Teaching Couple

[joe30]

I doubt most of us are willing to spend 80 hours of our time crafting out cover letters that often don't even get read.

[Artrageous]

I would have to respectfully disagree with Sid about spending hours writing personal cover letters. I would agree that you need to do your research and make your cover letter applicable to the school and the role you are applying for, the more personable the better. However, when you are working full time and job seeking, I personally don't have two hours to devote to a cracker cover letter that may or may not be noticed. Each to their own, perhaps for the dream jobs, sure give it your all, but generally speaking, who has that much time to spare? Working full time, being a parent, plus searching for a job, it can be a tough ride.

[Thames Pirate]

I think the amount of time spent is proportional to how much you want the job. It does get easier and faster, but it still takes time. I find that I can spend two hours on the first, 45 minutes on the next (researching the school, tweaking the letter, 2 hours on the next (school is very different and requires significant rewrite), etc. eventually you have 3 or four letters highlighting your skills in various ways. Then you tweak the right one each time. It isn't plug and play, bit it is a bit of that--while highlighting the research on the skills more effectively. The more you like the school (and the more competitive it is), the more time you will spend on it.

It can be done while teaching if you plan appropriately and prep early--research schools before they have jobs, write one a night or spend a Saturday knocking them out as they come online, etc. yes, it sucks, but you do fewer of them, and it is effective.

[PsyGuy]

@skybluesky

Cover letters rarely get read, they are all basically self glorifying. A cover letter will get read once you make it to the short short list to some degree, but they are useless in meeting the ISs screening requirements. After a short period of time all the cover letters start looking the same.

If you are applying my email or through SA/ISS your intro message is your cover letter. You want the first line to state the job vacancy you are applying for, and the second line to identify anything unique about your application (such as having an EU passport).

The problem and the only thing I agree with @Sid about is that only about 1 in 25 letters is appreciable, and that is why they arent worth reading. The rest is bunk, you can maybe right 5 strong letters everything after that is just variations on a theme.