The best thing you can do for yourself when addressing your cover letteris figure out who the person filling the open role would report to—i. Sometimes it’s easy: When I applied for my current role, the job description said something like “This role reports to the editor in chief. I went to The Muse’s team page, found the editor in chief, and wrote my letter to her.
But other times, it won’t be as immediately clear. Do some research and see if you can infer who it is, or if you happen to have a connection at the company, ask them!
While you’re doing your company research, try to assess how formal the culture is to determine: 1. Whether to use honorifics (Mr., Ms., Dr., Prof., etc) 3. If you’ve made a good-faith effort to figure out who your boss would be and it’s just not yielded any , don’t panic. It’s not always possible to find that information at this point in the process. However, you might still be able to address your cover letter to a specific person by simply choosing the head of the department the role falls under. Sure, it may be your prospective boss’s boss, or theirboss, but in a way, you’d still be reporting to them up the chain.
And it demonstrates that you made an effort and considered what part of the organization you’d be joining and how you’d fit in.
