10 ms·

Generate a Cover Letter by Pasting the Job Post and Your Resume

156 points by spqr233 3y ago

yawnxyz 3y ago
This is endgame for the current hiring process circus. It'll be back to "who you know, who recommends you, and who you trust."
- Lacerda69 3y ago
  was it ever not that? i got 100% of all jobs i ever had like that
  - dorkwood 3y ago
    I’m similar. I’ve been working for almost 15 years, and got all but one of my jobs through connections. I think I’m now so out of touch with the hiring game that I’d fail spectacularly if I ever had to do it again. I don’t even know what a cover letter is. Do you attach it as a PDF to your email? Why don’t you just write that stuff in the actual email?
  - awb 3y ago
    I’ve hired over 50 people and they were all new to me. The big qualifying question was “What have you launched recently?”
FpUser 3y ago
Turns out to be pathetic
hackitup7 3y ago
This is cool but sending me a cover letter is sort of like having an @aol.com email address – it tells me that you aren't really with the times.
spqr233 3y ago
Just paste the job post and your resume or LinkedIn, and get a tailored cover letter in minutes. Excited to hear your feedback and suggestions to improve it—try it out and land your dream job!
- quadcore 3y ago
  An example on the landing page would be nice
- akg_67 3y ago
  A better thing to do is take the job description and a detailed resume, and rewrite the resume to fit the job description. Cover letters might be needed in certain jobs like academia, but they have fallen out of fashion in the online application world.
andrewfromx 3y ago
um dup? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35113802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35113802
- throwaway675309 3y ago
  Seems like it was posted by the same person, so I guess they didn't get enough traction two weeks ago and felt the need to repost it.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    I agree. From the FAQ: > Are reposts ok? > If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates. It's not clear what "significant attention" means, and how many are "a small number". The other post got only 18 upvotes and 7 comments, so I guess a repost is fine.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
Dear Hiring Manager, I am excited to apply for the OpenAI Research Residency program as a Research Resident. As a software engineer with experience in building scalable systems in the fintech, health, and adult entertainment industries, I believe I have the skills and expertise required to excel in this role. I am particularly drawn to the opportunity to work on real, cutting-edge AI problems and advance the research agenda of the team. I have a strong math background and proficiency in programming languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, React AI, and C++. I have also published research in the STEM field, created large software systems, and authored highly cited publications. Moreover, I am a self-starter who is motivated to discover AI breakthroughs and their potential benefits to humanity. I am excited to immerse myself in the fundamentals of machine learning and work closely with a team of machine learning researchers to build AI systems that can perform previously impossible tasks. I am available and interested in joining OpenAI full-time after completing the Residency, and I am willing to relocate to San Francisco if required. I believe I can contribute to OpenAI's mission and help shape the future of technology. Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss my qualifications further. Sincerely, Angelina Lee
- dvzk 3y ago
  I don’t know if I dislike GPT for making inauthentic people seem slightly more convincing, or if I like it for confirming that we have always lived among people who are essentially performative NPCs.
blowski 3y ago
Technicallly, this is great. The UI is nice as well. But... if it were my dream job, I'd definitely put more effort into the cover letter. I'd use it to say why this is my dream job, rather than simply re-stating what's on my CV.
avereveard 3y ago
So what generation backend is this service using?
morkalork 3y ago
Bullshit like this is why hiring processes are so insane now.
- arlcode 3y ago
  I am really hoping LLMs will remove much of the cruft from our daily communication. If cover letters are not a human effort any more they can be left out. Recently I was involved in supporting my manager in hiring for a new Developer position and we barely even skimmed the letters. They are already basically useless
  - Atlas22 3y ago
    Skimming is being generous most places now. ATS is really the only thing that "reads" them.
- frob 3y ago
  Agreed. In my most recent round of hiring, I used the presence of a relevant cover letter as a point in favor of the applicant when deciding whether to invite them in for an intro call. It showed me the person actually looked into the company a little bit and wasn't just spamming. It also helped weed out the spam since I'd get cover letters telling me how excited the applicant was to work at a web3 fintech while we're doing almost the exact opposite thing. Don't get me wrong; I think like 85% of people I invited back for calls did not have a cover letter, but it really helped in the weeding process. If it becomes an effortless throwaway generated by an AI, it no longer has value. Additionally, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. If I see something in a cover letter that catches my eye, I'm going to bring it up in our call to learn more. Not to quiz you or play gotcha, but because it probably intreagues me and I want to learn more. If an AI wrote it and you don't know what you submitted to the job posting, that's not going to reflect well in a call.
  - karmelapple 3y ago
    Bingo. If your cover letter has a lie in it detected during the first phone call, you’re out as a candidate. If your cover letter is so generic that it doesn’t have any personal connection to why you’re interested in the position, it’s probably not a good cover letter.
ajb 3y ago
This just devalues cover letters. As a hiring manager I am strongly motivated to avoid channels which would cause me to wade through a bunch of fake crap. If there turns out to be no way to filter out AI generated text, we will end up that you have to attend an in person interview at some intermediary whose job is just to verify that you are a human being and you have some idea what the job ad said.
- gberger 3y ago
  > This just devalues cover letters. They already are very low signal. > we will end up that you have to attend an in person interview at some intermediary So like a recruiting agency that does pre-screening? That is a thing already.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    > They already are very low signal. by no means - when i was doing hiring (not now) cover letter was almost always the most important thing. the cv says what you have done, the cover says what you want to do. > So like a recruiting agency that does pre-screening? That is a thing already. and a very bad thing - i do not want possible good candidates screened out by some chinless-wonder in an agency.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      I would not be inclined to use AI for this sort of thing, but it's a two-way street. but I can think of many hours spent writing carefully crafted introductory letters only to receive a form letter or nothing at all in return. In the context of job applications, think how many recruitment ads are just a collection of buzzwords and happy talk, while omitting crucial information like pay etc. HR departments are notorious for their low quality of communication.
      - zabzonk 3y ago
        > I can think of many hours spent writing carefully crafted introductory letters only to receive a form letter or nothing at all in return. yes, well, stuff happens. still, i don't think you can beat a good covering letter. > In the context of job applications, think how many recruitment ads are just a collection of buzzwords and happy talk which is why i hated using agencies. my favorite interview memory was (for a c++ role) with a guy who had a degree in ancient greek (anyone fluent in ancient languages seems brilliant to me, as i only have a bit of schoolboy french). anyway, this was for a big 6 accountancy firm, and us programmers had to pass the same IQ tests that the accountants did, adminstered by HR. i amazed them by 100% on the visual/spaciel test - HR girl: "golly, no one has done that before!" though what accountants were to be expected to do with this skill i have no idea. anyway, the guy we were interviewing was given the test papers and a pencil by the HR girl and left him to do it. 5 minutes later he came out of the interview room (i'll call him A): HR: sorry is there a problem? A: i've lost my pencil note this was a very small room. but once provided with another pencil, he did a pretty good job. then he got the techie interview stuff with me (project manager/architect) and J (tech lead). this went well - he obviously knew his stuff. but then he offered to show some of his code for his current project: me/J: cool A: [searches through briefcase] oh, oh god, where is it??? me/J: collapse laughing and we hired him. and he was great. sorry this went on a bit, i had forgot and just rembered. this was about 30 years ago
lucb1e 3y ago
I wonder what I would think of a candidate who submits a computer-generated text for me to read, especially when the input is not even human bullet points but just the job post and the resume. We don't have any formal process for hiring (we're <10 FTE) so whether you add a cover letter is up to you, but if you submit one and I spend my time evaluating your message, and it turns out you had an unrelated third party bullshitting me from the first to the last word, I expect this is not going to go over well. As an IT person, I do have to commend the automation, though. There are pros and cons to weigh as you use this.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  If they built the tool, hire them immediately.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    Ah yes, I wanted to add that but forgot. Agree on that one. If they can explain to me how it works, how it was built (and not just "I curl $aicorp"), then it's probably positive rather than negative. We do have to get to that stage, though.
- antiterra 3y ago
  If they actually proofread or edit it, how are you going to know? How is it any worse than some job coach formulaically writing it based on the job description and resume? Cover letters are ignored all the time, and generally just serve to add as friction to reduce candidates.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    > If they actually proofread or edit it, how are you going to know? Then it's not just autogenerated: apparently it's what they actually mean to say because they've read it (also: equal time spent compared to me) and still sent it. The problem is that the receiving party cannot know whether that's the case upon receipt if the "this was automatically generated" alert triggers. > How is it any worse than some job coach formulaically writing it based on the job description and resume? Someone else doing your applications for you would send a similar message I think, but then you can't just send out 100 in an automated fashion and waste a ton of time (unless you're rich I guess, but then you'd be better off with index investments). I do find it hard to say for sure how I will feel in what-if situations without having been in them. > Cover letters are ignored all the time, and generally just serve to add as friction to reduce candidates. Not my experience, but as I wrote in another subthread: the application process may be different in NL/DE versus whereever OP lives, or for my line of work compared to theirs. I wouldn't submit a plain CV without writing a few sentences on why I'm applying regardless of whether that's explicitly stated as required by the receiving company.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
penjelly 3y ago
i dont get these apps, are they just chatgpt + preprompting with "write a cover letter"? Cant this easily be done with chatgpt itself?
- throwaway675309 3y ago
  That's exactly what this is, I've been using ChatGPT to rewrite my resumes and cover letters for months now.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    If you've been doing it for months, maybe it's not working very well. ;)
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  Yes, yes.
rosywoozlechan 3y ago
So AI resumes and AI cover letters are now being auto-submitted to AI generated automated job postings then parsed by hiring AI. What an absolute circus this is becoming.
- paxys 3y ago
  Might as well have AI apply for and do these jobs to complete the circle.
  - ricardonunez 3y ago
    Don’t forget the interview.
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    Pretty soon all developers basically have avatars that they manage that perform their jobs.
    - Avicebron 3y ago
      That will last about a week until someone pitches "Avatar as a Subscription Service" to manage it for you.
- jagged-chisel 3y ago
  As long as the AI hires my wetware neural network for an acceptable salary, I’m game
  - amrb 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgVztdMrX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgVztdMrX4
- vkou 3y ago
  Has anyone hiring for a company with more than 10 employees in the 21st century even read a cover letter? And if they have, are they stupid enough to actually believe it? For most people looking for work, rent's due next month, and they are machine-gunning applications, they aren't actually deeply passionate about getting a job at <your particular company>.
plants 3y ago
This is so funny, I was just doing this with ChatGPT to apply for jobs. If you make me fill out a bullshit form where I fake being passionate about your company, I’m going to get a chatbot to write it for me. End of story. I just need a job, why do you care if I’m passionate about building CRUD apps for you?
- billsmithaustin 3y ago
  What would be an example of a non-bullshit form?
  - FpUser 3y ago
    Her is the example: We at company XXX are building a solution that does a,b,c. We want senior level programmer with a preference given to a candidates having these specific skills / domain knowledge. The job is in the office, (no) need to travel. Requires (or not) clearance / degree / license / etc. We pay this much (range is ok) and offering such and such benefits. Please explain why you are a good candidate for this job. Skip enthusiastic, passionate, hard working, woke, tolerant, etc. etc. bullshit because everyone is asking the same crappy questions here and gets the same crappy answers and it is all meaningless.
- avgDev 3y ago
  This is how I feel. I am a pretty hard to read person. I don't excited about switching jobs even if its for more money. I generally have a monotone voice when interviewing. Some time ago, after an interview I aced, the recruiter called me and asked "why I don't seem to be interested in the position". I was like what? Apparently, because I didn't sound excited about working for an insurance company they were on the fence. The manager I interviewed with at the end was obnoxious, saying things straight from a script. I don't think I can work with people who act like "excited puppies". I'm a damn adult just trying to program and learn new stuff, but mostly put money in my bank. Maybe I would be excited about working for some space program......but even then there is always the day to day.
- zepolen 3y ago
  > I just need a job, why do you care if I’m passionate about building CRUD apps for you? Because people that lack passion for their work cut corners to avoid doing it.
jw1224 3y ago
Dear Hiring Manager, I am writing to apply for the Expert Contributor role at YCombinator LLC. As a Hacker News Demigod with a passion for crafting finger-licking, succulent comments, I am confident in my ability to exceed your expectations and make a significant contribution to your team. With my experience as a self-employed Hacker News commentator and my track record of consistently producing top-rated comments, I believe that I have the skills and expertise necessary to excel in this role. I possess supersonic news scanning skills, lightning-fast research and fact-checking abilities, and am fluent in tech and startup lingo. Additionally, I am an expert in crafting snarky comebacks that engage readers and drive discussions forward. You can check my website www.github.com for some of my latest hilarious contributions. My experience as a Cleverest Tech Support Commenter has honed my ability to write with a hip and snarky voice that resonates with IT enthusiasts. As such, I am confident that I can help make your brand go viral, buzzy, and catchy, ensuring that your logo is as sticky as a post-it on a laptop. I can also conjure side-splitting, tear-jerking, and occasionally thought-provoking content out of thin air at least thrice an hour. I am fluent in news speak, tech babble, and sanctimonious comebacks, and can combine knowledge, wit, and buzzwords to make each comment truly legendary. I am also in possession of a keyboard (required) and a cape (optional - but recommended) to help me fight for the truth and justice in the Hacker News realm. Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss my qualifications further, and maybe meet your virtual dog in a VR conference. Sincerely, John "Upvote" Doe
- anotheraccount9 3y ago
  Dear John, Thank you for your application for the Expert Contributor role at YCombinator LLC. Your cover letter certainly caught our attention, and we appreciate your enthusiasm and passion for Hacker News. We were impressed with your track record of consistently producing top-rated comments and your lightning-fast research and fact-checking abilities. Your ability to craft snarky comebacks that engage readers and drive discussions forward is also a valuable skill in the world of tech and startups. We also took a look at your GitHub page and found some of your latest contributions to be both hilarious and thought-provoking. Your experience as a Cleverest Tech Support Commenter and your ability to write with a hip and snarky voice that resonates with IT enthusiasts is also a valuable asset. At YCombinator LLC, we are always on the lookout for talented individuals who can help us make our brand go viral, buzzy, and catchy. We believe that your skills and expertise would be a great asset to our team. We would like to invite you to a virtual interview to discuss your qualifications further. Please let us know if this works for you, and we can arrange a convenient time. Thank you again for your interest in YCombinator LLC, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Sincerely, An AI at YCombinator
berjin 3y ago
1. Alice turns a concise summary into corporate bullshit using AI and sends it to Bob. 2. Bob uses AI to convert Alice's corporate bullshit into concise summary.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
personjerry 3y ago
I already did this with ChatGPT straight up though, and there I can adjust and specify parameters as I wish, why would I use this instead?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
robbywashere_ 3y ago
In 5 years time everyone is just going to be hurling pages and pages of ai generated babble at each other. Either party not bothering to read any of it.
- eric-hu 3y ago
  Please apply to this job post via our chatgRPC endpoint.
ryandrake 3y ago
This should just be a feature of LinkedIn. They have all the info about the candidate, the job, the employer, and the domain. And it’s probably already structured nicely. When you click on a job, LinkedIn should just populate the draft cover letter for you from ChatGPT. Hell, LinkedIn should be able to have a chatbot answer recruiter emails on my behalf with me out of the loop. When I’m looking for a job they have all the information needed to accurately answer solicitations from recruiters. Just do it for me and leave me out of it until an on-site is scheduled.
- j_kao 3y ago
  To be fair, there are a number of job openings where you can "Apply with LinkedIn", so it's structured data end-to-end.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
We don’t require cover letters, but a lot of people send them anyway. Many of them are useless boilerplate. Even before ChatGPT, you could tell that a lot of people looked up generic cover letter boilerplate and treated it like a mad libs where they filled in the company name and job position. I wish more people knew just how low the bar was for writing a decent cover letter. You don’t need to spend hours researching the company or choosing the perfect prose. Just a few short sentences that add some context to your application that might not be fully captured in a resume format can make a huge difference. The weirdest part is that when you get people into a conversation, like on the initial phone call, they can usually come up with a quick elevator pitch for themselves on the spot that would have been great cover letter material. Yet there’s something about the cover letter format that makes some people clam up and get writer’s block. Or they just hate the idea of writing something for someone else to read, so they don’t put any effort in. Regardless, I don’t think ChatGPT generated cover letters are going to push this ahead. The samples look like it’s yet another ChatGPT style generically safe output. I also feel like I’m rapidly getting good at sensing ChatGPT style writing.
- eastbound 3y ago
  > Just a few short sentences that add some context to your application that might not be fully captured in a resume format can make a huge difference. “I’m applying for this internship because I have already done Java in class and that’s where I want to spend my career” That would be 4 lines more than all my internship applicants.
  - PragmaticPulp 3y ago
    Yep. The bar is so incredibly low for communication. I know job searching isn’t fun, but it’s shocking to see how some candidates act like they can’t be bothered to even have simple person-to-person discussion about their application or career interests or write even a simple written description.
frollo 3y ago
I used to just skip any job posting which required a cover letter but now, thanks to AI, I can fight their bullshit with more bullshit!
jll29 3y ago
Cover letters are for those that send in applications. Successful people network instead; don´t be part of the PDF pile, work around it!
- Spivak 3y ago
  Actually incredibly true. I’m batting 1000 over my entire career because of it. I hear about jobs from people I know, get in contact with the team / hiring manager directly. By the time I’m actually emailing a PDF of my resume it’s already a formality. I’ve gotten hired twice for positions that didn’t even exist when I started the process. Let me tell you it’s real easy when there are no other applicants.
- kps 3y ago
  That way, you hire people who are good at networking, and/or gaming the system, rather than people that are good at the work you're hiring for. This adequately explains one or more places I've worked.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    Life can be modeled as a series of skinner boxes and markets. If a rat had a way of significantly increasing the probability of getting food versus pressing the bar it would.
smith-kyle 3y ago
This is neat! The typing animation in the title a nice touch. My first question for these "Use GPT to X" projects is, what does it bring to the table beyond ChatGPT capabilities? Couldn't I use chat.openai.com to accomplish the same thing?
lel_llms_suck 3y ago
[flagged]
UncleOxidant 3y ago
I did this with chatGPT a few weeks back. It made up a really great cover letter that highlighted all of my skills matching them with each requirement. The problem was it made up a few skills that I don't have.
exizt88 3y ago
Ask your HR Director what share of non-mass hiring hires were made in the last year from responses to job postings. I guarantee it will be less than 20%. This is why the cold job search process is so awful. No one cares about the least efficient channel. It should be the last resort in your job search, and it’s absolutely fair to try and game this broken system with a cover letter generator.
jamal-kumar 3y ago
I used to live in a country where I was screening hiring applicants and the resumes there were freaking GIANT. like huge, multi page things which i never could go through completely attached with copies of diplomas and certifications and all this superfluous stuff that flew in the face of everything I've been told about keeping resumes concise and to the point. I kind of just felt the same about their cover letters, they always feel a bit just contrived enough to filter out people too lazy to do them or something. I really just cared if they could pass a fizzbuzz and answer some hard questions with "i would have to google that" instead of trying to technobabble me
yosito 3y ago
I just created a prompt to do this yesterday. The cover letters it was outputting were just as good as the ones I usually write, and a lot less effort. Unfortunately, with this taking off, I don't think a good cover letter is going to be much of a competitive advantage anymore.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
midnightdiesel 3y ago
Being able to communicate clearly with high signal-to-noise is essential. When hiring, I’ve learned it’s often better to take a great communicator with less experience over a poor communicator with great experience. Cover letters can be a helpful filter for this. In my experience a pithy cover letter is better than no cover letter. But no cover letter is better than a bull shit one. You can bet that if I smell diarrhea of the chatgpt in a cover letter, it’ll get a fast pass to the bottom of the heap if not a direct route to the reject pile.
redgetan 3y ago
I was prototyping a similar project before as well but ended up abandoning it because the the resulting cover letter just seemed too generic, non-authentic and business sounding. Plus, it would make stuff up sometimes (i.e saying I know X tech stack just to match the job description even though I dont)
thiht 3y ago
That’s not how you do a proper cover letter. In a proper cover letter, you get an opportunity to talk about what’s not in the resume. The cover letter is supposed to prove you’re a good fit for the job, but more in terms of soft skills. You CAN generate a cover letter if you telle ChatGPT what to put in it. You CAN’T generate one from just the resume and job post, or don’t expect to be recruited if it’s a company that cares about cover letters.
infomiho 3y ago
A buddy of mine made the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago https://coverlettergpt.xyz https://coverlettergpt.xyz It's funny how people come up with similar ideas and are able to make them into products quickly with ChatGPT His is open source if you are interested in how it's done: https://github.com/vincanger/coverlettergpt https://github.com/vincanger/coverlettergpt

156 points by spqr233 3y ago

This is endgame for the current hiring process circus. It'll be back to "who you know, who recommends you, and who you trust."

Lacerda69 3y ago
was it ever not that? i got 100% of all jobs i ever had like that
- dorkwood 3y ago
  I’m similar. I’ve been working for almost 15 years, and got all but one of my jobs through connections. I think I’m now so out of touch with the hiring game that I’d fail spectacularly if I ever had to do it again. I don’t even know what a cover letter is. Do you attach it as a PDF to your email? Why don’t you just write that stuff in the actual email?
- awb 3y ago
  I’ve hired over 50 people and they were all new to me. The big qualifying question was “What have you launched recently?”

FpUser 3y ago

Turns out to be pathetic

hackitup7 3y ago

This is cool but sending me a cover letter is sort of like having an @aol.com email address – it tells me that you aren't really with the times.

spqr233 3y ago

Just paste the job post and your resume or LinkedIn, and get a tailored cover letter in minutes. Excited to hear your feedback and suggestions to improve it—try it out and land your dream job!

quadcore 3y ago
An example on the landing page would be nice
akg_67 3y ago
A better thing to do is take the job description and a detailed resume, and rewrite the resume to fit the job description. Cover letters might be needed in certain jobs like academia, but they have fallen out of fashion in the online application world.

andrewfromx 3y ago

um dup? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35113802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35113802

throwaway675309 3y ago
Seems like it was posted by the same person, so I guess they didn't get enough traction two weeks ago and felt the need to repost it.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  I agree. From the FAQ: > Are reposts ok? > If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates. It's not clear what "significant attention" means, and how many are "a small number". The other post got only 18 upvotes and 7 comments, so I guess a repost is fine.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

Dear Hiring Manager, I am excited to apply for the OpenAI Research Residency program as a Research Resident. As a software engineer with experience in building scalable systems in the fintech, health, and adult entertainment industries, I believe I have the skills and expertise required to excel in this role. I am particularly drawn to the opportunity to work on real, cutting-edge AI problems and advance the research agenda of the team. I have a strong math background and proficiency in programming languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, React AI, and C++. I have also published research in the STEM field, created large software systems, and authored highly cited publications. Moreover, I am a self-starter who is motivated to discover AI breakthroughs and their potential benefits to humanity. I am excited to immerse myself in the fundamentals of machine learning and work closely with a team of machine learning researchers to build AI systems that can perform previously impossible tasks. I am available and interested in joining OpenAI full-time after completing the Residency, and I am willing to relocate to San Francisco if required. I believe I can contribute to OpenAI's mission and help shape the future of technology. Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss my qualifications further. Sincerely, Angelina Lee

dvzk 3y ago
I don’t know if I dislike GPT for making inauthentic people seem slightly more convincing, or if I like it for confirming that we have always lived among people who are essentially performative NPCs.

blowski 3y ago

Technicallly, this is great. The UI is nice as well. But... if it were my dream job, I'd definitely put more effort into the cover letter. I'd use it to say why this is my dream job, rather than simply re-stating what's on my CV.

avereveard 3y ago

So what generation backend is this service using?

morkalork 3y ago

Bullshit like this is why hiring processes are so insane now.

arlcode 3y ago
I am really hoping LLMs will remove much of the cruft from our daily communication. If cover letters are not a human effort any more they can be left out. Recently I was involved in supporting my manager in hiring for a new Developer position and we barely even skimmed the letters. They are already basically useless
- Atlas22 3y ago
  Skimming is being generous most places now. ATS is really the only thing that "reads" them.
frob 3y ago
Agreed. In my most recent round of hiring, I used the presence of a relevant cover letter as a point in favor of the applicant when deciding whether to invite them in for an intro call. It showed me the person actually looked into the company a little bit and wasn't just spamming. It also helped weed out the spam since I'd get cover letters telling me how excited the applicant was to work at a web3 fintech while we're doing almost the exact opposite thing. Don't get me wrong; I think like 85% of people I invited back for calls did not have a cover letter, but it really helped in the weeding process. If it becomes an effortless throwaway generated by an AI, it no longer has value. Additionally, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. If I see something in a cover letter that catches my eye, I'm going to bring it up in our call to learn more. Not to quiz you or play gotcha, but because it probably intreagues me and I want to learn more. If an AI wrote it and you don't know what you submitted to the job posting, that's not going to reflect well in a call.
- karmelapple 3y ago
  Bingo. If your cover letter has a lie in it detected during the first phone call, you’re out as a candidate. If your cover letter is so generic that it doesn’t have any personal connection to why you’re interested in the position, it’s probably not a good cover letter.

ajb 3y ago

This just devalues cover letters. As a hiring manager I am strongly motivated to avoid channels which would cause me to wade through a bunch of fake crap. If there turns out to be no way to filter out AI generated text, we will end up that you have to attend an in person interview at some intermediary whose job is just to verify that you are a human being and you have some idea what the job ad said.

gberger 3y ago
> This just devalues cover letters. They already are very low signal. > we will end up that you have to attend an in person interview at some intermediary So like a recruiting agency that does pre-screening? That is a thing already.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  > They already are very low signal. by no means - when i was doing hiring (not now) cover letter was almost always the most important thing. the cv says what you have done, the cover says what you want to do. > So like a recruiting agency that does pre-screening? That is a thing already. and a very bad thing - i do not want possible good candidates screened out by some chinless-wonder in an agency.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    I would not be inclined to use AI for this sort of thing, but it's a two-way street. but I can think of many hours spent writing carefully crafted introductory letters only to receive a form letter or nothing at all in return. In the context of job applications, think how many recruitment ads are just a collection of buzzwords and happy talk, while omitting crucial information like pay etc. HR departments are notorious for their low quality of communication.
    - zabzonk 3y ago
      > I can think of many hours spent writing carefully crafted introductory letters only to receive a form letter or nothing at all in return. yes, well, stuff happens. still, i don't think you can beat a good covering letter. > In the context of job applications, think how many recruitment ads are just a collection of buzzwords and happy talk which is why i hated using agencies. my favorite interview memory was (for a c++ role) with a guy who had a degree in ancient greek (anyone fluent in ancient languages seems brilliant to me, as i only have a bit of schoolboy french). anyway, this was for a big 6 accountancy firm, and us programmers had to pass the same IQ tests that the accountants did, adminstered by HR. i amazed them by 100% on the visual/spaciel test - HR girl: "golly, no one has done that before!" though what accountants were to be expected to do with this skill i have no idea. anyway, the guy we were interviewing was given the test papers and a pencil by the HR girl and left him to do it. 5 minutes later he came out of the interview room (i'll call him A): HR: sorry is there a problem? A: i've lost my pencil note this was a very small room. but once provided with another pencil, he did a pretty good job. then he got the techie interview stuff with me (project manager/architect) and J (tech lead). this went well - he obviously knew his stuff. but then he offered to show some of his code for his current project: me/J: cool A: [searches through briefcase] oh, oh god, where is it??? me/J: collapse laughing and we hired him. and he was great. sorry this went on a bit, i had forgot and just rembered. this was about 30 years ago

lucb1e 3y ago

I wonder what I would think of a candidate who submits a computer-generated text for me to read, especially when the input is not even human bullet points but just the job post and the resume. We don't have any formal process for hiring (we're <10 FTE) so whether you add a cover letter is up to you, but if you submit one and I spend my time evaluating your message, and it turns out you had an unrelated third party bullshitting me from the first to the last word, I expect this is not going to go over well. As an IT person, I do have to commend the automation, though. There are pros and cons to weigh as you use this.

rpmisms 3y ago
If they built the tool, hire them immediately.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  Ah yes, I wanted to add that but forgot. Agree on that one. If they can explain to me how it works, how it was built (and not just "I curl $aicorp"), then it's probably positive rather than negative. We do have to get to that stage, though.
antiterra 3y ago
If they actually proofread or edit it, how are you going to know? How is it any worse than some job coach formulaically writing it based on the job description and resume? Cover letters are ignored all the time, and generally just serve to add as friction to reduce candidates.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  > If they actually proofread or edit it, how are you going to know? Then it's not just autogenerated: apparently it's what they actually mean to say because they've read it (also: equal time spent compared to me) and still sent it. The problem is that the receiving party cannot know whether that's the case upon receipt if the "this was automatically generated" alert triggers. > How is it any worse than some job coach formulaically writing it based on the job description and resume? Someone else doing your applications for you would send a similar message I think, but then you can't just send out 100 in an automated fashion and waste a ton of time (unless you're rich I guess, but then you'd be better off with index investments). I do find it hard to say for sure how I will feel in what-if situations without having been in them. > Cover letters are ignored all the time, and generally just serve to add as friction to reduce candidates. Not my experience, but as I wrote in another subthread: the application process may be different in NL/DE versus whereever OP lives, or for my line of work compared to theirs. I wouldn't submit a plain CV without writing a few sentences on why I'm applying regardless of whether that's explicitly stated as required by the receiving company.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

penjelly 3y ago

i dont get these apps, are they just chatgpt + preprompting with "write a cover letter"? Cant this easily be done with chatgpt itself?

throwaway675309 3y ago
That's exactly what this is, I've been using ChatGPT to rewrite my resumes and cover letters for months now.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  If you've been doing it for months, maybe it's not working very well. ;)
LeoPanthera 3y ago
Yes, yes.

rosywoozlechan 3y ago

So AI resumes and AI cover letters are now being auto-submitted to AI generated automated job postings then parsed by hiring AI. What an absolute circus this is becoming.

paxys 3y ago
Might as well have AI apply for and do these jobs to complete the circle.
- ricardonunez 3y ago
  Don’t forget the interview.
- nickpeterson 3y ago
  Pretty soon all developers basically have avatars that they manage that perform their jobs.
  - Avicebron 3y ago
    That will last about a week until someone pitches "Avatar as a Subscription Service" to manage it for you.
jagged-chisel 3y ago
As long as the AI hires my wetware neural network for an acceptable salary, I’m game
- amrb 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgVztdMrX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgVztdMrX4
vkou 3y ago
Has anyone hiring for a company with more than 10 employees in the 21st century even read a cover letter? And if they have, are they stupid enough to actually believe it? For most people looking for work, rent's due next month, and they are machine-gunning applications, they aren't actually deeply passionate about getting a job at <your particular company>.

plants 3y ago

This is so funny, I was just doing this with ChatGPT to apply for jobs. If you make me fill out a bullshit form where I fake being passionate about your company, I’m going to get a chatbot to write it for me. End of story. I just need a job, why do you care if I’m passionate about building CRUD apps for you?

billsmithaustin 3y ago
What would be an example of a non-bullshit form?
- FpUser 3y ago
  Her is the example: We at company XXX are building a solution that does a,b,c. We want senior level programmer with a preference given to a candidates having these specific skills / domain knowledge. The job is in the office, (no) need to travel. Requires (or not) clearance / degree / license / etc. We pay this much (range is ok) and offering such and such benefits. Please explain why you are a good candidate for this job. Skip enthusiastic, passionate, hard working, woke, tolerant, etc. etc. bullshit because everyone is asking the same crappy questions here and gets the same crappy answers and it is all meaningless.
avgDev 3y ago
This is how I feel. I am a pretty hard to read person. I don't excited about switching jobs even if its for more money. I generally have a monotone voice when interviewing. Some time ago, after an interview I aced, the recruiter called me and asked "why I don't seem to be interested in the position". I was like what? Apparently, because I didn't sound excited about working for an insurance company they were on the fence. The manager I interviewed with at the end was obnoxious, saying things straight from a script. I don't think I can work with people who act like "excited puppies". I'm a damn adult just trying to program and learn new stuff, but mostly put money in my bank. Maybe I would be excited about working for some space program......but even then there is always the day to day.
zepolen 3y ago
> I just need a job, why do you care if I’m passionate about building CRUD apps for you? Because people that lack passion for their work cut corners to avoid doing it.

jw1224 3y ago

Dear Hiring Manager, I am writing to apply for the Expert Contributor role at YCombinator LLC. As a Hacker News Demigod with a passion for crafting finger-licking, succulent comments, I am confident in my ability to exceed your expectations and make a significant contribution to your team. With my experience as a self-employed Hacker News commentator and my track record of consistently producing top-rated comments, I believe that I have the skills and expertise necessary to excel in this role. I possess supersonic news scanning skills, lightning-fast research and fact-checking abilities, and am fluent in tech and startup lingo. Additionally, I am an expert in crafting snarky comebacks that engage readers and drive discussions forward. You can check my website www.github.com for some of my latest hilarious contributions. My experience as a Cleverest Tech Support Commenter has honed my ability to write with a hip and snarky voice that resonates with IT enthusiasts. As such, I am confident that I can help make your brand go viral, buzzy, and catchy, ensuring that your logo is as sticky as a post-it on a laptop. I can also conjure side-splitting, tear-jerking, and occasionally thought-provoking content out of thin air at least thrice an hour. I am fluent in news speak, tech babble, and sanctimonious comebacks, and can combine knowledge, wit, and buzzwords to make each comment truly legendary. I am also in possession of a keyboard (required) and a cape (optional - but recommended) to help me fight for the truth and justice in the Hacker News realm. Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss my qualifications further, and maybe meet your virtual dog in a VR conference. Sincerely, John "Upvote" Doe

anotheraccount9 3y ago
Dear John, Thank you for your application for the Expert Contributor role at YCombinator LLC. Your cover letter certainly caught our attention, and we appreciate your enthusiasm and passion for Hacker News. We were impressed with your track record of consistently producing top-rated comments and your lightning-fast research and fact-checking abilities. Your ability to craft snarky comebacks that engage readers and drive discussions forward is also a valuable skill in the world of tech and startups. We also took a look at your GitHub page and found some of your latest contributions to be both hilarious and thought-provoking. Your experience as a Cleverest Tech Support Commenter and your ability to write with a hip and snarky voice that resonates with IT enthusiasts is also a valuable asset. At YCombinator LLC, we are always on the lookout for talented individuals who can help us make our brand go viral, buzzy, and catchy. We believe that your skills and expertise would be a great asset to our team. We would like to invite you to a virtual interview to discuss your qualifications further. Please let us know if this works for you, and we can arrange a convenient time. Thank you again for your interest in YCombinator LLC, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Sincerely, An AI at YCombinator

berjin 3y ago

1. Alice turns a concise summary into corporate bullshit using AI and sends it to Bob. 2. Bob uses AI to convert Alice's corporate bullshit into concise summary.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

personjerry 3y ago

I already did this with ChatGPT straight up though, and there I can adjust and specify parameters as I wish, why would I use this instead?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

robbywashere_ 3y ago

In 5 years time everyone is just going to be hurling pages and pages of ai generated babble at each other. Either party not bothering to read any of it.

eric-hu 3y ago
Please apply to this job post via our chatgRPC endpoint.

ryandrake 3y ago

This should just be a feature of LinkedIn. They have all the info about the candidate, the job, the employer, and the domain. And it’s probably already structured nicely. When you click on a job, LinkedIn should just populate the draft cover letter for you from ChatGPT. Hell, LinkedIn should be able to have a chatbot answer recruiter emails on my behalf with me out of the loop. When I’m looking for a job they have all the information needed to accurately answer solicitations from recruiters. Just do it for me and leave me out of it until an on-site is scheduled.

j_kao 3y ago
To be fair, there are a number of job openings where you can "Apply with LinkedIn", so it's structured data end-to-end.

PragmaticPulp 3y ago

We don’t require cover letters, but a lot of people send them anyway. Many of them are useless boilerplate. Even before ChatGPT, you could tell that a lot of people looked up generic cover letter boilerplate and treated it like a mad libs where they filled in the company name and job position. I wish more people knew just how low the bar was for writing a decent cover letter. You don’t need to spend hours researching the company or choosing the perfect prose. Just a few short sentences that add some context to your application that might not be fully captured in a resume format can make a huge difference. The weirdest part is that when you get people into a conversation, like on the initial phone call, they can usually come up with a quick elevator pitch for themselves on the spot that would have been great cover letter material. Yet there’s something about the cover letter format that makes some people clam up and get writer’s block. Or they just hate the idea of writing something for someone else to read, so they don’t put any effort in. Regardless, I don’t think ChatGPT generated cover letters are going to push this ahead. The samples look like it’s yet another ChatGPT style generically safe output. I also feel like I’m rapidly getting good at sensing ChatGPT style writing.

eastbound 3y ago
> Just a few short sentences that add some context to your application that might not be fully captured in a resume format can make a huge difference. “I’m applying for this internship because I have already done Java in class and that’s where I want to spend my career” That would be 4 lines more than all my internship applicants.
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  Yep. The bar is so incredibly low for communication. I know job searching isn’t fun, but it’s shocking to see how some candidates act like they can’t be bothered to even have simple person-to-person discussion about their application or career interests or write even a simple written description.

frollo 3y ago

I used to just skip any job posting which required a cover letter but now, thanks to AI, I can fight their bullshit with more bullshit!

jll29 3y ago

Cover letters are for those that send in applications. Successful people network instead; don´t be part of the PDF pile, work around it!

Spivak 3y ago
Actually incredibly true. I’m batting 1000 over my entire career because of it. I hear about jobs from people I know, get in contact with the team / hiring manager directly. By the time I’m actually emailing a PDF of my resume it’s already a formality. I’ve gotten hired twice for positions that didn’t even exist when I started the process. Let me tell you it’s real easy when there are no other applicants.
kps 3y ago
That way, you hire people who are good at networking, and/or gaming the system, rather than people that are good at the work you're hiring for. This adequately explains one or more places I've worked.
- supertrope 3y ago
  Life can be modeled as a series of skinner boxes and markets. If a rat had a way of significantly increasing the probability of getting food versus pressing the bar it would.

smith-kyle 3y ago

This is neat! The typing animation in the title a nice touch. My first question for these "Use GPT to X" projects is, what does it bring to the table beyond ChatGPT capabilities? Couldn't I use chat.openai.com to accomplish the same thing?

lel_llms_suck 3y ago

[flagged]

UncleOxidant 3y ago

I did this with chatGPT a few weeks back. It made up a really great cover letter that highlighted all of my skills matching them with each requirement. The problem was it made up a few skills that I don't have.

exizt88 3y ago

Ask your HR Director what share of non-mass hiring hires were made in the last year from responses to job postings. I guarantee it will be less than 20%. This is why the cold job search process is so awful. No one cares about the least efficient channel. It should be the last resort in your job search, and it’s absolutely fair to try and game this broken system with a cover letter generator.

jamal-kumar 3y ago

I used to live in a country where I was screening hiring applicants and the resumes there were freaking GIANT. like huge, multi page things which i never could go through completely attached with copies of diplomas and certifications and all this superfluous stuff that flew in the face of everything I've been told about keeping resumes concise and to the point. I kind of just felt the same about their cover letters, they always feel a bit just contrived enough to filter out people too lazy to do them or something. I really just cared if they could pass a fizzbuzz and answer some hard questions with "i would have to google that" instead of trying to technobabble me

yosito 3y ago

I just created a prompt to do this yesterday. The cover letters it was outputting were just as good as the ones I usually write, and a lot less effort. Unfortunately, with this taking off, I don't think a good cover letter is going to be much of a competitive advantage anymore.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

midnightdiesel 3y ago

Being able to communicate clearly with high signal-to-noise is essential. When hiring, I’ve learned it’s often better to take a great communicator with less experience over a poor communicator with great experience. Cover letters can be a helpful filter for this. In my experience a pithy cover letter is better than no cover letter. But no cover letter is better than a bull shit one. You can bet that if I smell diarrhea of the chatgpt in a cover letter, it’ll get a fast pass to the bottom of the heap if not a direct route to the reject pile.

redgetan 3y ago

I was prototyping a similar project before as well but ended up abandoning it because the the resulting cover letter just seemed too generic, non-authentic and business sounding. Plus, it would make stuff up sometimes (i.e saying I know X tech stack just to match the job description even though I dont)

thiht 3y ago

That’s not how you do a proper cover letter. In a proper cover letter, you get an opportunity to talk about what’s not in the resume. The cover letter is supposed to prove you’re a good fit for the job, but more in terms of soft skills. You CAN generate a cover letter if you telle ChatGPT what to put in it. You CAN’T generate one from just the resume and job post, or don’t expect to be recruited if it’s a company that cares about cover letters.

infomiho 3y ago

A buddy of mine made the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago https://coverlettergpt.xyz https://coverlettergpt.xyz It's funny how people come up with similar ideas and are able to make them into products quickly with ChatGPT His is open source if you are interested in how it's done: https://github.com/vincanger/coverlettergpt https://github.com/vincanger/coverlettergpt