Cover Letters vs Cold Calling...which do you hate more?

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As the title above reads, which do you dislike more about job hunting: having to write a lengthy cover letter where you have to find inventive ways to pimp yourself/speak to the company's needs, or going through the hassle of looking up who to call at a company, working up the courage to make the call, and hoping you don't choke when you introduce yourself?

Cold Calling.

I use a template for cover letters. A few tweaks and it's done. Cold calling requires you sound confident each and every time. After a few dead ends, that's impossible for me.

Cold calling.
I write better than I talk.

Another vote for Cold Calling, the odds are so low and most of the the responses will be we do not have a position, call back another time or a hang up. The best responses will be send a a cover letter and resume which is the other option anyway.

My advice is do not use this method at all.

Cold calling. You can always research and have a formula for letters.

Cold calling is definitely more difficult. You don't know how receptive the person will be, it's harder to direct a conversation to where you need it to go and you need to start with a bit of friendly small talk to try and win them over. Annoyingly I think that cold calling has the greater possibilities for finding leads, but if telephone conversations aren't a strength then you can't take advantage of that. If you try one and it's not working then you'll have to change tactics anyway, so you might end up using both.

Cover letters hand downs. I figure those are hitting the trash can as soon as they are opened up.

I have a better chance of selling myself or seeing if I even want to work at a place cold calling.

If I get blown off, their loss!

Gotten more jobs through people and cold calling than a resume/cover letter.

One thing you can think of, is when cold calling, research the place beforehand and ask relevant questions.

Tina

I've never cold called anyone before and I hope I never have to. I think that writing a cover letter would be easier for me.

They both sound bad, but I have to say I have no actual experience with cold calling, I did not think it was something people even tried these days. I can see it having been a standard a long time ago before the internet age, but to me phones are a dead medium of communication.

I am not very good with cover letters though, it feels like basically writing one big long brag about yourself. It seems to me the more honest someone is with a cover letter, the less likely they are to find work. As someone else in this thread mentioned, there is a prevailing feeling that it goes right in the trash in most cases anyway.