> Otherwise, you're just selecting for those who are willing to lie as blatantly as required.
That's a pessimistic way of looking at it, but I'm not going to claim it's wrong. I think my phrasing made it very clear that in most cases I expect if someone includes something about this their interest is going to be ahem embellished.
All the same look at it from the hiring managers side. Say you have two candidates, who appear to otherwise be equal. One seems to think the job is just like any other. The other actually seems genuinely interested in the details of food brokering, knows of your companies involvement in <big name>'s success and has thoughts on how they can apply their background in data analytics to the challenges you face.
Which candidate do you hire? Or do you really just toss a coin?
I just find it very unlikely that you really have two candidates who appear equal after 10 minutes of talking to them.
I guess it depends on how much freedom an HM has. Where I've worked, the answer has been "more than enough". Which means you can easily ask e.g. a philosophical question. Ask something unrelated to the job, see what kind of person they are. Chance they'll both respond the exact same way is negligible, and you'll very likely come out preferring one of them. Only few people lie when you give them a good question that doesn't sound like it has a "wrong" answer that would get them a minus.
Does this mean you'll necessarily get the best candidate? No, but it's better than selecting on a proxy for willingness to lie, that's how you end up with people far too good at political games, to detriment of the org.
In places where the HM has little freedom, I guess there's little choice indeed. But even then, I'd try to go with whorver sounds most happen and genuine, rather than most interested in the company per se.
> I just find it very unlikely that you really have two candidates who appear equal after 10 minutes of talking to them.
We're talking about a cover letter, no one's been talked to yet. The HM has 100+ candidates who have done web applications with Python or whatever qualifies one for said job, and literally doesn't have time to talk to them all. They also can't ask them random clarifying questions about their life. There's 2 data points, cover letter and resume.
I suggested two ways to make your cover letter more than a rehash of your resume and your latching onto one of them.
Here's the thing: you'll notice in my example I didn't suggest you write "I'm deeply passionate about food brokering" (an actual company I've hired software engineers for). That's not likely to move the needle, it obviously nonsense (Even the owner is didn't meet that description), and much like saying "I've got a deep mastery of Python" it's just empty words without something backing it.
Instead I suggested learning about what the company does, thinking about what the job entails beyond just "writing software according to the tickets" and what it actually accomplishes and expressing what about that interests you.
Is that person's interest going to end up exaggerated? Sure probably. But they're actually interested enough to put in the effort to think through that, and that effort, like it or not is a signal. Even the most pessimistic view means at least they were willing to work harder at it.
But look, maybe your applying at a subprime lender or something equally parasitic and are either so desperate that your doing it anyway or just cynical enough to not care, yet still have some moralistic hangup about this. Then don't. I suggested other things you can bring to your cover letter that don't fit on a resume. But if you make your cover letter your resume but in paragraph form (which is all the AI can do, since that's the only data it has), then you've reduced those data points the manager has to decide if your worth talking to from 2 down to 1. You might as well have skipped the cover letter entirely and at least saved them some time. (Actually that's not true, because often a cover letter is expected and they'll ding you for not having it, but including a bullshit rephrasing of your resume for that reason is no less performative than the expression of interest your already bothered by)
That's a pessimistic way of looking at it, but I'm not going to claim it's wrong. I think my phrasing made it very clear that in most cases I expect if someone includes something about this their interest is going to be ahem embellished.
All the same look at it from the hiring managers side. Say you have two candidates, who appear to otherwise be equal. One seems to think the job is just like any other. The other actually seems genuinely interested in the details of food brokering, knows of your companies involvement in <big name>'s success and has thoughts on how they can apply their background in data analytics to the challenges you face.
Which candidate do you hire? Or do you really just toss a coin?