Cozy have you ever dated online? I’m sure you have and you would realize just how foolish it would be to just send 1 perfectly crafted introduction to someone you are interested in and hoping to be done with your dating search. As we know chemistry is a mixture of so many elements, many of which are not even quantifiable and certainly not something one can ascertain by a peripheral knowledge of the other person. Being that you receive large volumes of cover letters the chance that one might tickle the persons fancy who will read this cover letter is very very low. Are they visual, do they respond to pictures of cats, like/dis-like bullet points? Who knows!? I tend to write short cover letters and hope to get a conversation going with the right company. I think relationships of value are built over time. Is writing a cover letter with a surprisingly low “match” rate even interesting to do as a writer? Am I getting tired of writing cover letters with their very low ROI? And no this is not a reflection of me not able to add immense value, it is a reflection of a very competitive job market. Is it worth my valuable time to take the extra few hours to polish it up (with aforementioned minute success rate) and are you just ending up hiring people who write “good”(subjective) cover letters? Is your hiring managers opinion a true measure of quality for every role or do they just see the world through their own specific world perspective, perhaps missing the tree from the forest? I do agree that a cover letter can describe more about a person than a resume which lists titles and company names but I am not impressed with the current hiring algorithms and hiring processes in use today. What is the solution? Maybe 1 hour or 30 minutes a week open house where perspective new employees/suitors (back to the dating analogy) can interact with the company in person and those that make a real impact will be called back. If not in person then maybe even take time to have a dialog through email or on the phone to go deeper into the details. Respect that some of your best new employees might actually have a job(s) now and are really busy.