Should You Address Your Cover Letter to a Specific Person?

Description

• In a recent Q&A clip, Harrison advises addressing your cover letter to a specific person.
• Contact the firm and ask for the appropriate recipient if you don't have a name.
• For small law firms, send your cover letter to one of the name partners.
• Every firm requires addressing the cover letter to a specific person.
• Avoid sending your cover letter without a specific recipient.
• Sending it to a person, preferably someone important in the firm, is recommended.
• It is suggested to send your cover letter in both printed and email formats.

Transcript

Transcript:

Should you address your cover letter to a specific person and username, or should you use a general salutation? Yes, you should always address your cover letter to a specific person, so the people that you can address cover letters to. Typically, what I recommend is calling the firm and asking who you can send your cover letter to if you don't have the name of the person, and that can be very, very helpful.

If it's a small law firm, you typically want to send it to one of the name partners. Typically, the one that looks like has the first name listed. And the same thing with every firm. Every firm, you need to have a person that you're addressing it to. If you're not addressing your cover letter to a specific person, then that's a real problem.

You just don't, do not want to do that. Some companies and law firms may tell you to just send it to recruiting. But you're actually better off sending it to a person and typically sending it to one of the more important people in the firm is important. And one thing I want you to remember, you always want to make sure that you're sending your cover letter, if you can, sending it in a printed format, as well as email.