Why I Stopped Reading Cover Letters

Classroom Management #1: First post in an occasional series on lessons learned from teaching and how they’ve shaped my management outlook

The general consensus from students is that taking tests sucks. I don’t have statistics on this, but, I feel pretty confident in this assertion. I’m on the fringe in that I actually enjoy the pressure of taking tests, but even I still think they suck at reflecting my actual knowledge/skill set in a given area.

When I first became a teacher, I quickly realized that the only thing worse than taking a test is being the person making, proctoring, and grading the tests. Ask any teacher friends you have; in this, I am not on the fringe.

These days, the best teachers (or at least those whose school leadership allows them to do so, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post) are moving beyond unit tests and finding more creative ways to measure student learning. For some awesome examples, check out this list Edutopia put together of 53 ways to check for understanding. We know that there are more fun ways, for both the teacher and the student, for students to prove they understand things.

The goal of education is much more than simply passing a test. What we really want is for our students to be able to apply concepts to their daily life, to make connections, to share, to analyze, to evaluate, to collaborate, to debate, to create… So, as educators we should always be looking for better ways to measure that learning.

My team can tell you that often I apply learnings from my teaching practice to my management practice. Thus, the title of this series.

The general consensus from job applicants is that applying for jobs sucks. I don’t have statistics for that one either. But, come on: resumes, cover letters, interviews… Even those who make it to the final rounds generally don’t enjoy the process.

Especially cover letters: No one really likes writing cover letters. I love to write… just not cover letters. Have you ever written a cover letter and thought to yourself, “Great, whoever reads that one page cover letter will definitely have a holistic idea of who I am as a person.” No? Me neither.

After a few years of being involved in our hiring process, I can now definitively say: the only thing worse than writing cover letters is reading and evaluating cover letters. Once I became responsible for hiring a team, cover letters quickly became the bane of my existence. First of all, when you are actively recruiting candidates, it feels like you are reading a million of the same cover letter over and over.

Besides the repetitiveness of reviewing many cover letters for the same position, having written a good cover letter or resume is at best marginally indicative of whether or not a person will be a good fit for the job or culture. The difference in cover letters from our very best candidates, the ones who became awesome superstar teachers; and the worst candidates who… well… don’t… are not THAT different (with some exceptions). Someone who is a terrible fit for your company might write a decent enough cover letter. Someone who is a great fit might not shine through in one.

To illustrate that point, we once received a professional, well-written, and relevant cover letter from a candidate with all the pre-requisite experience and certifications. Everything seemed ship-shape; so we went forward with the interview process. But, during the first round interview, for a teaching position, this particular candidate found it appropriate to discuss both his sex life and (and!) his gambling habit. Let me reiterate that this person was applying for a teaching position. At a school. Where we teach children.

Suffice it to say, this candidate was not offered a job. Between reading his application, scheduling logistics, and actually interviewing him, I spent about 1.5 hours of my life on this guy. And in the end, all I got was this lousy anecdote.

In the world of private tutoring, test-prep, and language learning centers, it is not uncommon for candidates to blast 20+ centers with their application at the same time. I’ll admit that I was sending out about 4 per day the first week I moved to Vietnam. It makes sense then, that on multiple occasions I have received cover letters that either a) don’t list our school’s name at all; or, and it’s hard to say which is worse, b) list the name of some other school.

As a manager, I had two main issues with our hiring process:

1. We were wasting a lot of time reading applications and conducting first round interviews of candidates who were just not a good cultural fit for our school.
2. Most candidates really had no sense of how we were different from any of the other 20 schools they were applying to; so why should they come work for us? Why wouldn’t they just take the first job they got offered?

With every bad cover letter, I would think, “Surely, there must be better way than the ‘Cover Letter + CV’ application for candidates to show that they are a good fit for the company and the position.”

Then, I read the IDEO Stories post “Dramatically Simple Trick to Improve Hiring at your Startup” and I was sipping the Kool-Aid faster than you can say “OH, YEAAHH!”.

Basically, the OI Engine team at IDEO did away with cover letters. Instead, they ask candidates to submit 10 questions about the company and/or the position they are applying for.

The IDEO team found that it helped them identify candidates who would be a good fit much more quickly and accurately.

I know it makes a better story if I say it took a long time to convince the “big guys” in upper management to go for it, but that would be a lie, and we’re all about transparency. Don and Tony, our Co-CEOs, were on board within 10 minutes. That’s a combined figure.

It’s early to call this, but in the first week of going live with the new application- I’m already so glad we copied IDEO.

We can get a much better sense of cultural fit right off the bat. It’s obvious who has put the effort to scan our website, and who hasn’t. It’s obvious who is only interested in the logistics (working hours, salary, and locations). And it also becomes obvious who shares our values and motivations as educators!

More importantly, it’s been instructive for us, as a learning organization. Some of the questions we read ask about our basic philosophy- that really should be easier to intuit from our website. That tells us we need to improve our website content. Beyond that, it also gives us candid insight into what candidates are looking for in a great work environment.

We are still working on improving it; but here’s some of the positive feedback, so far:

“It gave me the feeling who I might be working with in the future.”

“This is a unique way to make a job application and it really got me to think.”

And, perhaps most importantly, it has made myself and the rest of the hiring team feel genuinely excited to meet some of this batch of candidates!

In conclusion, I’m really looking forward to never reading a cover letter again.

P.S. In case it wasn’t obvious, we are hiring like crazy. If you’re looking for a teaching job in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, here is the link to our new application page for teaching candidates + we have a ton of other positions listed here! If you’ve read this far, then I encourage you to apply + give us your feedback!