Top resume, poor CL

I've worked for multiple companies. The main criteria by far was resume. In some cases we would check the Cover Letter, usually when we were in doubt. 

But in some cases would also check the CL of those who passed. Not expecting something brilliant, but at least to be 100% professional (no typos, no mistakes, minimal logic, nothing stupid there, ability to write in fluid english, etc.)

At McKinsey the answer is almost certainly HELL NO. If you're recruiting from a target school, there's a 90% chance that nobody will even look at your cover letter. Consultants review an insane volume of applications, and they certainly aren't thoroughly reviewing your cover letter and grading you against its uniqueness. Your resume & responses to the questions on your application matter much more.

In fact, of the hundreds of Yale profiles that I reviewed, I don't remember the HR team ever providing us screeners with copies of cover letters.

At other firms, or if you have a non-traditional background, this may not be the case.

Hi there,

Q: Do you screen applicants with top profiles who sent a generic CL? 

Depending on the company, they may or may not screen your cover letter. The problem is that you won’t know that in advance. So the safe bet is that you also prepare a great cover and avoid the risk to be rejected due to that.

You can find some tips on that below:

▶ How to Craft a Great Cover Letter

Good luck!

Francesco

When I was screening candidates, yes, a generic/poor CL was a negative point. Whether you will be rejected or not depends on:

1. Firm (geography specific) practice - some HR teams do not always look at CL or give more weightage to CV
2. Relative strength of other CVs (and CLs) in the same batch, especially if you are applying through OCR/fixed cycle
   • There may also be other equally strong CVs, and if there needed to be a choice between your ‘top’ CV and poor CL vs another ‘top’ CV and strong CL, they will go with the other candidate

Hi there,

Why not just create a good CL?

No 1 piece of your application is the most important. No 1 piece of your application can be ignored. Make sure you've optimized:

1. Resume
2. Cover Letter
3. Networking
4. Online Assessment
5. Screening call

It really depends on the Firm - some only look at the CV if someone is borderline. It’s worth putting the effort in - you need to make sure that you have a coherent story that hangs together, explains why you've made the choices that you have and makes it seem that consulting is the obvious next step.

Good luck! 

In my experience, a lot of the CVs pretty much look the same. It's the cover letter that does a lot to differentiate between candidates. Both are screened in conjunction typically.

However, the cover letter is purely a matter of effort whereas the CV is what it is based on your track record (not factoring in things like poor formatting or typos). So if the cover letter is poor, it suggests that the applicant does not care enough which is a bad sign.

Every CV is screened, having a generic cover letter is a bad message to provide. 
Overall at the end of the screening (CV+CL+referral), we sum up the quality of the candidate and we decide whether or no to go ahead.

I tend to look at both. The CV is much more heavily scrutinised as that gives you a real sense of what they did. The cover letter helps me understand why they applied. 

With a generic CL, I would probe the candidate quite hard on why they are keen on joining the firm and the sector.

Hi there,

Depends on the company. McKinsey usually does not care about the cover letter.

For other firms, why not invest 2 hours to create a strong one? There is no downside to this.

Cheers,

Florian