If I have two candidates in front of me, one that included a cover letter about how he hand-rolled his own blog, comments, and feed aggregator for fun to learn a new framework, and another that just sends a resume with a one-liner in the body of the email, I’m going to be much more inclined to say “hire” for the guy with the cover letter, even if the second guy’s resume is a bit better. Similarly, I’ll be more likely to say “hire” to the Eagle Scout, triathlete developer than a candidate who bludgeons me with all of their “accomplishments”...

A company’s hiring process is usually a pretty good indicator of what kind of talent it employs, and thus the kind of quality the company has. The higher the bar, the better the talent, the more interesting the company.

—Reddit’s Entitlement Complex