Just last year, I spent a whole day writing one for a position I was perfectly suited for - a job I really wanted. And well, I never even got a reply. That's where my strategy changed. I realized most employers now overwhelmingly use AI tools to look through cover letters, and it matters more whether you have a cover letter (or not) vs. the actual quality of the letter.
So, I decided I would no longer spend hours crafting each ideal letter, which was also limiting the number of jobs I could apply for, and I increasingly began using GenAI. Initially, just for some inspiration, but pretty soon I had a whole workflow: I would upload my CV and 1-2 past cover letters I was really proud of, along with the job description, and the prompt I had refined over time. Then I would copy/paste the result into a Google Doc, edit, and download the PDF.
In the past 3 months alone, these letters have landed me interviews at McKinsey, KPMG, and BMW.
Just recently, I decided I wanted to fully automate this workflow, so I built a simple user interface that would allow me to just upload my documents and hit generate. Then I put in an editor and a way to directly download the PDF so I could stop filling my google drive with a bunch of random cover letters.
So while this has worked pretty well for me, I would really appreciate some feedback. Is this tool useful? Anything you'd change? You can use the code NOVA20 to get 20 free cover letters.