Should have followed that train of throught to the next station.

I always wondered why I should bother with a cover letter, since I just highlighted relevant bits of information from my resume. I chalked it up to "showing I care", which is a bit stupid, since often I didn't. Now I find out the problem is that I'm an idiot: a letter much like mine is Ask a Managers "what not to do" in this post on how to write a cover letter. If I can't conduct my next job hunt entirely through poorly trained recruiters, I'll definitely refer to this.