I’ve always agonized over cover letters. They’re a huge challenge for me, I find them difficult to write, and they always sound hollow.

They’re also something that I can’t templatize. I can’t reuse them. Every cover letter has to be unique to the job posting.

I recently spoke to a recruiter for a top video game company. I asked him “what is more important, the resume or the cover letter?” I expected a long answer that ended with “it depends”.

That’s not the case, at least from his perspective. He told me that the resume is critical and the cover letter is a distant second. This is because recruiters gauge fit for a role primarily on past experience and how it matches the role.

They use the resume to be prevent bias. Many of the hiring managers don’t even read the cover letters. Most cover letters highlight unimportant information or reiterate points from the resume. For example, a typical cover letter will express excitement about the role. At the end of the day, they only want a brief description of your experience to determine if you’re a good match for an interview. The resume provides this better than a cover letter.

Before we throw the baby out with the bathwater he also shared some ways that he does find cover letters useful. First, you can use it to explain major resume gaps. Second, you can highlight non-work experience related to the role. Bother of these areas need the free form text offered by a cover letter. This is especially useful if you are shifting industries or trying out for a new career path.

If the recruiters and hiring managers don’t rely on the cover letter, what can you do instead?

The first obvious answer is to spend a lot of time refining points for your resume. I find it useful to keep a sort of journal with stories and accomplishments. When I’m applying for a role I use this as a library to bring attention to the most relevant points about my experience. Based on this recruiter’s point of view, this is time well spent.

Once you have some points for your resume it’s also helpful to practice telling those points as stories. If you do have to write a cover letter then these stories are at your finger tips, ready to share. But if you don’t then they still help you prepare to talk about those points in other ways. This is fantastic preparation for interviews. The interviewer will be ask about your experience and you need to be ready to share. If you’re more daring, many of your experiences would be great to share on social media, Youtube, or other venues. 

At the end of the day, context is critical in this discussion. A key point is that SOME hiring managers ignore cover letters. This isn’t universal. 

Knowing that the resume is more important highlights the starting point. We can use the effort we spend on our resumes to practice telling the stories of our experiences. If you’re ready to tell those stories then it won’t matter where you tell them. It could be a cover letter, interview, LinkedIn profile, or anything else. 

My biggest takeaway from the conversation is that I can stop agonizing. I will continue to write cover letters when required but I won’t see them as the be all end all.