Slaughtered & Dismayed: Does your cover letter not matter? Or is it nepotism?
Yesterday, I read a cover letter of someone who has made it to the assessment centre stage at Slaughter & May. Prior to reading it, I was keen to see what a successful cover letter looked like and what I can learn from it; but after reading it I was beyond baffled.
The cover letter was the most generic cover letter you can imagine, it was to the point you could replace the name ‘
Slaughter and May’ with any other law firm, and send it out. There was nothing that was specific to the law firm (e.g. I want to join S&M because of their emphasis on the value of teamwork and I value teamwork because I played basket ball in sixth form, type of sentences).
I was confused how this cover letter has made it through, but it became clear after I found out their parents arranged for them to meet with a senior member of the law firm.
To be honest, I would understand if they wrote about how their meeting inspired them to be a commercial lawyer or work in S&M but there was not a single sentence about that on their cover letter.
Thus, I have come to two conclusions. Either nepotism prevails. Or your cover letter doesn’t matter at all and its only down to grades (they have decent grades for the most part).