Novoresume Publishes Cover Letter Survey Findings Alongside Its Cover Letter Maker
Surveys of 200+ HR professionals and 1,000 U.S. job seekers show a gap between how often cover letters are read and how often they are sent.
Novoresume, an online resume builder used by more than 18 million job seekers, today released survey findings showing that about 60% of HR professionals read cover letters, while 21.5% of job seekers always send one. The findings accompany the company’s cover letter maker, which drafts a letter from a resume and a job posting.
The Novoresume cover letter maker combines 16 cover letter templates, each with a matching resume template, and a free AI cover letter generator that writes the first draft.
Survey findings
Novoresume surveyed more than 200 HR professionals and 1,000 U.S. job seekers. The full findings are in its cover letter statistics report.
• About 60% of HR professionals read cover letters. Roughly 40% do not.
• 21.3% read the cover letter before the resume.
• 25.7% say a strong cover letter can tip the decision on an application.
• HR managers read them most: only 22.9% skip them. Among recruiters, 52.8% skip them.
• Only 21.5% of job seekers always send a cover letter.
• Job seekers who always tailor their cover letter report a 35.8% hiring rate. Those who never write one report 21.2%.
“Four in ten HR professionals never open the cover letter, and you can’t know in advance who will get your application. That is why most people skip it,” said Andrei Kurtuy, co-founder of Novoresume and a Certified Professional Resume Writer. “Our data says the people who write a tailored one anyway get hired more often. So we worked on making a tailored letter take a few minutes instead of an evening.”
Cover letter maker
1. The user pastes the job description and uploads a resume, or fills in a few fields. This takes under two minutes.
2. The AI matches the job requirements to the user’s background and writes a draft for that role.
3. The user edits the letter in a template that matches their resume and downloads it as a PDF.
The 16 cover letter templates cover professional, simple, creative and student styles. There are also templates for explaining an employment gap. In Novoresume’s research, 49% of hiring managers prefer a half-page letter and 26% prefer a full page.
What recruiters say about Novoresume cover letter templates
Fourteen recruiters, HR leaders and career coaches reviewed the cover letter templates and the builder. Their reviews are published with names and credentials.
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“Cover letters are where I see most writers’ block, and it’s rarely a writing problem. It’s a structure problem,” wrote Jessica Anghelescu, a senior talent acquisition strategist and former VP of Talent Acquisition. She added that Novoresume’s templates “build that structure in for you, so you’re filling in a skeleton instead of staring at a blank page.”
“If the resume is what gets your foot in the door, the cover letter is often what convinces recruiters like me to actually open it. Novoresume’s cover letter builder leans into that relationship directly because every template is designed to visually match its corresponding resume and CV template,” wrote Alison Webb Lawrence, a recruiting leader with 20 years in talent acquisition, including at Bain & Company and McKinsey.
“The strongest cover letters simply answer one question well: ‘Why you?’ This format helps job seekers focus on exactly that,” wrote Joe Szynkowski, a Certified Professional Resume Writer.
“Writing a cover letter can often feel tedious, so the ability to generate one in just a few clicks once the resume is complete is a real time-saver,” wrote Arianna Berchicci, a UK HR consultant.
Not every reviewer is a cover letter fan. Keynisha Adebisi, a talent acquisition lead and former Microsoft tech recruiter, wrote that she skims cover letters and tells job seekers to write one “when it actually counts.” Her verdict on the templates: “A cover letter lives or dies on content. Where these templates earn their keep is structure. Most people freeze at a blank page because they don’t know the shape of the thing.”
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