I am often asked if cover letters are really all that important.  My answer is “it depends.”

Some hiring managers read cover letters just as intensely as they do the resume.  Others skip them completely and just focus on the resume.

If the job posting has specifically requested a cover letter, omitting it could get your resume dumped automatically.

Sending a cover letter that you have cut and pasted from a previous application that perhaps has the name of the other company on it, the wrong job title, or a detailed list of your specific skills and how they apply to some other job won’t win you any brownie points either.

Sometimes the request for a cover letter is a test to see how well you follow directions and communicate.  This is especially important for management positions and roles that typically require written correspondence as part of your daily tasks.

Cover letters that are full of spelling mistakes, typos, grammatical errors are, of course, really bad.  Again, if you are a Technical Writer, Marketing candidate or Editor…well, you get my drift.

And before you say that would never happen, I once got a resume from a degreed Technical Writer.  His resume had thirty-two spelling errors in it.  When I pointed that out, his response was, “Well, if the company can’t see beyond that, then I don’t want to work for them.”  I believe the feeling was mutual.