CV Cover letter, Dear....

logic

It has been about 12 years since I wrote a cover letter, is "Dear Sir or Madam" acceptable or should I use "To whom it may concern" or is there something other way of addressing persons unknown?

srsly78

logic wrote: »

is "Dear Sir or Madam" acceptable?

Is fine.

JustAThought

Ring the company & get the HR managers name.

Dear Ms Peters is better.
If possible.

Otherwise Dear S or M ...

Good luck! :0

WASP0

You could try Dear Hiring Manager.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Dear Sir or Madam, might as well be Dear Bin as it flags your mail as unsolicited and goes the way of most spam. If you could not spend the time to find out the HR managers name, it would point towards laziness or ineptitude, neither a desirable trait in a prospective employee.

Do you expect a potential employer to spend time reviewing you cover letter and CV is you are not willing to lift the phone and ask the company receptionist the name of the HR manager or Specialist?

It is not normally a secret.

The Big Red Button

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Dear Sir or Madam, might as well be Dear Bin as it flags your mail as unsolicited and goes the way of most spam. If you could not spend the time to find out the HR managers name, it would point towards laziness or ineptitude, neither a desirable trait in a prospective employee.

Do you expect a potential employer to spend time reviewing you cover letter and CV is you are not willing to lift the phone and ask the company receptionist the name of the HR manager or Specialist?

It is not normally a secret.

I wouldn't necessarily agree ...

There's a space within the job descriptions on the jobs websites for companies to put a contact name, if they want to. If it's left blank, I respect that, and address the cover letter "Dear Sir/Madam." It absolutely hasn't held me back from getting interviews ... obviously, I make sure that the cover letter and CV are very much tailored to the position/company in question.

Obviously if a name is given, I'll always use it.

But if they're going to be so petty as to disregard my experience and skills for such a minor detail, when it's obvious from the cover letter that I have put in the time and effort to research the company, it's probably not a place I'd want to work!

You have to bear in mind that some companies leave the contact name blank for a reason. On most company websites, you can figure out the company's email convention (e.g. lastname.firstname@whatever.ie) Considering the high volume of applications that some positions might receive, the hiring manager might purposely leave out their details if they don't want to receive a massive amount of "follow-up" e-mails from unsuccessful applicants.

There's also the question of the best person to address it to - the HR manager, or the head of department for that particular position (e.g. Head of Finance, Head of Marketing) who will probably be the hiring manager and the person with the final say. Not much good if it lands on their desk with the wrong name on it!! If it's a large company, and your cover letter/CV will be seen by several sets of eyes before an interview is offered, a generic "Dear Sir/Madam" is probably the best opening, in my own opinion.

confuseddotcom

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Dear Sir or Madam, might as well be Dear Bin as it flags your mail as unsolicited and goes the way of most spam. If you could not spend the time to find out the HR managers name, it would point towards laziness or ineptitude, neither a desirable trait in a prospective employee.

Do you expect a potential employer to spend time reviewing you cover letter and CV is you are not willing to lift the phone and ask the company receptionist the name of the HR manager or Specialist?

It is not normally a secret.

You'd be surprised!! Plus that's some ridiculous phone call to put in to have to go finding out a person's name in order to put in application for a job with them that they advertised! :pac: But I usually do as I'm anal and like to know if I'll be signing off Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely or what-the-hell! :P

And then there's more of 'em who request a Cover Letter and don't even give an Address to address Letter to!! Sheer idio brilliance!

The Big Red Button

confuseddotcom wrote: »

You'd be surprised!! Plus that's some ridiculous phone call to put in to have to go finding out a person's name in order to put in application for a job with them that they advertised! :pac: But I usually do as I'm anal and like to know if I'll be signing off Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely or what-the-hell! :P

And then there's more of 'em who request a Cover Letter and don't even give an Address to address Letter to!! Sheer idio brilliance!

Most of the jobs I'm applying to are on irishjobs.ie, where you just copy&paste type your cover letter into the box. Saves worrying about layout and addresses etc!

You know what would be awesome? A general chit-chat thread about the whole job-seeking thing, since there are so many in the same position. Has that ever been tried?

JustAThought

Work & Jobs Thread!!??...

I agree. Dear Name -that-HR-Person is much better, but some
Companies have a policy of not giving out
Employees names for exactly the reason the other poster mentioned...the dreaded pestering sales calls/spam/ HR hounding. It IS better to at least try & find out thou ....best of both worlds!!!

Re Irish Jobs that " post your Cover Letter" field is a nightmare... Have you ever tried reviewing how it comes out ; dunno how they use that to give anyone a job. and 200 words including address & formatting !!!

Procrastastudy

My pet hate was people not knowing how to finish off letter with the correct salutation at the end for the salutation they had used at the beginning.

Dear Sir/Madam was fine when used with the correct ending - Yours Faithfully. If my name was used then I expected the correct Yours Sincerely. Pedantic - yes but no more than binning a CV because it was addressed to Sir / Madam. I was much more interested in the content - was it a standard covering letter or had the person spent 5 minutes tailoring it?

That wasn't enough for me to not bother looking at it of course. What would defo get you filed in the bin was a stupid e-mail address. crazychic21@XYZ.com - thanks we've enough loons here already.

The Big Red Button

JustAThought wrote: »

Re Irish Jobs that " post your Cover Letter" field is a nightmare... Have you ever tried reviewing how it comes out ; dunno how they use that to give anyone a job. and 200 words including address & formatting !!!

Do you put in an address at the top of that? I don't! I see it the same as applying by e-mail ... no need to put in addresses, date etc at the top.