求职信失宠之谜

    理论上讲，求职信是个好主意。它能把求职者的意图直接传达给做出聘用决定的关键人士。如果真的有人读到你的求职信，它会拉近你和招聘者的距离，让你脱颖而出，给你的工作申请加分。但问题是，现在还有人看求职信吗？

    越来越多的时候，招聘者根本就不会瞟一眼求职信。菲尔•罗森堡是一个求职咨询网站reCareered的总裁，他在2009年调查了2,000名来自不同行业的招聘经理、人力资源代表和招聘人员，结果发现大多数时候求职信根本起不到什么作用。“90%的人根本就不看求职信，而97%的人单凭简历就决定是否给予面试机会。”

    那么什么人，或者说什么因素导致了求职信的失宠呢？如果没人读求职信的话，为什么公司还做这方面的要求呢？答案是：来自技术、人类行为和整体求职市场的改变合力促成了这一变化。

    变化的历程

    上世纪九十年代，雇主和招聘公司开始和早期求职信息板如Monster和凯业必达（Careerbuilder）建立联系。当时，雇主和招聘公司内部使用的申请跟踪系统（ATS）和求职信息板是整合在一起的，自动操作的水平和默认设置都已经预先设好。罗森堡于本世纪零零年代中期在猎头公司Robert Half担任经理职务,据他所知，这些设置主要由IT部门而不是招聘者或者人力资源部门完成。他还说：“默认设置之一就是要求递交求职信。所以我们公司每个职位广告都有求职信的要求，但奇怪的是招聘者总看不到这些信。”

    罗森堡注意到他在招聘领域的同事也有这样的奇怪经历。他发现，问题在于多数时候ATS和其它内部人力资源系统的关键词搜索设定没有包括求职信。所以招聘者通过关键词来搜索合格候选人时，从来都没有看到过求职信。

    不过招聘者也不在乎这个。很多人本来就没时间细看求职信。“不管是招聘者还是人力资源部门，他们的工作其实是快速地找到符合最低要求的申请人，”罗森堡说。“招聘不是要找到最有资格的人。这就是普遍采用的招聘流程，甚至连小公司也一样。”

    更糟糕的是，在这样不景气的就业市场，每个工作机会都有大量的候选人。罗森堡说：“你应该记得，从二战到2007年，就业市场一直都很不错，从来都是人工短缺和技能短缺。”

    唐•查尔顿是在线招聘软件公司The Resumator的创始人和首席执行官，他认为随着公司的成长，不可避免地情况是，公司不再对招募新人投入同样的关注。他指出：“公司越大，就变得越自动化和机械化。所以大公司养了很多庸才。所以公司的黄金时代是在规模只有75个人的时候，这些都是精兵强将。”

    In theory, the cover letter is a great idea. It's intended to be a direct line of communication to the people who make hiring decisions. And if it's actually read, it can build rapport with recruiters, set you apart from other candidates, and add context to your application. But that's a big "if."

    Increasingly, employers aren't even giving a first glance to cover letters that applicants submit. In 2009, Phil Rosenberg, president of reCareered, an online hub for job search advice, surveyed over 2,000 hiring managers, HR reps, and recruiters working in different industries and found that, more often than not, cover letters don't come into play. "I found 90% ignored them and 97% made a decision whether to interview or not based only on the resume."

    So who or what is at fault for the demise of the cover letter? Any why are so many employers requiring it if they don't even read them? It comes down to a combination of changes in technology, human behavior, and the job market in general.

    How we got here

    In the 1990s, employers and recruiting firms started building relationships with early job boards, such as Monster and Careerbuilder. At this time, the job boards and the applicant tracking systems (ATS) that companies and recruiting firms use internally were integrated and the level of automation and default options were set up. This job was primarily handled by IT departments, not recruiters or HR, says Rosenberg, who was a manager at staffing firm Robert Half in the mid-2000s. "There were default options. And one of those default options was to ask for cover letters. So every ad my company ran asked for cover letters but, strangely, my recruiters didn't get them."

    Rosenberg noticed that his colleagues in the recruiting field were experiencing this too. He found the problem was that in most cases the ATS and other internal HR systems weren't set up to keyword search cover letters. So recruiters would never see the cover letters as they typed in a few keywords when looking for solid candidates.

    Recruiters weren't shedding any tears over the loss. A lot of recruiters don't have time to dig into the cover letter anyhow. "Whether it's a recruiter or an HR department, the job is to efficiently find people that meet minimum qualifications," says Rosenberg. "It's not to find people with best qualifications. And these are processes that have been almost universally adopted, even with small firms."

    Add to that the fact that in a stagnant job market there are an overwhelming number of candidates for every open position. "You gotta remember we used to be in a job market that was pretty consistently, from WWII to 2007, a job market of candidate shortages and skill shortages," says Rosenberg. 

    Inevitably, as companies grow, they're less likely to put as much individual attention into their recruiting, says Don Charlton, founder and CEO of The Resumator, an online hiring software firm. "The larger the company, the more it becomes automated and robotic. That's why large companies have so many mediocre people. That's why a company's heyday is when they're hiring the best 75 people they can find."