I am on the fence on cover letters. I am pretty sure they are not the most crucial part though. I did write cover letters for most of my applications, a relevant part of them following all the good advice for cover letters, some just copy and paste.

I couldn’t see correlation in my application of well-thought cover letters and interviews. My copy-paste one was very well written and representative of my skills. Good enough for most companies I think.

In the end I got a job from a copy-paste one.

The most a good customized cover letter did to me were customized rejections praising my cover letter/email.

How do you deploy the cover letter? I always package it in with the resume to force it to be read rather than just in the dedicated cover letter spot.

Do you have the cover letter be the first page or the second? I'm now thinking about doing this myself. Figured it would be more likely read when it's part of the resume itself.

I put it first. I want it read. Then they can be encouraged to read the resume in more detail.

I always use the cover letter spot, never occurred to me that trick. Might be a good idea. Still, the GP argument is that a hiring manager would read the cover letter first. This trick would help with other type of managers

I often write very unique cover letters, so I want to force them to at least be skimmed.

my limited experience there is from reading hundreds of applications. The cover letter definitely made the biggest difference in our process (small remote company, no HR department, no headhunters or agents).

You mention things like “representative of my skills”, which I’m sure these were. I would however stress out the importance of representing the match to the employer. A good cover letter makes it obvious. And yes there’s an overlap between skills and match, but they are still different.

7 jobs; 2-3x offers over career, and I’ve never written a cover letter.

Involved in interviewing for 2/7, and a cover letter has never factored into a hiring decision.