My Break-Up Letter To The Cover Letter

Dear Cover Letter,

It has been great. We’ve had a lot of great years, a lot of great memories, reading you under those humming florescent lights, tucked away in my cubicle.

But I’m sorry. It is over. It just isn’t working out anymore.

It isn’t you. I swear. You’ve always been so polite, so chivalrous, so overtly formal. It is like you read an article on how to properly treat someone, which in retrospect, you probably did.

It just is there is someone else. I’m sorry. There are automated screening interviews now. And I’m sorry, they are just more real, more insightful, more alive.

You, I’d spend time with you, but I never even felt like I knew you. It felt like you were trying too hard, or you were changed based on some advice from your one friend with an English degree, or cut-and-pasted off the Internet.

And you take so much time. Do I really expect everyone to have one of you just to apply for a job? I mean, I hate to say this, but you can be such a hassle.

 These screening interviews, they aren’t perfect. There are errs and umms and all of that and sometimes the words don’t come out the way they do on the movies. But they always pull back all the layers and show the real person, and, at the end of the day, that’s what I really want.

It doesn’t even take any more time either, much less time than reading through all those cover letters. A few clicks and they are out, and it is all set.

I don’t want to keep going on and on, this has been hard enough. But, seriously, thank you for all the memories. I will never forget you.

Let’s try to be friends,

Paul