To Whom It May Concern,

 

Wait. Please. Keep reading. I know you’re getting a lot of applications for the ROLE position over at COMPANY. These layoffs, am I right? Sheesh! And look, I know you’re probably using an AI-based Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to sift through the pile and filter for keywords. And you’re probably ending up with a lot of AI-based, ATS-optimized letters. But just in case you’re a real person in a real office reading my real cover letter, I want you to know something (this is what they call the hook in the biz, baby):

 

I am going to fucking kill myself.

 

That’s right.

 

I have the motive, the gun, the plan, and the untreated mental illness.

 

And no, this isn’t a joke. I’m serious.

 

I’ve already written up my suicide note, too. And you wanna know something funny about it? You’re in there. That’s right. Or, well, your company is. This open role is mentioned. And, well, I guess you’re in there too, since you’re the recruiter listed on the LinkedIn posting (nice headshot by the way — get it? lol). But it’s not that bad. It’s a pretty standard suicide letter. I mean, there’s something about my last hope. There’s some stuff about me running through my paltry savings. A line or two about applying to over six hundred jobs and getting a form rejection from every single one. And then there’s COMPANY and you and this job listing and something about a final straw.

Hell, I even printed the damn thing out already. Put it on the dresser. Stuck a little paperweight on top.

 

Because it’s true. This is my final job application.

 

After this — and the form rejection you’ve got queued up for me — it’s, well, y’know: “Lone gunshot at 3am” time, some might call it. A little like a “Boo hoo BOOM” o’clock. Half past “blood on your fucking hands.” And so on.

 

Now. I have some good news. I mean, this is my final job application (imagine me waving my gun around, here, because I am, while writing this, one-handed, which I must say is pretty impressive, and speaks highly to my attention to detail and communication skills, which I know are valuable assets for ROLE). But this can also be your final job application to review. 

 

Think about it. 

 

I know you’re trying to hit your quotas, your time-to-hires, you know, all your other hellish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that feed into your ever-looming performance improvement plan that will surely only expedite getting yourself shitcanned and blah blah blah noose in the closet blah blah blah dead cats feeding on your hanging corpse like a leg of lamb blah blah blah. So it doesn’t have to be this way. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Or, well, I mean. You get me this job, I don’t shoot myself in the head, to be more explicit. Because that is, ultimately, the credible and actionable threat I’m passing on to you, directly, via this cover letter.

 

Because, seriously, I’ll fucking do it. I am, after all, a highly motivated, autonomous worker who excels in problem solving and cross-functional team leadership. For example, once I had this really difficult problem, which was that I couldn’t get a fucking job (Situation), so I decided I needed to make a change (Task) and take matters into my own hands and shoot myself in the fucking head (Action) so that I would be dead and never have to fill out a fucking webform about my veteren and disability status ever again (Result).

 

Anyway, I would love to connect with you over a quick call to learn more about this role.

 

Best regards,