The short answer
Practice genuinely varies. High-volume recruiting frequently ignores cover letters; smaller employers and hiring managers often read every one; and any role involving writing or judgement treats the letter as a work sample. The useful rule is not "always" or "never" but this: write one whenever the field exists and you have something specific to say, and skip it when the posting says not to, when the platform does not offer one, or when you would only be producing filler.
What matters most
- Expectations vary by employer size, sector, seniority and country. Nobody speaks for all of hiring.
- "Optional" usually means a hiring manager may read it and a screener probably will not β so it is upside with no downside.
- Always write one for a career change, a referral, a gap, a speculative approach, or any role where writing is the work.
- Skip it when told to, when the platform has no field, or when you would be submitting something generic.
Why the advice contradicts itself
Different parts of the hiring market genuinely behave differently, and most confident advice on this question is someone generalising from the part they have seen.
- High-volume recruiting
- Retail, warehousing, call centres, mass graduate intakes. Hundreds of applications per vacancy, screened on structured criteria. Letters are frequently not opened, and nobody involved pretends otherwise.
- Small and mid-sized employers
- The hiring manager is often the person reading applications, sometimes all of them. Letters are read here more than anywhere, and a good one has a disproportionate effect because so few arrive.
- Senior and specialist hiring
- Fewer applicants, more scrutiny of each. The letter is where reasoning and judgement become visible, and its absence is noticed.
- Roles where writing is the work
- Marketing, communications, law, teaching, fundraising, research, client-facing consulting. The letter is a work sample regardless of whether anyone calls it one.
- Technical roles at scale
- Many engineering pipelines weight the resume, the portfolio and the technical screen heavily and the letter barely at all. Practice varies significantly between employers even within the same city.
The practical consequence: you cannot know which of these you are in from outside. What you can do is spend a proportionate amount of effort and stop worrying about whether it will be read.
Always write one when
- The posting asks for one. This is not a suggestion, and applications missing a requested document are a convenient first cut.
- You were referred. The letter is where the name goes, and a referral changes who reads your application.
- You are changing career or industry. The resume cannot carry the reasoning. Covered in full in the career change cover letter guide.
- There is something on the resume that needs a sentence. A gap, a relocation, a short tenure, a demotion, a return after a break. Better explained by you than guessed at by someone else.
- You do not meet every requirement. The letter is the only place to name the shortfall and counterweight it.
- You are approaching an employer speculatively. With no vacancy there is no resume slot to fill, so the letter is the entire application.
- The role involves writing, persuasion or client contact. Declining to submit a writing sample for a writing job is itself an answer.
It is genuinely fine to skip when
- The posting says not to. Some employers deliberately exclude letters to reduce bias in screening. Sending one anyway is not initiative, it is a failure to follow instructions.
- There is no field for it. Quick-apply flows on job boards often have nowhere to put one. Do not force it into the resume file as an extra page.
- The employer has replaced it with structured questions. Many applicant systems now ask three or four specific questions instead. Those answers are the letter β put the effort there.
- It is a high-volume role you are applying to in bulk. Ten generic letters are worth less than three tailored applications, and the time is better spent narrowing the list.
- You genuinely have nothing specific to say. A letter that could go to any employer adds nothing and occasionally subtracts, because it demonstrates that you had nothing particular in mind.
Where expectations differ by country
If you are applying internationally, the local convention matters more than any general advice.
| Market | Typical expectation |
|---|---|
| United States | Optional in high-volume hiring, expected for professional and senior roles. Short β one page, and usually under 400 words. |
| United Kingdom and Ireland | Widely expected, and often longer and more formal than the US equivalent. Frequently pasted into an application form rather than attached. |
| Germany, Austria, Switzerland | The Anschreiben is a formal, structured part of a complete application file, and omitting it is unusual. |
| Netherlands and Nordics | Generally expected, generally short, and written less formally than in German-speaking markets. |
| Australia and New Zealand | Commonly expected for professional roles. Public sector applications often replace the letter with responses to selection criteria. |
| US federal | Not usually required, but the federal resume itself carries the detail a letter would. Follow the announcement exactly. |
Where a posting and a general convention disagree, the posting wins. Purdue's cover letter guidance is a reasonable baseline for US professional applications, and for federal roles the USAJOBS announcement itself is the authority.
The cost-benefit, honestly
A tailored letter takes twenty to thirty minutes once you have written a few. In the worst case it is never opened and you have lost half an hour. In the best case it is the reason a hiring manager rings you rather than the person above you in the pile. That asymmetry is why the default should be to write one, and why the default should also be to keep it short.
What is not worth doing is the middle path most people take: a template letter with the company name swapped, sent to forty employers. It costs real time in aggregate, produces nothing, and if a hiring manager does read it, it makes an active case against you. Better to write five real ones and skip the rest.
If time is the constraint, the cover letter builder handles the layout and the repeated furniture so the thirty minutes goes on the argument, and the ATS checker will tell you whether the resume going with it clears the automated screen in the first place.
Questions people actually ask
Do you still need a cover letter in 2026?
It depends where you are applying. High-volume recruiting often does not read them, while smaller employers, senior roles and any job involving writing or judgement frequently do. Because you cannot tell from outside which situation you are in, submitting a short tailored letter is the sensible default.
Should I submit a cover letter if it says optional?
Yes. Optional means the automated screen will not require it and a human might read it, which is upside with no real downside. Keep it to twenty or thirty focused minutes rather than treating it as a major project.
Is it bad to not send a cover letter?
Only when one was asked for, or in situations where the letter is doing work the resume cannot β a career change, a gap, a referral, or a shortfall against the requirements. Where the platform offers no field and the posting does not request one, its absence is not held against you.
Do recruiters actually read cover letters?
Some do and some do not, and both groups are describing their own workload accurately. Agency and high-volume recruiters often skip straight to the resume; hiring managers at smaller organisations frequently read every letter that arrives.
Is a generic cover letter better than none?
Usually not. A letter that could have been sent to any employer adds no information and can work against you by demonstrating that you had nothing particular to say. Writing five tailored letters and skipping the rest is a better use of the same time.
