7 ways to figure out who the hiring manager is when it's not listed in a job posting

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• Knowing how to address a cover letter with no name can be confusing and frustrating.
• But while it may be tempting to use a generic greeting like "To Whom It May Concern," you should always resist the urge.
• Amanda Augustine, career expert at TopResume, shared her best strategies for figuring out who's in charge of hiring.
• For example, you can use the email address provided to search for the person's name. Or, you can simply look for information about the person you'd be reporting to.

Just because a job posting omits the name of the person in charge of the hiring process doesn't mean you should address your cover letter "To Whom It May Concern."

According to Amanda Augustine, career advice expert for TopResume, you'll always want to direct your cover letter to a specific individual (unless the posting is anonymous). Otherwise, you might give the impression that you didn't put any effort into your application or you don't pay attention to detail.

So how do you figure out who's doing the hiring? Augustine shares her top strategies:

Before you panic and conclude that there's no name listed, go back and reread the job posting very carefully. There might be a name and email address lurking at the bottom of the posting that you missed the first time.

Sometimes companies will direct candidates to send their applications to a specific email address, without providing a name to go along with it.

That's a big clue.

There's a good chance the email address is the person's first initial and last name (for example, mine is slebowitz@businessinsider.com), or maybe just their first name. Once you have that information, you can run a Google search for "S Lebowitz Business Insider" or "Shana Business Insider" and see what you come up with. 

If you found the job posting on LinkedIn, sometimes you'll see it was created by a specific recruiter or hiring manager, depending on the size of the company.

In that case, you should address your cover letter to him or her because that person is obviously directly involved in the hiring process.

Maybe the job posting says you'd be reporting to the director of marketing analytics, but doesn't give that persons' name. Run an advanced search on LinkedIn for any current directors of marketing analytics at the company and see who comes up.

If that doesn't work, you can run a standard Google search for "director of marketing analytics" and the company name. You might even find that person's spoken at a recent conference, for example, which would give you some insight into what interests her and what kinds of information you should include in your cover letter.

If the job posting was created by a specific recruiting agency, go to that agency's website and look at the bios of all the recruiters who work there.

See which one works primarily with the company you're applying to.

See Also:

• 16 psychological tricks that will help you ace a job interview
• Job candidates can screw up their chances in a crucial way when they think no one's watching
• This job-interview strategy may help you read your interviewer's mind

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