Do recruiter read cover letters ? https://www.quora.com/Do-recruiters-read-cover-letters

Bas Grasmayer, led and built up a team for a music tech startup.

5.3k Views

I can answer from the perspective of someone who built up a team of 40 at a startup.

To me, cover letters are important, because I'm trying to build a team, not a set of replaceable individuals. A CV tells me nothing about personality, interest or motivation. It's just experience and perhaps achievements (if done properly). Therefore, I'd always look in the cover letter for those points. A good cover letter almost always led to an invitation to a job interview, even if I was still a little bit unsure of the experience listed in the CV.

Here are some DO's and DON'T's.

DO:

• Indicate clear interest in the company and the job. Display familiarity with both. This helps anyone building up a team understand that you're motivated.
• Show motivation! Help me understand what drives you, how this fits into what you want to do. Demotivation in one person can drag a whole team down, so it's important for me to understand your motives.
• Describe your qualities in a way that I wouldn't be able to glean from your CV... Else you're using my limited time to tell me the same thing twice.
• Differentiate! Help me to understand why you're different from other people. Read some bios of people on LinkedIn to help you understand how to avoid saying the same thing as others, words like "creative", "self-motivated", or "team player" are unimpressive at best and have an adverse effect at worst.
• Try to understand the type of personalities in a company, and adjust tone accordingly. This is a little bit like dressing up for a job interview. Don't be overly formal with a music startup ;-)
• Keep it concise. No more than 3 paragraphs. Remove anything that's not absolutely necessary in this very first impression. Your goal is to get invited, not acquainted. The latter will happen in the interview process.

DON'T:

• Attach your cover letter. Put it in the email body. If you put it as an attachment, I might just look at your CV and skip the cover letter. I really don't understand people who attach their cover letters...
• Place your future bosses too high above you. Try to address them almost like equals. You might still be just at the start of your career, but show confidence in the fact that one day, you could be in their seat in some other company (if you're reading Quora, there's a good chance you will). Disclaimer! I've lived in different countries and this is culturally specific. This works well in companies with a modern Western mentality... In a company with a more oldschool mentality, this might not go over so well.
• Place yourself above potential future bosses. Then you're just being a dick and I won't want to work with you. Go start your own company or go work in some oldschool company where such attitudes belong.
• Leave the email body blank. Nor the subject line. Else I won't even understand what you're applying for... Or if you care at all. This happens more often than you'd think. About 20-30% of the applications I got had less than 20 words in the body.
• Copy + paste the same cover letter over and over. We can tell. At least adjust the part where you show interest and motivation. Show that you care.

Review : Connectography by Parag Khanna

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna
My rating: 1 of 5 stars





















The one start is not as much the book itself but the great disappointment of my high expectation after reading so much acclamations on Goodreads. The irrational hype must be cooled down. The book spent great proportion talking about China and East Asia, where I grew up. I didn't learn anything new in those parts. In addition, the author doesn't seem to be an expert in global trend, despite he was an adviser to US national Intelligence Council, and US Special Operations Forces. Compare with another geopolitics journalists, Robert Kaplan, Parag Khanna's portrayal of the global geopolitics is not only bland, but superficial. The magna title 'connectography' is nothing but a hyperbole. There's nothing new except for its cover. Honestly, after browsing it in the last two week, I don't want to finish it because I have already know better than him. Unlike Thomas L. Friedman, the author of his much celebrated book, 'The World is Flat,' Mr. Khanna's work is at most a caricature. His understanding about China, Korea, and other so called 'the rising east' powers is actually insufficient. In terms of the development of IT and fin-tech infrastructure, China is catching up with the U.S (even ahead believe or not). China and Korea's online-gaming industry and culture is surfacing as another significant subculture. The author didn't point out why China invest heavily on foreign countries aside form seising their natural resources. It is not only an offense strategy countering the West political powers, but also a defense measure that prevents economy bubble happened in Japan. China doesn't need so much natural resource as its great construction period is slowing down. It is more a way to develop export market of its products and services to consume the over-production of its millions of factories to prevent the great recession that Americans experienced after WWII. As far as China study goes, the content in the book doesn't brace the volume of such a ambitious title.

As for other old connections - gas pipeline, goods supply chain, migrations, the author was also scratching the surface. I expected to see more in-depth analysis on talent migration, such as the prediction of possible brain power drain of developing countries, and the possible impact to local culture, as long as how it affects superpowers' global strategies on attracting global talents. I hold a different view of globalization from the author. I see the rise of hypertube and Tesla the new paradigm of future connections. Already close areas, such as Seattle, SF and LA, or Boston, NY, will become more connected. Uber, autopilot and Tesla will reduce the cost of transportation of man and goods, both money-wise and environment-wise. Our reliance on oil and gas will decline when the building solar city gain its popularity. Germany just announced industry 4.0, declaring a era of customized manufacturing against mono-model mass production. Many companies are shifting their factories back from China. These facts are not matching the pattern the author proposed.

However, the author got it right. We are entering a new era of less traditional sovereigns such as cultural background, nationality, and location. Its much easier to work abroad nowadays, as far as regulations go. Many skilled workers left their countries to seek a new identity, better quality of life, better chance to realize one's dream. However, the competition for working VISAs in the UK and the US is still difficult to many people. We got multiple identity thanks to Internet and social networks. We might be more identified with someone hundred miles away than our neighbors. This will only be more true when the VR technology catching on. The author's world view seemed to be over-conservative and unimaginative since most graphs depicts our world very similar to Columbus's world centuries ago.

This book is neither revolutionary since all its claims are not more sensational than what I read on newspapers. All his claims are either clichés or predictable. You can't even call them observations of a new trend. Most of them are just what is happening as the way it was. I would rather enjoy Ray Kurzweil's dramatic style more , even though his crazy prophecy of singularity is another extreme. That said, at least it is something fresh, and scholarly crazy.














View all my reviews

Autumn

Tübingen

Do we have free will ? My current view to the question.

Do we have free will ? 

What is free will ? 

No one knows the answer because the free will is, by its nature, a perceptual idea that differs from person to person. Is free will the ability to make 'free' decisions regardless possible cost/ reward, or the ability to generate a motivation and goal that is not given by others ? Is it a special quality that is inseparable from human beings, the unique, chosen species of the world, therefore impossible to be analyzed whatsoever, or something that is totally experiential that cannot be appealed to words ?

 If we don't initially agree on what the free will is, we are not going to be able to discuss it.

Here, I adopted the most popular view of what the free will is. That is, free will is the ability to make decisions voluntarily. The ability to make choices by our own not affected by the possible outcomes, our experience, or our previous choices. This implies that it should be totally random, unpredictable, if the task is not relating to any kind of goals. 

Allow me to cite a paragraph from here  , to demonstrate scientist's effort on this issue. 

quote::

16.5.1 The Libet experiment

The classic experiment in the research field of human volition was performed by Libet (297). In this experiment, subjects decide on their own when to move their right hand. After each trial subjects report when they felt the ‘urge to move’, with respect to a rapidly rotating hand of a clock. The reported ‘urge to move’ is in fact about 200ms earlier than the actual movement. Most interestingly, however, electrical brain activity measured by EEG recordings indicates that the brain exhibits signals of preparatory activity already several hundred milliseconds before the reported ‘urge to move’. Thus, if we accept to interpret the felt ‘urge to move’ as the conscious decision to move the hand, then we must also accept the fact that the brain has unconsciously prepared our decision.

A modern and debated variant of the Libet experiment is shown in Fig. 16.11A. The main difference to the original Libet experiment (where the decision was limited to ‘move’ or ‘not move’) is that subjects now hold two buttons, one in the left and the other in the right hand (490). Subjects are free to decide when to move and press either of the two buttons. While subjects perform the experiment, they watch a stream of letters at a rate of two letters per second. At the end of each trial, they indicate at which letter they had felt the ‘urge to move’. The reported letter serves as a timing reference for the subsequent analysis.

During the experiment, brain activity was recorded through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using statistical pattern classification techniques, the authors aimed at predicting the final response outcome (left or right) based on the activity patterns in localized brain areas. If brain activity contained no cue about the final decision, the prediction would be always 50 percent. However, the authors found that activity patterns in fronto-polar cortex 5 seconds before the reported ‘urge to move’ allowed them to predict the final choice (left or right) with a precision of 55 - 60 percent (490) which is above chance but far from a reliable prediction.

quote over ::

The experiment predicted the decision 5s before the subject report they 'feel the urge to move' with 60 % accuracy by monitoring fMRI image of brain activity. Not satisfactory, but somewhat tells us it is not totally unpredictable. There are different models that model the process of decision making in neuronal level. According to the author, the free will to make decision is still under debate, because our decision may be changed drastically at the last millisecond because some novel events change the landscape of Liapunov function during the course the state falls to the attractor.  

 ' We don't do what we want, we want what we do.' Speaking of to identify the moment of 'feeling the urge to act', I cannot avoid mentioning the widely accepted view that we don't generate the urge voluntarily. Our motivation is by large controlled by a variety of hormones, dopamine, and serotonin. These chemicals are the source of the feeling of happiness, sense of belonging, pleasure of orgasm, etc. Our deepest motivations are conditioned by this genetically programmed constraints. If you do something because you feel good, usually it can be boiled down to either social or biological rewards conditioning.  Who can deny, that the happiness is the reward that no one can resists ?

  In rare conditions, we have free will when the outcomes do not affect us consequently. But maybe even in that case the decision process is determined by the random variable embedded in the neuron population. At best, we have free will within constraints of the life we lead in terms of motivation.  However, it brings about a important implication. When we chose to suffer the consequence when there are better options, free will may be operating.  For instance, any self-sacrifice, or suicidal action of sane, healthy people could be explained by free will.

  A mother reported when she observed her bi-polar child, she immediately realized that the insane person has little control to their actions, they don't have free will. It gave rise to a very peculiar yet inspiring point of view that defines the free will in way complement to our previous definition. That is, the free will is not the ability to act according to your urge, but the ability to inhibit the urge. We can design a experiment in light of this. A experiment tests subjects ability to resist being conditioned. When we can control our urges, which usually, if not always, stem from genetically programmed conditions, we are enforcing our free will. 'Free will accompanies voluntary suffering.' this conclusion is not only cogent, but has rich sociological connotation.

  Another interesting view is, no, we don't have free will, since we are in anyway either constrained by biological curse, or sociological cause. The environment either shaped our body, or shaped our mind. Our thought is a product of our experience, or our collected experience, our culture. The view also indicates the essence of the problem is paradoxical because we recursively have to attribute the free will a physical source, a small brain pulling the lever inside our brain, and a smaller brain and so on.  Do we want what we do, or do we do what we want ? Do we have egg first, or chicken first ? 

The paradox may be untangled by introducing the concept of co-evolving. Free will does not emerge at once, but shapes gradually during the process of decision making. That is free will and decision may not be causal related, but co-product.  Or, according to this answer,  that real free will means being able to look at our decisions and actions and understand them in terms of a narrative which identifies ourselves within them. Free will means saying "I did this, because xyz." And maybe we're wrong about the xyz, and maybe you get freer the better you understand yourself over time.

  

   

  

 

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Heiligkrueztal Retreat Seminar.

  It is not clear when was the last time I wrote a blog, but it must be very long time ago. Lots of things happened in this semester, and I barely wrote a blog to record the trail of my life in Tübingen. 

Maybe as I said in the last blog, one needs the strong inner drive to write.

  I also wonder does this mean I also stop thinking, since writing is the explicit form of mental process, or I was simply lost my ability to sense the subtlety of life anyway ?

  Amongst the things I am going to write down in this blog, the first thing that I want myself and those who are constantly watching this intermittent diary to know it that I've got a scholarship in this semester !

  I don't know how it happened to me, but you know, every dog has its day.

Here is the story. 

   I always know it is important to maintain good relationships even with people who seems to be distant or unfriendly because you don't know whom you will need when you are in desperately need.  

  Dr.Herbert in the head of our program. He was a strict and prudent man around 60 years old. He was infamous for his stern look and grumpy temper when you disturbed his job. He would not put on a friendly smile and mildly seek your compliance as any well-rounded adults in Taiwan and in the US will do. When he felt you disturbed him, and you were not aware of that, or you were not trying to avoid that, he came to you and blatantly asked you to change. For many times I was called by him due to the noise I made when closing the door. How could I be blamed ? The problem could be easily solved by adhering a rubber cushion alone the door frame.

 No one, especially for foreign students, has yet to accustomed to this straight-forward, typical German expression. It was emotionless, bloodless, and ruthless regarding to how most of us were educated when we were asking someone else for a favor: be politer than polite.

     

An old farm house near the one I stayed during our seminar.  The unadorned green window frame and bland beige wall give me a warm, simple, harmonious impression. It was not meant to be an eye-catcher, and the theme colors suits the background landscape perfectly. I was charmed by its down-to-earth, simple, unaffected style because it reflects the life style of its owner. They are all hospitable and friendly people. This photo was taken around 3 pm. It was hot, dry, and plenty of light to capture the best color. I remember all my classmates went to the park playing games, allowing me to savor the serenity and unspoiled street view.

  I was impartially sociable and warm regardless how unfairly I was treated by him. That very day in the morning, I was light chatting with him in a hope to ameliorate our relationship. I was asking him if he knew any lab doing neuroprosthetics. As a German, he take my question seriously, and give me some names he knew. Unexpectedly, he mentioned if I was funded by any scholarship. I was actually pretty desperate for money then since I took student loan, and my job application was just rejected by a group leader.  Baffled by his sudden question concerning my financial state, I uncomfortably confessed that I was not good enough to get myself funded, and I was looking for a Hiwi, or research assistant, job.

   He asked me if I read the email the coordinator sent me, and kept on saying they wanted to give me a grant after knowing I haven' t read the mail. ''WHAT ? WHY? '' I could hardly believe my ear. I did poorly in the class, and I didn't apply for that. ''Are their brains broken ? '' I was startled incredulously.

  Of course I did't slip my tongue. You can't make that stupid mistake regardless how stupid you are. ''They must have a good reason. Maybe I am not that bad at all. '' I tried to convince myself that I was actually an underestimated genius whose talent was so profound that his poor grades told nothing of it.

This picture is a good demonstration of the power of triangular composition. The dark brown rooftop, and the shadow on the right consist the diagonal section lines of the picture. The stark contrast of the color on the upper left and bottom right are separated by the brown roof, which ameliorate the presence of the two extreme. Noteworthily, the fresh green tapering tower is emphasized due to its distinguished position and color. Maybe you can come up with some meaning for it ? In my eyes, the church tower is not so solemn, perfect and unreachable like most cathedrals. However, it is its humble and banal style makes it so welcoming and homy to the locals. It is conveying an idea: God is not just a supreme existence. God is also a father that has mercy even to people as humble as you and me.  I like the design of the church. It is ordinary, plain, but it is never grimy and chaotic.

    

The roses are in full blossom during the day. You can also see the small buds around the bloom at the bottom. The rose vine consisted an arch of the front yard of a residence. It was blossomed at its best, and it touched me since it is the symbol of eternal love, and the garden reminded me of Romeo and Julie. The sun penetrated through the leaves, forming a bright spot on the CCD. You can think of it as a divine ideal, which the mundane love, the rose,  is looking up to. Juxtaposing and manipulating the interactions of the two symbols generate many possible interpretations. To name a few: 1. love is a pure form of divine existence. 2. We mundane are always looking for a kind of idealistic purity in our life, and love can be one of the answers. 3. We mortals can never reach the level of pure platonic, spiritual love, as how unconditionally God loves us. However, love itself is good. Therefore, our love is blessed by him. A picture convey more in this moment. 

The old wall and vine, very classic combination, consist a stereotypical sets of ideas.  Summertimes, abundance, joyful moment of life, and eternal vitality setting roots on heavy, out-dated, monotonic history.  This theme is a good object of practice. Especially you can easily create a contrast of depth, complexity, and brightness. It lacks focus and center of attention, making it a good wallpaper. 

Another photo conveying simple aesthetic principle. Repetition and order. Our eyes cannot catch too many information at the same time. Try to convey one and only one idea of beauty, and eliminate all distractions in the frame. 

 I didn't tried to compose the picture to make it looks like Monet's painting, but you immediately notice their resemblance. Another good demonstration of design. Exploit what your audience have already learned, leverage the idea of your photo on those giants. It is not teaching you to replicate, to imitate, but showing you great artworks are usually a result of recreating, reinterpreting the ideas and principles that has been well established.

This is a hard one for me. I spend a lot of time contemplating the best crop. My camera is not equipped with fixed focus lens, and it was difficult to make my idea simple because the scene was pretty messy. Too many distractions. What I tried to capture was the shadow and the light, the tangled creeper and the wooden door of the barn. I don't know how other people think, but I think the scene is unbalanced. That is, deficient in clear contour and color blocks. Secondly, there are too many distractions, or so to speak, too many foci in it. This scene is absolutely beautiful, full of exquisite spots, but I should have spend more time to analyze, organize and design what at the best I could have got.  

Saturated color, exposed bricks, and unusual roof design. Time left trace on what it has touched. This small town was old, experienced, and very telling. Coming from a young and modern city. The coexistence of history and present in this town was very intense and imposing. It was a very thick, textured experience that took me a while to digest. The history was not only in the building, the landscape, but also in the lifestyle and people's faith, value, and characters. I walked into the history, walked into the painting, and I almost met Millet around the corner of the street. 

Two windows and a whit wall. You sure not much information in the scene ? I tried to convey the subtle beauty of texture. Texture is important, but easily neglected by lay person's eyes. It determines the quality of the color, and the authenticity. Good rendering of texture evokes textile sense in your brain. The texture of the white color make it more tangible, as if you can caress it with your eyes. In fact, there is nothing that is flat and smooth in natural scene. There is always variability, fluctuation, and inhomogeneity in real world. Our world is, to some degree, chaotic, noisy, and irrational. Again, light is the best friend of photographers.

What more can I say ? 1914 ? 2015 ? 3 lifetimes' span doesn't cause much difference. the only trace that expose the year is the sign and the watch. The wall was so uneven, damaged. It strikes me as an organism being with its own metabolism, just like human skin. The house is not inanimate object, but a living thing for centuries. It always hurls me in awe.