My old manager at a 150-person company used to do it for experienced candidates. It was shocking to me. I think his idea was that he wanted you to be at least thoughtful enough to say something specific about the job and your experience.
On the other hand my SO got a job at a fortune 200 company out of 1000+ applicants because she was one of the two people who could speak intelligently about the role and what she’d do with it in the initial phone screen. The recruiter was surprised to find someone who even knew what the job posting said.
As another commenter said, it clearly points out many people shotgunning job apps.
Maybe that will change with AI. But I bet there will be pretty easy ways to detect that - if nothing else, during the first step in the hiring process.
