A friend of mine is applying for a job at a university. He gave his cover letter to the dean, who tore it up and said that it concentrated too much on his skills and strengths. She said it wasn’t “tailored” enough towards the job description.
It might sound like throw-away advice at first glance, one of those specific and bland examples that you might find in an article about resume writing. But she gets to the root of something here, something essential to signaling and effective marketing.
Remember this:
If you can copy and paste your message—be it an essay, e-mail or fricken’ marriage proposal—to anyone else but your targeted audience, you need to rewrite that message.
The shorter the message gets, it seems, the less that rule applies. All brands should try to “own” one word in the minds of their consumers. BMW=Driving. Google=Search. Yahoo=???? because their internal motto was to be “all things to all people;” imho, this is one of the things that has gotten them into trouble.
A copy and pasted cover letter suggests that the job is seen as just one out of many for the applicant. Also, if the letter is not custom tailored, the employer has no evidence that the applicant has even researched the position.