How to Address a Cover Letter Without a Name (Recruiter's Trick)

The salutation is the second thing I read on a cover letter. The first is the opening line. Most candidates spend an hour on the opening and ten seconds on the greeting, and then wonder why their letter lands flat before the hiring manager has even got to the pitch.

Here’s what I’ve learned from reading roughly 40,000 cover letters over 12 years: the greeting isn’t a formality. It’s a small, visible decision that tells me whether you did 30 seconds of research or zero. That read happens before I’ve processed a single sentence of your actual content.

And in 2026, the greetings that worked in 2015 don’t work any more. “To Whom It May Concern” and “Dear Sir/Madam” used to read as polite defaults. They now read as lazy. Formality-by-default has aged badly, and the hiring managers I work with notice it quickly.

This article is the workflow I give every candidate who asks me. It takes about 30 seconds when it works, and when it doesn’t work, there’s a ranked fallback that still beats what most people default to.

Why “To Whom It May Concern” gets your letter binned

Let me be direct about this one because there’s still advice floating around recommending it.

“To Whom It May Concern” is a legal phrase, not a cover letter greeting. It reads as if you pulled it off a template from 2003 without thinking. When I see it, I assume one of three things: you sent the same letter to 40 companies, you didn’t bother looking for a name, or you’re not aware that tone has shifted. None of those three help you.

“Dear Sir/Madam” is worse. It assumes a binary that plenty of hiring managers, including many I work with regularly, have strong views on. I’ve had two separate hiring managers this year specifically flag candidates for using “Dear Sir/Madam” as an instant downgrade. Not because the candidates were bad, but because it signalled they hadn’t updated their playbook since the 2010s.

Here’s the thing: neither phrase is technically wrong. They’re grammatically fine. The problem is they’re culturally dated, and hiring is culture. The default is no longer formality. The default is specificity.

The 30-second LinkedIn trick to find the hiring manager

This is the workflow. It works maybe 70% of the time for direct employers, less for agencies. When it works, you save yourself from having to use any fallback at all.

Step 1: Search LinkedIn for “[Company] recruiter” or “[Company] talent”

Open LinkedIn. In the search bar, type the company name followed by one of these three terms: recruiter, talent, or hr. Filter results to People.

For most mid-size and large companies (50+ employees), you’ll find an in-house recruiter within 15 seconds. They might be titled Talent Acquisition Partner, Recruitment Specialist, People Partner, or just Recruiter. Any of those is who you want.

If there are multiple recruiters, look for one whose profile mentions the function you’re applying for. A generalist recruiter covers everything; a specialist covers engineering, sales, finance, marketing, etc. Match to your role.

Step 2: Check the job post itself for a posted-by name

Before you go hunting further, look at the job ad again. On LinkedIn job posts, there’s often a “Posted by [Name]” box at the top or side. On Indeed and company career sites, it’s sometimes buried at the bottom.

That name is almost always the right person to address the letter to, either the recruiter who’ll screen you first, or the hiring manager themselves. Don’t overthink it. If a name is on the ad, use that name.

Step 3: If no recruiter exists, search for the team lead or department head

Smaller companies (under 50 employees) often don’t have a dedicated recruiter. In that case, search for the head of the function you’re applying to. For a marketing role, search “[Company] head of marketing” or “[Company] marketing director.” For engineering, “[Company] CTO” or “[Company] engineering lead.”

The person running that team is almost certainly the hiring manager or reports one level from them. Address the letter to them directly. Worst case, they forward it to the right person, which is a net positive because it means the actual hiring manager sees your name twice.

Step 4: Cross-reference with The Org or Crunchbase if LinkedIn is empty

If LinkedIn draws a blank (which happens for very small companies or ones with poor LinkedIn presence), two databases are worth a minute each.

The Org (theorg.com) publishes company org charts for thousands of companies, including a lot of startups that don’t show up well on LinkedIn. Crunchbase lists leadership teams for most funded companies. Between the two, you’ll find a name for 90% of roles at companies you’d actually want to work for.

If all four steps fail and you genuinely cannot find a real person, move to the fallback ranking below. That happens maybe 20% of the time for me. For most of you applying to normal roles at normal companies, one of these four steps will surface a name.

How to actually address the letter when you find a name

Once you have a name, the question is how formal to go. This is where most candidates swing too far in one direction.

The rule I give: match the industry, not the seniority.

Tech, media, creative, startups, most SaaS, most agencies. First name is fine. “Dear Sarah,” lands as professional and modern. “Dear Ms Chen,” in a Series B startup reads as stiff.

Law, finance, medicine, academia, government, traditional corporate, public sector. Use the full name or title. “Dear Sarah Chen,” or “Dear Ms Chen,” either works. First name alone can read as too casual for these sectors, especially at senior levels.

If you genuinely can’t tell which bucket applies. Default to “Dear [First Name] [Last Name],” no title, both names. It reads as professional in every industry and avoids the Mr/Ms/Mrs problem entirely. This is what I tell candidates who are stuck: when in doubt, full name, no title.

One thing to get right: spell the name correctly. Check LinkedIn twice. If the name is Katarzyna and you wrote Katherine, the rest of the letter doesn’t matter. I’ve seen hiring managers bin letters for exactly this, and I don’t blame them. It takes ten seconds to check, and running the final draft through Grammarly catches the typo you’ll otherwise miss after staring at the same sentence for twenty minutes.

The fallback ranking when you genuinely can’t find a name

Sometimes the trick fails. Blind postings, stealth startups, roles at companies with 10,000 employees and no visible recruiter, agency-posted roles where the end client is hidden. In those cases, here’s the ranked list of what to use, best to worst.

1. “Dear [Department] Hiring Team”

Best fallback, full stop. Examples:

• “Dear Engineering Hiring Team,”
• “Dear Marketing Hiring Team,”
• “Dear Product Hiring Team,”

This works because it shows you read the ad closely enough to know which team you’re applying to, and it addresses a real group of people rather than a faceless abstraction. Hiring managers I work with consistently rate this as the best of the non-named options.

2. “Dear [Company Name] Team”

Second-best. “Dear Acme Team,” or “Dear Monzo Team,” is specific enough to feel targeted and generic enough to be safe when you don’t know the department structure.

Use this when the job ad is vague about which team the role sits in, or when the company is small enough that “team” means “the whole company.”

3. “Dear Hiring Manager”

Acceptable but weak. Use this only when you truly cannot identify a department or company team. It’s not offensive, but it’s flat. Every candidate uses it. You’ll blend in.

If you use this, compensate with a stronger opening line. A flat salutation followed by a punchy first sentence recovers most of the ground.

4. “To Whom It May Concern” — avoid

As covered above. Reads as templated, impersonal, and dated. I’ve not seen this work in years, and I’ve seen it actively hurt candidates in screens where hiring managers comment on it specifically.

5. “Dear Sir/Madam” — absolutely avoid

The worst option. Dated, assumes a binary, and signals you haven’t updated your approach. Don’t use it even if you think the role is traditional. Especially don’t use it for public sector roles, where inclusive language policies often mean someone will notice.

Special cases that trip candidates up

A few scenarios come up often enough that they deserve their own treatment.

Agency-posted jobs

If the job is posted through a recruitment agency, address it to the agency recruiter whose name is on the post. Do not try to find the end client and address it to them. Two reasons: first, the agency owns the relationship with the client and will pull your application if they think you’ve gone around them. Second, you usually can’t identify the end client correctly anyway, and guessing wrong looks worse than not guessing. The same dynamic applies when messaging the recruiter on LinkedIn — go through the named person, not around them.

If no name is on the agency post, use “Dear [Agency Name] Team”, for example, “Dear Hays Team” or “Dear Robert Half Team.”

Blind postings (company name hidden)

Sometimes the company name itself is obscured, usually because the company doesn’t want its existing team to know the role is being backfilled. You can’t find a name for an unnamed company. Use “Dear Hiring Team,” slightly warmer than “Dear Hiring Manager” and acknowledges the constraint.

International and non-UK contexts

Addressing conventions vary by country. In Germany, “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” (the local equivalent of “Dear Sir/Madam”) is still standard and expected, a different cultural norm. In France, “Madame, Monsieur” works the same way. For applications outside the UK, research the local convention rather than importing the UK playbook directly.

For English-language international applications (US, Canada, Australia, Ireland), the workflow above applies with small variations. US cover letters tend to be slightly more formal than UK ones, so leaning toward “Dear [First Last]” rather than first-name-only is safer.

Roles with multiple interviewers listed

Sometimes the job ad mentions a panel or lists multiple contacts. In that case, address it to the most senior person named, or if they’re clearly equal, the one whose function is closest to the role. Don’t try to address all three, it reads as uncertain. One name, most senior or most relevant.

What recruiters actually notice about the salutation

Here’s what I want you to take away about the weight of the greeting in the overall read.

The Dear line is a weak positive signal but a strong negative one. Meaning: getting it right won’t push you from reject to shortlist on its own. Getting it wrong absolutely can push you from shortlist to reject, because it gives the hiring manager a free reason to deprioritise you when they’re trying to cut a stack of 80 letters down to 10.

In practical terms, this means the salutation is asymmetric-risk. The upside of a great greeting is small. The downside of a bad one is real. That’s the precise reason to spend 30 seconds on the research step, not because nailing the greeting wins you the job, but because a missed greeting can quietly lose it.

I’ve had hiring managers specifically comment on salutations maybe a dozen times in 12 years. In each case, it was negative. “Dear Sir/Madam on a 2025 application.” “Addressed the letter to the previous hiring manager, who left six months ago.” “Spelled my name wrong.” Never once have I heard a hiring manager rave about a salutation. But I’ve heard plenty of them punish one.

That’s the asymmetry. Low ceiling, real floor. Spend the 30 seconds.

Related reading

• Cover letter opening lines that work — the sentence that follows the salutation is where you actually win or lose.
• How to write a cover letter with AI — the prompts I use to draft the body once the greeting is handled.
• ChatGPT cover letter prompts — specific prompt templates for different industries and seniority levels.
• Cover letter pillar — the full map of how I coach candidates through cover letters.

What to take from this

Addressing a cover letter isn’t a formality and it isn’t hard. The workflow is: spend 30 seconds on LinkedIn looking for a recruiter, check the job ad for a posted-by name, fall back to the department head if needed, and cross-reference with The Org if LinkedIn is thin. Seven times out of ten, you’ll find a name.

When you genuinely can’t find one, use “Dear [Department] Hiring Team”, it’s the strongest non-named option by a margin, and it shows you read the ad.

Don’t use “To Whom It May Concern.” Don’t use “Dear Sir/Madam.” And don’t treat the salutation as unimportant just because it’s short. The hiring manager’s read of your letter starts the moment their eye hits the first line, and the first line is the greeting. Get it right, and you’ve neutralised a risk before they’ve even started reading.