for a chickpea distributor in Alaska. A colleague was underperforming badly
14. and I was asked to mentor him. I transformed his numbers and he became the best-performing
15. salesperson in the entire chickpea industry. As a result, the bastard was promoted to run the
16. department and I find myself looking for work.
17. Or I could tell you more about my character and values. I am passionate about everything.
18. I have a growth mindset: growth means more to me than anything (That’s a joke, code for
19. showing that I understand that work should be fun, too.)! I am extremely resilient: this is the
20. 435th cover letter that I have sent out in the past month, even though your company is the only
21. place I truly want to work.
22. Or I could just use this letter as an excuse to repeat keywords from the job advertisement
23. for this position. In fact, that’s basically all I have been doing so far, with the exception of
24. “chickpea” and “bastard”. Passionate, problem-solving, purpose? Tick. I smuggled “code” in
25. there, too, as a subliminal signal that I might be able to program.
26. Or I could ask what the hell is the point of me writing a cover letter at all? If the idea is to
27. prove that I am willing to put in extra time, then ChatGPT has reduced the effort of writing a
28. generic cover letter to almost nothing. I know you have to filter people out somehow. But
29. wouldn’t getting us to do some kind of aptitude or personality test tell you more about my
30. candidacy?
31. I can ___ (make) all of the same boasts in the CV you also asked for, and on LinkedIn
32. (where I may be less likely to make things up). I have followed all of the usual advice on cover
33. letters, as has almost every other applicant. The only defensible argument that I can ___ (think)
34. of for requesting a cover letter is that you might stumble across a candidate honest enough to
35. tell you what they think and memorable enough to warrant an interview.
36. I look forward to meeting you in person soon.
37. Yours sincerely, Frank Lee.

(Available at: https://www.economist.com/business/2024/09/05/the-mystery-of-the-cover-letter – textspecially adapted for this test).