Updated on August 24, 2026
How to Address a Cover Letter in 2026 [20+ Examples]
How to address a cover letter with or without a name, plus 26 salutation examples, what to avoid, and how to handle multiple recipients or a large company.
Novorésumé got people hired at
The salutation in your cover letter is the first line a hiring manager reads, making it the easiest place to look careless.
Get it wrong, and you’ll show that you did not check who you were writing to before you asked them for a job.
Get it right, and you can prove, in four words, that you did.
Here is exactly how to address a cover letter in every situation you are likely to hit.
How Do You Address a Cover Letter?
Use "Dear" plus the hiring manager's title and last name, followed by a comma or colon.
For example: "Dear Ms. Ramirez,".
If you cannot find their name after looking for it, address the role or team instead: "Dear Hiring Manager," or "Dear Marketing Hiring Team,".
Avoid outdated cliches like "To Whom It May Concern" and "Dear Sir or Madam."
That is the short answer. The rest of this guide covers finding the name, choosing the right title, and the situations where the standard formula does not apply.
It is worth getting right, because more HR professionals read cover letters than job seekers think. In our survey of 200+ HR professionals, about 60% said that they do read cover letters, with 21.3% reading the letter before the resume.
Who Should You Address Your Cover Letter To?
In order of preference:
- The hiring manager for the role. The person who will actually manage you. Best case.
- The department head. If the specific hiring manager is not findable, the person running the team is a strong second.
- The recruiter named in the posting. Fine, though it’s worth knowing that in our HR survey recruiters were the group least likely to read cover letters at all, with 52.8% skipping them. HR managers skipped them least, at just 22.9%.
- The team or department. "Dear Engineering Hiring Team,".
- A generic but human greeting. "Dear Hiring Manager,".
Never address it to the company itself. "Dear Google," reads like a form letter, because it is one.
How to Find the Hiring Manager's Name
Five minutes of searching solves this most of the time.
- Reread the job posting. The contact name is often in the "how to apply" line or the posting's footer, and people skip straight past it.
- Check the company's team or about page. Smaller companies list department heads by name.
- Search LinkedIn by company and title. Filter employees by the company, then search titles like "Head of Marketing" or "Engineering Manager."
- Use a site search on Google. Searching site:company.com "head of marketing" surfaces names buried in press releases and blog posts.
- Call or email and ask. "I'm applying for the marketing coordinator role and want to address my letter correctly. Who is the hiring manager?" Reception will usually just tell you.
How to Address a Cover Letter With a Name
Once you have the name, use "Dear" followed by their courtesy title and last name.
How to Address a Cover Letter With a Name
Situation
Standard, man
Standard, woman
You know she uses Mrs.
Doctorate or medical doctor
Professor
Military rank
Clergy
You are unsure of the person's title or gender
Genuinely informal startup culture
Correct salutation
Dear Mr. Whitfield,
Dear Ms. Okonkwo,
Dear Mrs. Delaney,
Dear Dr. Achebe,
Dear Prof. Lindqvist,
Dear Sgt. Moreau,
Dear Rev. Castellanos,
Dear Alex Whitfield,
Hi Priya,
There are three basic rules you always need to remember.
Use Ms. for women unless you know otherwise. Mrs. and Miss both encode marital status, which is neither your concern nor relevant to a job application. Ms. is the professional default, and nobody has ever been offended by it. Use Mrs. only if you have seen the person use it themselves.
Never guess someone's gender from their name. Names do not reliably indicate gender, and a wrong guess is a bad first impression that the safe option would have avoided entirely. If you have a full name and no other information, drop the title and use the full name: "Dear Jordan Ellis,". This is always correct and never awkward.
Do not guess at unfamiliar abbreviations. If you are not certain what a post-nominal or title means, leave it off. A plain "Dear Dr. Achebe," beats a confidently wrong honorific.
How to Address a Cover Letter Without a Name
Sometimes, you will simply not be able to find the name. Blind postings, large recruiting teams, and confidential searches all exist. In that case, address the role or the team.
How to Address a Cover Letter Without a Name
Situation
You know the department
You know the role you would report to
You know the team but not the structure
Nothing at all
Recruiting is clearly handling it
Small company, no visible structure
Correct salutation
Dear Marketing Hiring Team,
Dear Head of Engineering,
Dear Design Team,
Dear Hiring Manager,
Dear Recruiting Team,
Dear Hiring Committee,
Salutations to Avoid
Your greeting is the first thing the reader sees, and a generic salutation can make a personalized application feel like a mass message. Avoid these common options and choose an opening that shows you made an effort to find the person who might hire you.
Salutations to Avoid on Cover Letters
Avoid
To Whom It May Concern
Dear Sir or Madam
Dear Sir,
Dear Company Name,
Hey there, / Hi!
Greetings,
Dear Madam or Sir,
No salutation at all
Why
Dated, impersonal, and signals you did not search.
Same problem, plus it assumes a gender binary.
Assumes the reader is a man.
You are writing to a person, not a legal entity.
Too casual for a first contact with someone you have never met.
Reads like a mass mailing.
Reversing the order does not fix it.
Starting cold reads as unfinished.
When a hiring manager’s name is available, use it. If you cannot find a specific contact after a reasonable search, address the relevant team rather than falling back on outdated generic greetings.
Do:
- Spend five minutes looking for a name
- Default to Ms. for women
- Use the full name when unsure
- Address the team if the person is unfindable
Don't
- Write "To Whom It May Concern"
- Guess gender from a name
- Assume marital status with Mrs.
- Address the company instead of a person
One more trap worth naming: 46.8% of job seekers used AI on their most recent cover letter, and AI tools default to "Dear Hiring Manager" almost every time. That is an acceptable fallback, but it is the generic option, and if you accepted it without checking, then you also skipped the five-minute search that would have produced a real name.
But you can make your life even easier: let our AI cover letter writer handle the structure and phrasing in seconds, then swap in the hiring manager's actual name yourself. The tool gets you 90% there, and that last edit is what keeps it from reading like everyone else's.
How to Address a Cover Letter to Multiple People
When you know a panel or several people will read your cover letter, name them.
Two or three named people: "Dear Ms. Okonkwo and Mr. Whitfield,". List them in the order given in the posting, or by seniority if you know it.
If it’s four or more named people: switch to the group. "Dear Hiring Committee," or "Dear Search Committee,". A salutation running to four names looks cluttered.
For mixed titles: give each person their own. "Dear Dr. Achebe and Ms. Delaney,". Do not collapse them into one shared title.
When you know a panel exists but not who is on it: "Dear Interview Panel," or "Dear Selection Committee,".
How to Address a Cover Letter to a Large Company
Large organizations are where people default to "To Whom It May Concern," and it is the situation where you least need to.
Big companies have more public information, not less. The department head is usually easy to find on LinkedIn even when the specific hiring manager is not. Aim one level up: if you cannot find who manages the role, address the person who manages that function.
If the posting came through a careers portal with no names anywhere, use the most specific team you can identify. "Dear Global Brand Marketing Team" beats "Dear Hiring Manager" because it shows you read the posting closely enough to know which team it sits in.
How to Address a Cover Letter for an Internship
The same rules apply when you’re writing a cover letter for an internship, with two adjustments.
Internship hiring is often run by a university relations or early careers team rather than the department. "Dear Early Careers Team," or "Dear University Recruiting Team," is accurate and specific.
If a professor, coordinator, or program director is named anywhere in the posting, use their name and academic title: "Dear Prof. Lindqvist,". Academic titles carry more weight here than in corporate hiring, where the rest of an internship cover letter follows the same structure as any other: opening hook, fit, close.
How to Format the Company Address
In a traditional cover letter header, the company address sits below your details and the date, above the salutation.
Company Address Format on Cover Letter
Priya Raghunathanpriya.raghunathan@email.com(555) 019-4472Austin, TXSeptember 14, 2026Ms. Elena OkonkwoHead of MarketingBrightwater MediaAustin, TX 78701Dear Ms. Okonkwo,
Follow this order: recipient name, their title, company name, street address, then city, state, and ZIP.
If the company has several offices, use the address of the office the role is based in, which the posting will usually specify.
If you cannot find an address, leave it out. A missing address is invisible. A wrong one is not. This is standard for online applications, where nobody expects a postal block at all.
Cover Letter Header Must-Haves
1.Your full name and current contact details
2.The date you are sending it
3.The recipient's name and job title, if you have them
4.The company name
5.The office address, only if you are confident it is right
6.A salutation that names a person, a role, or a team
How to Address an Email Cover Letter
Email drops the postal block entirely. You need two things: a subject line and a salutation.
Subject line. Six to ten words, naming the role and yourself, so it stays findable in a full inbox.
Incorrect Subject Line:
Job applicationCorrect Subject Line:
Marketing Coordinator Application - Priya Raghunathan
Why: the correct version is searchable six weeks later, when they are shortlisting and cannot remember your name.
If someone referred you, put it in the subject line: "Marketing Coordinator Application - Priya Raghunathan (referred by Elena Okonkwo)". Referrals carry real weight, and 83.7% of the HR professionals we surveyed weigh personal referrals in their decision.
Salutation. Identical to a printed letter. "Dear Ms. Okonkwo," on its own line, then a blank line, then your opening paragraph. Do not start the email body with "Hi, please find attached."
Cover Letter Builder
Want the whole letter to match the salutation? Build it on our cover letter builder with templates that pair with your resume. 71% of our hired users never paid for the tools they used.
Create Cover LetterFAQs About Addressing a Cover Letter
Key Takeaways
- "Dear" plus a courtesy title plus a last name is the standard. "Dear Ms. Okonkwo," works for the large majority of applications.
- Spend five minutes looking for a name in the posting, on the company site, and on LinkedIn before you fall back to a generic greeting.
- Use Ms. for women unless you have seen them use Mrs. themselves, and never guess gender from a name. "Dear Jordan Ellis," is always safe.
- Skip "To Whom It May Concern" and "Dear Sir or Madam." Address the role or the team instead.
- For panels, name up to three people and switch to "Dear Hiring Committee" beyond that.
- If you used an AI tool, replace its default "Dear Hiring Manager" with something specific.
Related posts
Cover Letter Writing Tips
Cover letter statistics from our July 2026 survey of 1,000 US job seekers. How many use AI, skip applications, tailor every letter, and what HR really reads.
Cover Letter Writing Tips
Do I need a cover letter in 2026 or are cover letters a thing of the past already? Read our article to find out when you need a cover letter!
Cover Letter Writing Tips
Learn how to write a job-winning cover letter in this detailed article! Check out our guide and cover letter examples for different professions.