How to Address a Cover Letter (With or Without a Name)

The greeting is the first line of your cover letter, and it is the first sign of whether you wrote this letter for this employer. This guide explains who to address, how to find their name, what to write when you can't, how to handle titles and gender-neutral greetings, and how the conventions change in other countries.

Who should you address a cover letter to?

Address it to the person who will read it and decide whether to interview you, which is usually the hiring manager: the person the role reports to. If the job ad names a contact person, address that person, even if they are a recruiter, because they asked to receive applications.

In order of preference:

1. The contact named in the job ad. Some postings name the person to write to; use exactly that name.
2. The hiring manager. The person you would report to, or the head of the team.
3. The recruiter handling the role. If you have been in touch with them, or they are the only name you can find.
4. The team or role. "Dear Customer Support Team" or "Dear Head of Marketing" when you know the department but not the person.
5. "Dear Hiring Manager" as the fallback when you have nothing more specific.

How do you find the hiring manager's name?

Check the job ad first, then the company's own pages, then LinkedIn, and ask if you still can't find it. Five to ten minutes of searching is usually enough.

1. Read the whole job ad

   Look for a named contact, a "reports to" line or an email address with a name in it. Some ads put the contact at the very end.

2. Check the company website

   Team pages, leadership pages, press releases and blog posts often name department heads.

3. Search LinkedIn

   Search for the company plus the team and a senior title, such as "marketing manager" or "head of finance". The person whose title matches the reporting line in the ad is usually the hiring manager.

4. Look at emails you already have

   An application confirmation, a recruiter's message or a careers newsletter may include a name and signature.

5. Ask

   Email the recruiter or call reception and ask politely. Most people are happy to help.

Hello, I'm applying for the Logistics Coordinator role advertised on your website and would like to address my cover letter to the right person. Could you tell me the name of the hiring manager for that position? Thank you for your help.

If you aren't sure the name is right, for example because two people could plausibly be the manager, a role-based greeting is safer than a guess. Once you have a name, save it with the application: our guide to tracking job applications shows where it fits, and it is usually the person you'll follow up with later.

Which greeting should you use?

Use "Dear" followed by the most specific name or role you have. The table below covers the common situations.

In US English, titles are usually written with a period (Mr., Ms., Dr.), and in British English usually without (Mr, Ms, Dr). Put a comma after the greeting; in formal US business letters a colon is also common.

What can you use instead of "To whom it may concern" or "Dear Sir or Madam"?

Use the role or team instead: "Dear Hiring Manager", "Dear Recruitment Team" or "Dear [Department] Team". These read as written for this application, while the older phrases read as written for anyone.

The two traditional phrases have specific problems:

• "To whom it may concern" is designed for letters with no particular reader, such as references. On a cover letter it signals that you didn't look for one.
• "Dear Sir or Madam" is the traditional greeting for a formal letter when you don't know whether the reader is a man or a woman.^⁠[1] It sounds dated in most job applications today and assumes the reader is one or the other.

If you do use "Dear Sir or Madam", for example in a very formal UK application, close the letter with "Yours faithfully", the British sign-off for letters that begin "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam".^⁠[2] When you address a named person, close with "Yours sincerely", or "Sincerely" in US English.^⁠[3]

Generic: To whom it may concern,

Better: Dear Hiring Manager,

Best without a name: Dear Customer Support Team,

Best: Dear Ms. Rivera,

How do you handle titles and gender-neutral greetings?

Use the title the person uses, and when you don't know it, leave the title out and use their full name. Never guess someone's gender from a first name.

• Ms is the standard title for a woman when you don't know her marital status; it is used precisely to avoid saying whether she is married.^⁠[4] Use Mrs or Miss only if you know she prefers it.
• Mx is a gender-neutral title used by people who don't wish to say what gender they are.^⁠[5] Use it only when you know the person uses it, for example from their email signature or profile.
• Dr or Professor belongs in the greeting if the person uses it professionally, as is common in academia and medicine.
• First and last name with no title, such as "Dear Jordan Lee", is correct, polite and neutral. It is the best choice whenever you are unsure.

Check the spelling of the name twice. A misspelled name in the first line undoes the effort of finding it.

How do you address a cover letter in other countries?

Follow the conventions of the country and language you are applying in, since greetings, titles and sign-offs differ. This table summarises common practice for some of the main markets; when in doubt, match the tone of the job ad.

A few notes on the sources behind the table:

• German: Duden, the German dictionary publisher, suggests the full name as a neutral alternative, as in "Guten Tag, Silke Segler", and recommends asking for a person's preferred form of address where possible.^⁠[6]
• French: Quebec's French language office recommends "Madame, Monsieur," rather than "À qui de droit" when you don't know who will read the letter, and accepts "Bonjour" or the person's first and last name when you don't know which title fits.^⁠[7]
• Dutch: The Flemish government's language advice service describes "Geachte" as the most formal greeting, gives "Geachte Kim Janssens," for when you don't know the reader's preference, and suggests "Geachte," on its own only as a last resort.^⁠[8]

If you're applying in Germany, where formal applications still follow a fairly fixed structure, our sister site Lebenslauf AI has a guide (in German) to writing an Anschreiben, including how to find the right contact person and word the greeting.

How should the greeting line look on the page?

Put the greeting on its own line after the recipient's details, then leave a blank line before the first paragraph. Keep it consistent with the rest of the letter.

Greeting check before you send

• The name is spelled exactly as the person spells it
• The title matches the one they use, or there is no title
• The greeting matches the name in the recipient block
• The sign-off matches the greeting and the country
• The punctuation is consistent: a comma, or a colon in formal US letters
• The same greeting is used in your email if you send the letter as an attachment

For where the greeting sits in a formal layout, see our traditional cover letter format. For what comes after it, our guide on how to write a cover letter covers the opening paragraph and structure, and our cover letter examples show complete letters.

In Woberry's cover letter builder, the recipient's full name, job title, company name and address have their own fields, which appear in the recipient block of the letter. Fill them in first, then check that your greeting uses the same name.