Should I write "to whom it may concern " in my cover letter ??

Hi

If we just applied online or had no idea about the recruiter's name, Should we write that "to whom it may concern " in my cover letter ??

thanks

22 Comments
 

If you can't find a recruiter's name online via a google search, by calling someone in the HR department, or like little bit of elbow grease, then To Whom it May Concern will not be the worst thing you've ever written in your life

 

While trite, don't stress it. As it stands, they receive so many applications that they most likely won't pay it any mind. If your gpa and experience is as strong as you say it is, it won't matter one bit.

I would be very wary of trusting anything a college career centre says. They are so out of tune with the actual everyday happenings that their advice is useless.

 

Yeah youre absolutely right. I'm starting to understand that their advice really is useless since all of the people that comprise them have been out of the loop for 10 years plus.

 

Cover letters don't even matter. They rarely read them. I've had wrong names, wrong firms, etc, and still got interviews.

 
Best Response

I spent over 25 years as an M&A banker for 2 BB firms and a boutique and now run a career consulting firm for students and others interested in getting into IB, and so I've seen and helped write a lot of cover letters. While I agree that the content is what's important, the fact is that to me and a lot of IB'ers I know, addressing a letter to "To Whom it May Concern" is enough of a cliche that I always wondered if the writer had even bothered to see if they could find a name, or whether they were just cranking out cover letters.

Obviously, no one wants to give that impression, so I urge all my clients to try hard to find a name. If that's not possible, "Dear Hiring Manager", at least sounds less cliched to a lot of the IB people I talk to.

 

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