I spend most of my time talking about what you should do on the job search.

I want to make sure you also understand what you should stop doing, too.

A client recently told me they were spending almost an hour applying to every job.

I had to unpack this because that’s a crazy amount of time and it doesn’t scale when applying to 50+ jobs to land a role.

The answer to this problem is not automating applying—please don’t do that.

So I asked what was taking up the most time.

Turns out, about half that time was spent writing cover letters.

And sometimes it was just having to apply via Workday, but that’s a rant for another day.

This topic comes up a lot.

In fact, it is one of the more common questions I get from clients.

Should you be writing cover letters?

No.

Not for 99% of applications. I cover when you should do it below.

At a recent event here in London, I was asked what people should stop doing and the room lit up when I said “stop writing cover letters.”

I had two deeply tenured Product recruiters next to me nodding in agreement.

Why do I tell people to stop writing them?

Like most of my guidance, I take a data-informed approach.

I recently surveyed hiring managers for PM roles and the results speak for themselves.

78% of people reviewing PM job applications said they only look at cover letters for 0-2% of applications.

For more than half, it's never.

Think about that.

You could spend 30 minutes crafting a thoughtful cover letter, and there's a more-than-likely chance the person reviewing your application won't even glance at it.

Why cover letters don't work

Here's the reality of today's job market.

Product Manager roles receive hundreds to thousands of applications each.

Hiring managers and recruiters are trying to narrow down who to interview from a massive pile of CVs.

When you've got 500 applications to review, it's simply not practical to read cover letters.

Plus, most candidates have offloaded this arduous and archaic task to ChatGPT or Claude.

That’s great—you’ve found a way to automate something that nobody reads.

Can you blame them?

Most cover letters are awful and inauthentic—typical GPT slop if you ask me.

Another client of mine went and created their own custom GPT with all this deep context of their career experience and writing style.

They gave it their LinkedIn profile, latest resume, all the thought leadership pieces they’ve written, and a detailed write-up covering everything about their professional experience that wasn’t already included in the other sources.

They even included a few example cover letters they wrote themselves.

It was fascinating to see, really.

I had them demo it for me so I could see it in action.

Then I asked the single-most important question you should be thinking too: “how is this affecting your application conversion rate?”

…

They couldn’t answer the question.

They didn’t know.

But this guy is a sharp PM. So he got to experimenting right away.

What did he find?

They made no difference on application conversion rate.

That’s just yet another data point on top of many I’ve collected from working with hundreds of PMs across levels, across industry, and across the world.

When you should make an exception

There is only one time when you should write a cover letter.

If you find a job that you are a perfect fit for, the company is a perfect fit for you, and you feel so compelled to tell someone about it.

That's when you should write a genuine, authentic cover letter.

The motivation and energy from that alone will push you to make a meaningful one, for the slim chance it even gets looked at.

All the other applications?

Don't bother.

If you want more help to get your application conversion rate as high as 30%, join my Resume Workshop.

Bonus tip: the same goes for product portfolios

I also surveyed hiring managers about whether they actually look at PM portfolios during the hiring process.

Only 22% said they look at them.

Nearly 80% said rarely or never.

Yet I see PMs spending weeks, sometimes months, perfecting their portfolios.

Here's my take on portfolios:

If your application conversion rate is already 10% or higher, don't worry about building a portfolio right now.

Focus that energy on refining which jobs you're targeting and preparing for those interviews.

Just know what you're optimising for.

Where to invest your time instead

PM roles are getting hundreds to thousands of applications each.

Your CV and LinkedIn profile are the only artefacts a recruiter or hiring manager are likely to even look at before deciding to interview you.

Make sure those are solid first.

If you're spending 100+ hours on applications and not getting interviews, the problem isn't that you're missing a cover letter or portfolio.

The problem is likely your CV, your application strategy, or the roles you're targeting.

That's where your time should go.

That, and outreach, which I covered previously.

Wishing you success,
James

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