People are starting to take the whole "creative resume" thing to absurd extremes. But there's a valid point hidden in this blog post, which is to say, standing out from the crowd isn't easy. Startups need people with hustle, and showing some hustle isn't a bad thing.
Hustle doesn't necessarily imply competence, however, which is why she suggests #3 ("Show them you can do the job").
But the thing people miss about gimmicks is that they have to be relevant: to you, to the job, to the company. Gimmicks for gimmicks' sake (logo drawing, cake baking, etc.) are just silly.
I very rarely write cover letters, but I do remember getting an interview once and being told specifically that they weren't impressed by my resume but loved my cover letter.
Even after that I still rarely take the time to do it.
N = 1, but whenever I've hired, I've definitely noticed cover letters, or lack thereof. Not bothering with a cover letter tells the hiring manager that you are just shotgunning resumes out there and didn't spend too much time thinking about the company fit.
In fact, so few people seem to write cover letters these days -- let alone compelling ones -- that they can be a strategic differentiator in their own right.
It seems pretty high payoff for people who might otherwise not get a phone screen. When I was tasked with shuffling through resumes and rating them (and seeing other engineers do the same), less than 5% of applicants had cover letters, and the presence of a cover letter almost guaranteed a phone screen. This included really weird cover letters that dedicate a paragraph or two to food or pets or something, but not cover letters that are obviously sent out to many companies with at most a few words changed.
Hustle doesn't necessarily imply competence, however, which is why she suggests #3 ("Show them you can do the job").
But the thing people miss about gimmicks is that they have to be relevant: to you, to the job, to the company. Gimmicks for gimmicks' sake (logo drawing, cake baking, etc.) are just silly.