Job applications

Daniel Burrows mentions how he hasn't gotten any reply from potential employers where he sent cover letters that are written like the Rules require.

Reading that reminds me how I never ever got hired after writing such a letter myself, either.

• My first job after graduating was at DHL. I got there because I had listed myself on stepstone, a Belgian career site that (at the time, dunno about now) featured a very detailed list of abilities you could claim your knowledge of. Someone at an interim office needed someone for DHL who could work with UNIX and Oracle (both of which I claimed knowledge on that site), so she contacted me; a few days later, I was working at DHL's global headquarters.
• My next job was at a small company in Leuven. I was, in fact, their first employee. I got there after reacting to one of the employers' statements in their .sig on usenet that they were looking for a new employee. A few days later, we met in a bar somewhere in Leuven for a drink. We've had a few more of such meetings, until I was hired.
• Next, I worked at Template. This one was very nice—one of the people who work there, who would eventually become my boss, sent me a private email asking whether I knew someone who could set up an email server and a firewall under Linux. Uh, me?! Turns out he'd been googling a bit, found quite a few postings from me on be.comp.os.linux, and was rather impressed by my knowledge. I didn't have to convince him that it was a good idea to hire me.
• Next I co-founded NixSys. Which obviously doesn't involve job applications, though it is otherwise quite stressful.
• My most recent job (even if only a part-time one) did involve something close to one of those formal letters (not an actual one; but still the first one I ever wrote, actually), though only indirectly; I applied for a job at the department where I graduated first, but didn't get hired there; however, a few weeks later I received an email from someone at a different department (which, obviously, also means a different job). That's about two weeks ago now, and she didn't need any explanation either...

All things considered, I do think the value of such cover letters is highly overrated. Not only do most employers not really care about them; one could also wonder whether you would want to work at a place where paperwork is so important that you couldn't get hired if you're the best guy for the job, but you made an error in the paperwork...