Do cover letters work?

Looking to move back to FL from SW VA.  I work for a smaller defense contractor specializing in aviation life support equipment.  Education was focused on racing because I was all-in on that until I had kids.  Now, I don't want to travel as much.  

I've been applying at one of the larger DOD contractors (Northrop Grumman) for positions that I qualify for, should have the experience for, and generally should be a good fit...but I keep getting turned down.  Several of the positions were basically the copy of my current role, but just a "we've gone with other candidates" email.My wife recommended that I write a cover letter, but I honestly don't think my application gets to the point where a person is physically looking at it.  Am I wrong?  

So, brilliant minds of GRM, does a cover letter work?  If not, what will give me a leg up or at least get me a call back?  I know the old "you have to know someone" but I don't, so I've got to work from the box I'm in.  

And yes, I know FL is expensive right now.  My whole family is down there, hence the desire to go back.  

From what I've seen it's best not to include a cover letter these days unless it's specifically requested. There's no way of knowing if your resume is getting filtered out by an algorithm or a human sadly, but the only way the cover letter can help you get past the algorithms is if you stuff it with keywords it's looking for that aren't in the resume - which would be a very odd approach.

If you're applying with your current VA address (as you should unless you like living dangerously) that's a reason you'd get circle-filed 99% of the time, unless you're a globetrotting rockstar companies won't take the risk of interviewing or hiring people who haven't moved into town yet.

I think very few resumes are seen by humans.  My best luck was dealing with recruiters but even then your resume goes into the computer and goes to sleep.  You have to follow up (the best recruiters have their name in the ad) by phone so that they have to pull up your resume and look at it.  If you can figure out which buzzwords the computer is filtering for you may be able to rewrite your resume and get through the filters.

I will take a different view, and say a cover letter could be beneficial in your case. 

I would make sure there is a clear explanation of why you are applying in FL, but live in VA. 

You don't have to get into detail, just enough information to make is clear you are making a focused effort to apply in FL and not just applying to anything that seem to be close to a fit. 

If you get past the algorithm and to a human, that may be the difference in getting into the screening/interview process. 

So far, I've found ZERO people that can (or will) show me how to configure me res. to "auto-populate" 

So, mine gets tossed more times than not. 
I've had many full time company recruiters (who take resumes out of their email, and let their system put the info into the system, without checking it) tell me they don't know what i mean by "auto-populate". 😳🤬😢

In my particular industry, that's more important than a cover letter, and yours is closely related. 

I havent heard a cover letter request in years.

Its icing on the cake.  If everything else works and your cover letter is good, sure, it can help.  99% of the time they are generic crap.  I've had people reach out directly to me in a similar way (internal candidates) and that has been effective.  That said, I don't see what gets filtered out before resumes reach me.  I have disqualified candidates because of their cover letter before, so I guess that part is effective :)

GameboyRMH said:

If you're applying with your current VA address (as you should unless you like living dangerously) that's a reason you'd get circle-filed 99% of the time, unless you're a globetrotting rockstar companies won't take the risk of interviewing or hiring people who haven't moved into town yet.

Hard disagree on this one.  Once you reach a certain point, its pretty standard to interview candidates from all over the country for any given position.  In the engineer world (and probably a lot of other DOD stuff), pretty much any job is going to pull from outside the local talent pool.

My $.02, as a very occasional hiring manager in a different industry:

• A well written cover letter usually won't hurt and might make you stand out, if the issue isn't that your resume isn't "AI" buzzword compliant. A lot of companies these days use software to scan resumes and if your resume doesn't score high enough on the buzzword bullE36 M3 bingo scale, sorry, list of relevant skills, you're automatically declined. I would start having someone in that industry or a resume writer/reviewer specializing in this industry review your resume first.
• They might be trying to fulfill an internal HR requirement that open roles need to be advertised outside the company even when they already know who is going to get the job. In that case, I don't think you'd stand any chance of getting the role.
• If the role is advertised via a third party recruiter, they're padding their resume database.

Also, for what it's worth I agree with prodarwin on the local talent pool vs hiring from all across the country. I've worked with DoD contractors a few times in a previous role, and they were from all over the US. I would expect them to be used to hiring candidates that need or want to relocate.

One thought about the buzzword and filter comments. 
 

My approach is to review the posting and requirements for the position and make sure I use the same terminology to describe my relevant experience. 

As an example if they list "design verification", I'll make sure to update my resume to use the same terminology (i.e.  "design verification") and not shorten it to just "verification" or "DV" or "V&V". 

I think your main issue is location. I tried for over 2 years go get a job out of state. I had a cover letter that explained that I was moving, and when (the when part was a little BS, because I needed the job first). The header of my resume had my name and contact info. For location I put "currently XXX, relocating to YYY in March 2021" and that date kept rolling. 
Nothing.
I ended up being able to bring my job with me or I'd still be in the grey north.

A cover letter is useless in 99.9% of scenarios.

If you have a reference at the company that can put your resume in front of a human

And if you have some strange extenuating circumstances that need to be explained prior to an interview (i.e. relocating soon, held an oddball title, etc)

Then and only then can I see writing a cover letter. It's antiquated and won't be read the overwhelming majority of the time.