Do cover letters still matter?

Honest answer: usually nobody reads them — until the one time someone does, and it decides the interview. The trick is knowing which situation you're in, and never sending the letter that hurts you.

When cover letters genuinely matter

Career changes and gaps. Your résumé raises a question ("why is a teacher applying to an operations role?") that only prose can answer. Without the letter, the reader answers it themselves — usually against you.
Small companies and direct-to-manager applications. The fewer layers between you and the decision-maker, the more likely a human reads what you wrote. At a 30-person company, assume they read it.
Writing-adjacent roles. Communications, marketing, support, anything client-facing: the letter is a work sample, whether framed that way or not.
When it's required. Obvious, but: a required letter that's obviously generic reads as "I didn't care enough," which is worse than the requirement itself.

When to skip it

High-volume postings at large companies where the letter is optional, roles where your résumé is a clean, obvious match, and any application you're sending as a long shot among many. In those cases the marginal interview odds are close to zero — spend the time tailoring the résumé or finding a referral instead. An optional letter you half-wrote is the worst of both worlds.

The AI-slop problem

Since everyone got access to AI writing tools, recruiters report drowning in letters that share the same skeleton: flattery about the company, "I am excited to apply," a paragraph that restates the résumé, "I am confident that…" The pattern is now so recognizable that a templated letter actively signals low effort — the exact opposite of what a letter exists to prove. If your letter could be sent to five companies by changing one word, it isn't a letter; it's a form.

What a good letter actually does

A letter earns its read by adding the one thing a résumé can't hold: a point of view. Not "I have the skills you list" — the résumé already says that. Instead: what you understand about the problem this role exists to solve, and the evidence from your history that you'd attack it well. One specific opinion plus two concrete proof points beats five paragraphs of enthusiasm, every time. Keep it under a page — well under. The reader is deciding whether to spend thirty minutes on you; the letter should cost them ninety seconds.

The test for every sentence: could any applicant have written this? If yes, cut it. What's left is the letter.

Where Cinchora fits

Cinchora writes letters argued from its own fit analysis of your résumé against the posting — a specific case, in plain language, with every claim traceable to your actual history. And it runs its own slop check: banned phrases, verified facts, no filler.

Try it free