Someone on my college dorm floor once asked me to edit a cover letter he planned to send to prospective employers. The opening read, "My name is John David Smith.* No brag, just fact."
"I wouldn't write, 'No brag, just fact,'" I told him. "That's not going to get you hired."
I'm glad I said that to him because if I hadn't, this realization might have gone unexplained, and he might not have imagined that the sentence would turn employers off.
*not his real name
