Advice Admin 101: How to Interpret a Job Candidate’s Cover Letter As a hiring administrator, your goal is to efficiently, presciently, and justly read applicants’ cover letters.

Focus on the cover letter. It is not uncommon for me to get 100 applications for one spot, so I’m constantly looking for reasons not to advance a candidate to the interview round.

It was in 2009 or so that I received the only cover letter that's ever really stood out to this day. The person was applying for a senior IT systems administrator job in New York. The opening was: ...