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Survey says: Cover letters matter

“Submitting a resume without a cover letter is like not shaking hands when meeting someone for the first time.”

So says David Willmer, executive director of OfficeTeam, which just released a survey on cover letters.  Of the executives polled, 86% said cover letters are valuable when evaluating job candidates.

The poll focused on 150 senior executives from the largest U.S. companies, but maybe recruiters have a different opinion.

“Unless the job seeker is making a significant career change (i.e. different field) or is a fresh college graduate, I rarely look at a cover letter,” Lindsay Olson, partner at Paradigm Staffing, told Yahoo! HotJobs in a Recruiter Roundtable session on cover letters.

Other recruiters in the session also suggested a decreasing importance for cover letters.

What to do?  For what it’s worth, I remain pro-cover letter — even if it’s just the body of the email with your resume attached.  They can’t hurt (unless they are badly written and riddled with typos).  This article has good  tips on writing a successful cover letter.