????理論上講，求職信是個好主意。它能把求職者的意圖直接傳達給做出聘用決定的關鍵人士。如果真的有人讀到你的求職信，它會拉近你和招聘者的距離，讓你脫穎而出，給你的工作申請加分。但問題是，現在還有人看求職信嗎？

????越來越多的時候，招聘者根本就不會瞟一眼求職信。菲爾?羅森堡是一個求職咨詢網站reCareered的總裁，他在2009年調查了2,000名來自不同行業的招聘經理、人力資源代表和招聘人員，結果發現大多數時候求職信根本起不到什么作用。“90%的人根本就不看求職信，而97%的人單憑簡歷就決定是否給予面試機會。”

????那么什么人，或者說什么因素導致了求職信的失寵呢？如果沒人讀求職信的話，為什么公司還做這方面的要求呢？答案是：來自技術、人類行為和整體求職市場的改變合力促成了這一變化。

????變化的歷程

????上世紀九十年代，雇主和招聘公司開始和早期求職信息板如Monster和凱業必達（Careerbuilder）建立聯系。當時，雇主和招聘公司內部使用的申請跟蹤系統（ATS）和求職信息板是整合在一起的，自動操作的水平和默認設置都已經預先設好。羅森堡于本世紀零零年代中期在獵頭公司Robert Half擔任經理職務,據他所知，這些設置主要由IT部門而不是招聘者或者人力資源部門完成。他還說：“默認設置之一就是要求遞交求職信。所以我們公司每個職位廣告都有求職信的要求，但奇怪的是招聘者總看不到這些信。”

????羅森堡注意到他在招聘領域的同事也有這樣的奇怪經歷。他發現，問題在于多數時候ATS和其它內部人力資源系統的關鍵詞搜索設定沒有包括求職信。所以招聘者通過關鍵詞來搜索合格候選人時，從來都沒有看到過求職信。

????不過招聘者也不在乎這個。很多人本來就沒時間細看求職信。“不管是招聘者還是人力資源部門，他們的工作其實是快速地找到符合最低要求的申請人，”羅森堡說。“招聘不是要找到最有資格的人。這就是普遍采用的招聘流程，甚至連小公司也一樣。”

????更糟糕的是，在這樣不景氣的就業市場，每個工作機會都有大量的候選人。羅森堡說：“你應該記得，從二戰到2007年，就業市場一直都很不錯，從來都是人工短缺和技能短缺。”

????唐?查爾頓是在線招聘軟件公司The Resumator的創始人和首席執行官，他認為隨著公司的成長，不可避免地情況是，公司不再對招募新人投入同樣的關注。他指出：“公司越大，就變得越自動化和機械化。所以大公司養了很多庸才。所以公司的黃金時代是在規模只有75個人的時候，這些都是精兵強將。”

????In theory, the cover letter is a great idea. It's intended to be a direct line of communication to the people who make hiring decisions. And if it's actually read, it can build rapport with recruiters, set you apart from other candidates, and add context to your application. But that's a big "if."

????Increasingly, employers aren't even giving a first glance to cover letters that applicants submit. In 2009, Phil Rosenberg, president of reCareered, an online hub for job search advice, surveyed over 2,000 hiring managers, HR reps, and recruiters working in different industries and found that, more often than not, cover letters don't come into play. "I found 90% ignored them and 97% made a decision whether to interview or not based only on the resume."

????So who or what is at fault for the demise of the cover letter? Any why are so many employers requiring it if they don't even read them? It comes down to a combination of changes in technology, human behavior, and the job market in general.

????How we got here

????In the 1990s, employers and recruiting firms started building relationships with early job boards, such as Monster and Careerbuilder. At this time, the job boards and the applicant tracking systems (ATS) that companies and recruiting firms use internally were integrated and the level of automation and default options were set up. This job was primarily handled by IT departments, not recruiters or HR, says Rosenberg, who was a manager at staffing firm Robert Half in the mid-2000s. "There were default options. And one of those default options was to ask for cover letters. So every ad my company ran asked for cover letters but, strangely, my recruiters didn't get them."

????Rosenberg noticed that his colleagues in the recruiting field were experiencing this too. He found the problem was that in most cases the ATS and other internal HR systems weren't set up to keyword search cover letters. So recruiters would never see the cover letters as they typed in a few keywords when looking for solid candidates.

????Recruiters weren't shedding any tears over the loss. A lot of recruiters don't have time to dig into the cover letter anyhow. "Whether it's a recruiter or an HR department, the job is to efficiently find people that meet minimum qualifications," says Rosenberg. "It's not to find people with best qualifications. And these are processes that have been almost universally adopted, even with small firms."

????Add to that the fact that in a stagnant job market there are an overwhelming number of candidates for every open position. "You gotta remember we used to be in a job market that was pretty consistently, from WWII to 2007, a job market of candidate shortages and skill shortages," says Rosenberg.?

????Inevitably, as companies grow, they're less likely to put as much individual attention into their recruiting, says Don Charlton, founder and CEO of The Resumator, an online hiring software firm. "The larger the company, the more it becomes automated and robotic. That's why large companies have so many mediocre people. That's why a company's heyday is when they're hiring the best 75 people they can find."