

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. 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.
