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The two-minute application: at OTTO your CV is enough
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The two-minute application: at OTTO your CV is enough

OTTO eliminates motivation questions and mandatory cover letters in its job applications • A CV is enough • The application process is significantly accelerated

10/24/2023 Editor Ingo Bertram
Quicker, easier, more straightforward: a job application at OTTO, the largest German online store, now takes only a few minutes. The company has not asked applicants to submit a traditional cover letter for years. In addition, the two mandatory motivation questions that applicants had to answer instead of writing a cover letter are now also not required. From now on, an up-to-date CV is all that is needed for a job application at OTTO. The new fast-track application process applies to all advertised full-time and part-time positions from the junior level upwards, regardless of title and hierarchy – including positions for senior management.

Jennifer Halemba, Head of Recruiting at OTTO, says: “We have created the quickest and easiest application process in nearly 75 years of OTTO’s existence. Never before have interested individuals been able to apply to us so easily. Traditional applications have lost relevance for us over the years, are often not very informative, and are increasingly even written by AI assistants like ChatGPT. The value of these letters for us is minimal, while the effort required for reviewing them is huge. With the new two-minute application, we are lowering the barriers for talented applicants, processing incoming applications more efficiently, and can spend more time on interviews. After all, a personal interview tells us more than a letter ever will.”

Instead of mandatory details, OTTO favours voluntary information: candidates can fill out an optional free-text field if they wish to provide additional information with their application. They can use a maximum of 1,000 characters for this, for example to explain gaps in their CV or for career changers who are interested in a new field of work. Providing this information is not compulsory. The abolition of the cover letter seven years agoalready led to a positive wave of feedback from applicants, while the time and effort required per submitted application in the recruitment process fell significantly.

OTTO, headquartered in Hamburg, employs 6,000 people across Germany. Approximately one-third of the employees work in tech and IT roles, and over 100 people are involved in research on AI products – and this number is expected to increase. Nearly 2,000 people apply to OTTO each month. The company currently has around 160 vacancies advertised at www.otto.jobs, the majority of which are tech jobs.

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