Ask whether cover letters still matter and you get a confident answer from whoever is selling you something. Ask Reddit and you get hiring managers and HR people arguing with each other, which is considerably more useful.
We read nine threads that rank for this question and pulled the 126 top-voted comments through Reddit's API on 26 August 2026. Several are written by people who do the hiring. Below is what they actually say, quoted with the score each comment carried, including where they contradict each other.
One thing worth knowing before you read any article on this topic: the single highest-ranking Reddit guide on cover letters was written by an employee of a resume-builder company. Ours is written by one too. Judge both on whether the sourcing is checkable.
The short answer: it splits, and the split is predictable
There is no consensus, and pretending otherwise is the main failure of every article on this subject. The most upvoted comment in do hiring managers even care about cover letters nowadays, at 289 points, opens by admitting exactly that:
"Some don't, some do. If you're applying to a position that you really care about, including a cover letter might be something to consider."
That sounds like a non-answer until you read enough of the thread to see the pattern underneath. The people who say they read cover letters and the people who say they ignore them are describing different situations, not disagreeing about the facts.
The hiring managers who read them
In r/AskHR, the top comment at 125 points comes from a hiring manager rather than a recruiter:
