"Your Prestigious Organization"

YOUR PRESTIGIOUS ORGANIZATION

I've received a good number of recruiting e-mails containing this phrase via clubs. Conversely, I'd presume that firms have also received countless such cover letters. Is anyone else turned off by this? I'm especially interested in hearing the view from the hiring side.

Here's my take: "Prestigious" tells us nothing by itself.

You go to a prestigious school? Great. Now why is your school prestigious? Are the professors exceptionally good lecturers or researchers? Are the students exceptionally bright or hard-working? Have alumni been exceedingly successful in their careers, perhaps due to opportunities provided by the school?

Reputation is established through success of some form. If you're a financial services firm, you might have made a reputation for yourself by doing exceptionally well for your clients. Alternatively, on the proprietary trading side, a firm might gain a reputation for its strong training program.

From my perspective (and I'd presume it's the same on the other side) "Your prestigious X" doesn't tell me why you want to work with us. It conveys more about yourself -- you wish to become more well-regarded by associating yourselves with us, perhaps without any other purpose beyond that.

I'm certainly not claiming that prestige doesn't exist -- rather that it's earned, and that you'd do better to recognize the qualities that fostered the prestige rather than the prestige itself. This is just speculation on my part, but I'd presume that the intersection of firms that send and that receive "your prestigious X" letters is approximately the empty set. To me it just comes across as a misguided attempt at flattery.

What do you think? Especially you, people who actually do the interviewing.