Will the debate surrounding the importance of cover letters ever come to an end?

Earlier this month, former recruiter Anne-Marie Baiynd told StreetID that recruiters don’t read cover letters. “The managers don’t read them either because it’s all fluff,” she said.

But Kunal Desai, who is also a former recruiter (as well as the CEO of Bulls on Wall Street), said that job seekers must write a cover letter when submitting their resume directly to an employer.

“Make sure that you have a specific cover letter for every job that you apply to,” said Desai. “It’s a pain in the a**, but it’s going to be a huge help because you’re tailoring it to every single person [and] every single company.”

Desai said that the last thing a job seeker should do is send out a general cover letter that is written for everyone. “They don’t really care about that,” he said. “Anything you can do to differentiate yourself can’t hurt.”

But if employers want an original cover letter, why are recruiters so quick to throw them away?

“The recruiter is different from a company,” Desai clarified. “A recruiter is a salesman. He only gets paid if that company makes a hire. Recruiters don’t want to waste time with cover letters because they’re sifting through a thousand candidates to find somebody to sell to their client.”

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