The contrary: "this person has a bunch of experience on their resume that is possibly beneficial, but their cover letter doesn't give any indication they have thought about the role they are applying for. This other applicant shows insight into the requirements of the role via their cover letter, and has highlighted key areas of their experience, giving greater detail about how it will be useful in this role."
Who are you going to pick to interview?
Perhaps this is more important for niche industries, and smaller teams. In a large team you can get good coverage of skills through sheer number of people. In a small team its the alignment of skills is more important.
When hiring (small, niche org) I carefully read all the cover letters.
I should make my contention clearer: I think that companies are extremely unlikely to forego interviewing a candidate that otherwise looks good because they had no cover letter. This doesn't just apply to the best candidates - if any candidate looks hireable in relation to the rest of the applicant pool, they will put them through to the next stage of the process. Once you've actually sat down and spoken to someone, your written introduction is irrelevant.
I do think it probably matters more for small companies, but they're also going to get way less applications to begin with so it's like... You're really going to just not interview good candidates? Really?
"I think that companies are extremely unlikely to forego interviewing a candidate that otherwise looks good because they had no cover letter."
My point is that the cover letter is one of the tools the applicant can use to highlight themselves as a good candidate. It could easily be the tipping point for getting an interview. It can give you some feeling for their communication skills, their understanding of the role / company / product. Though I concede most cover letters are not very well written, mostly generic. In the absence of a good cover letter, their resume alone must stand out.
Of course it could be a tricky situation: choosing between a candidate with a great cover letter and less obviously great resume vs a generic cover letter and more relevant experience listed on their resume.
Personally I would lean towards the better cover letter. They have given a clearer indication enthusiasm and interest in the job. A well written cover letter will explain how their experience is relevant, despite not superficially appearing so. This allows them to show insight into the role.
I’ve got a lot of resumes and cover letters to look through and at the end of the day, a lot of people are going to be a pretty good fit. I’m going to save myself a lot of time by discarding anyone who didn’t bother to read the job post and follow directions.
The whole thing seems screwy to me. You only hire people who put a lot of effort into contacting you? So you don't recruit? A good candidate is a good candidate whether or not they spent half an hour on a cold pitch.
The problem is, you're putting up job ads (that might well be fake, candidates don't know) and expecting candidates to put in a lot of effort. You're not respecting the nature of the situation - both sides have a very low hit rate, so it's irrational for either side to put much effort into individual transactions (if they're in demand). Filters that filter out low-effort applications filter for one thing: people who have an incentive to put in effort. That doesn't just cut out people that are spamming.
OK, so do that.
You’re applying to a lot of jobs and you don’t care too much about any one of them in particular, so why should I care about your application in particular? I’ll save a lot of time by not closely reviewing your application.
Again, my point is that most people aren’t in demand and most jobs aren’t that demanding.
Someone is going to read the job post in full and put in a modicum of effort and will be a decent fit. I’ll look for that person vs. the person who put in zero effort and will be a decent fit.
I don't mean this hypothetically, I mean: isn't this what most companies actually do?
But in any case, what you're saying here is: "if the job has a large applicant ratio and you are unlikely to get hired, then I will use time spent as a filtering mechanism." The rational thing to do is to not apply to those positions (or spray & pray).
I think "minimum bar" refers to technical skills, not all selection criteria. It's perfectly sensible* to look at a larger pool with the minimum skills and select from the few with the right attitude and attention to detail.
That's not the same strategy as reducing the pool to the cheapest candidates regardless of their attitude, and isn't going to produce the same hiring decisions.
* even if it's not a universal strategy
"This guy seems really good, but he didn't rewrite his introduction for us. What do you think? Remove his interview?"
Like hell any company is going to do that.