Updated September 7, 2026
The cover letter, when it is still worth writing
A letter that restates the CV in prose is worse than no letter, because it costs the reader time and returns nothing. The useful letter answers a question the CV cannot.
Ask a recruiter whether they read cover letters and the honest answer is: not usually, and always in three specific situations. When the CV raises a question: a change of field, a gap, a move to another country. When the role is senior enough that judgement matters more than history. And when the employer is small enough that the person hiring is the person you would work for.
Outside those three, a letter is a formality that is filed unread, and the correct amount of effort is small. Inside them, it is frequently the thing that decides, and the correct amount of effort is an hour.
Four paragraphs, and what each is for
The first says which role and why this employer specifically, in one sentence that could not have been sent to anybody else. The second gives the single most relevant thing you have done, with its result. The third answers the question your CV raises, if it raises one. The fourth says what you want to happen next.
Two hundred and fifty words is plenty and four hundred is too many. The letter is read on a phone, between other things, by somebody who has twelve of them.
- The specific sentence in paragraph one has to name something only that employer does.
- Paragraph two repeats one CV bullet on purpose, expanded with the part that did not fit.
- Paragraph three is the whole reason the letter exists; if there is no question, cut it.
The phrases that sink it
There is a register of letter-writing that signals, within one line, that the writer had nothing to say: I am writing to express my keen interest, I am a dynamic and results-driven professional, I believe I would be a great fit. They are not wrong exactly. They are simply information-free, and a reader learns from them only that you can produce them.
Generated letters are full of them, which is why the generator in this tool refuses them outright in every language it writes: a draft containing a banned phrase is rejected and rewritten before it reaches you, alongside the same fact-checking the CV rewrites get.
- Cut every sentence that would be true of any candidate for any job.
- Cut every adjective about yourself and replace it with the thing that earned it.
- Never mention a requirement from the advert that your CV cannot support.
Write the letter when there is a question to answer, keep it to a page, and make sure at least one sentence in it could not have been sent to anybody else. If no such sentence exists, the letter is not ready.
Put it into practice