I'm currently a graduate assistant and will be graduating with my master's in May. I'm currently working in higher education and would obviously like to continue working in higher education but, due to some personal scheduling conflicts, I don't have the ability to wait until April or May for most higher ed. jobs open.
Anyhow, I kind of understand asking for cover letters on industry-specific job platforms (significantly fewer applicants than the “public” job platforms). However, it is kind of nonsense that job openings on LinkedIn and Indeed are asking for cover letters. A lot of jobs easily see well over 50 applicants. No hiring manager is even going to read those cover letters.
The whole process feels like an extremely redundant reiteration of my resume. I'm literally pulling information from my resume and putting it on the cover letter. I made a template, so the whole process takes like 5-10 minutes, but that time adds up when you have to fill out five cover letters to apply for ten jobs.
Anyways, thanks for reading my little rant. Maybe someone has some insight that I am not aware of as to why we have to provide cover letters for so many jobs.