“While I do feel that a candidate should take the time to see if there is an HR/talent representative on the company website, there is the unknown of who the actual cover letter is going to, especially if the company is using an applicant tracking system.”īut, sometimes you just can’t find the recipient’s name, and you may not know the pronouns of the person who will be receiving your letter. “I am on the fence when it comes to ‘to whom it may concern,’” Lisa Vasquez-Fedrizzi, managing director of talent and HR advisory Cheer Partners, says. Yes, but this greeting can and should be used only as a last resort.
#IS IT TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN HOW TO#
Read more: How to End an Email That Gets Results Is it ever okay to use ‘to whom it may concern’? If it's a very large company, go with ‘Dear Hiring Manager’ instead.”
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It's a nice touch to address someone by name, and please make sure to spell their name correctly. Sometimes it's on the posting, but if not, check the company website. It can just come off as lazy, and especially if you’re writing a cover letter, you need to show your potential employer that you’ve at least attempted to address the letter correctly.Ĭareer coach Alejandra Hernandez says this about the greeting: “I think it is unoriginal, old-fashioned, and, to sum it up in one word: ‘meh.’ Do a little extra work and search for the hiring manager's name. Hope this ends up in front of the right person! To whom it may concern really reads this way: I have no idea who I’m writing to. Why ‘to whom it may concern’ doesn’t always work To whom it may concern is a letter or email greeting used when the sender doesn’t know who will be receiving the message.īut it’s 2020, and it’s pretty easy to figure out who will be reading your email or letter or message, whether it's the hiring manager or a future mentor or a coworker (please, know your coworker's names).Īnd even if you don’t know the name of the person you’re writing to, or if you’re writing to more than one person, there is nearly always a better way to address your letter. In this case, because the correspondence is generally considered formal, and because there’s no single specific addressee or department, To Whom It May Concern works.Image courtesy of Cathryn Lavery Should you use ‘to whom it may concern’? He’s going to be making multiple copies to hand out at interviews, and those letters are meant to be seen by anyone interested in hiring him. Let’s say you’re writing a letter of recommendation for a colleague. When is it okay to use To Whom It May Concern? Keep in mind that Hello and Greetings are slightly more casual than the other options we’ve listed, so they may not be the best option for things like cover letters or other formal business correspondence. If you’re not reaching out to an individual, or if your message could be seen by a number of people, you can’t go wrong with a simple hello. Spend your time writing an amazing cover letter instead. At least you addressed the right department. A hiring manager, for example, doesn’t spend more than a few minutes looking at a resume, so the fact that your cover letter lacks personalization is probably not going to register as a red flag.
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Sometimes, researching a contact name isn’t the best use of your time. (E.g., Dear Hiring Manager, Dear Admissions Department.) If you can’t find an individual’s name, you can expand a bit and reference the person’s role or a specific department, instead. Could you tell me who’s responsible for talent acquisition for that job?” 2 If you’re looking for the name of a job contact, you might say something like “Hi! I’m applying for the marketing manager position and I’d like to personalize my cover letter. There’s no need to be stealthy about asking for the person’s name, so be honest. If your Internet search doesn’t reveal a contact name, you can always resort to the retro option-pick up the phone and make a call. Use it when you have a contact email address but no contact name. Here’s a tip: Rapportive, a Gmail add-on, will help you find the LinkedIn account associated with an email address.