Career experts agree that reaching out to the hiring manager after applying for a job is a good way to get an interview.
You can make a personal connection and get the manager to look at your application instead of relying on the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
What do you do when the hiring manager’s name and email address aren’t on the job posting?
Here are some tricks to finding a hiring manager’s email address:
- Find the hiring manager’s name first.
- Google the manager’s name and company name.
- Search social media.
- Use email finder services.
- Find a colleague of the hiring manager.
- Call the organization.
Let’s get into the details.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find the name and email address easily and at the same time.
But that’s not always the case.
Having the name of the hiring manager will make finding their email address easier.
And you can address them by name in your email instead of the generic, “Dear Hiring Manager.”
If you don’t have a name or email address:
First, double-check that the name and email aren’t mentioned in the job post.
If you found the posting on a job board, search for the job posting on the company website or LinkedIn page. Direct company sources are more likely to give the name and contact information.
Check the company website for an organization chart or an “about us” page. Find the department head or someone who handles hiring for the department you are interested in.
You can also take a peek at the company profile on LinkedIn. Search the company name, then filter by location and/or job duties to find the department’s hiring manager. You can also view the employee list (click on the number of employees) and filter from there.
While you are at it, keep an eye open for any LinkedIn connections you might have worked with at the company. You can ask them for the name and email or, even better, an introduction.
You can also try copying and pasting the job description (or parts of it) from the job board in the Google search bar and see what you find.
If you find the email address before the name:
Search the name or initials you found and the company name in Google.
You can also try searching the email address itself in Google.
There are reverse address search websites you can try. You won’t always get results, but it’s worth a shot.
When you have the hiring manager’s name but not the email, start by Googling their name and company name.
Suppose you are looking for George Davis and the company is Adobe.
Different search variations and a sample of each search string are below:
[First Name] [Last Name] [Company Name]
George Davis Adobe
[First Name] [Last Name] email
George Davis email
[First Name Last Name] @gmail.com
georgedavis@gmail.com
[First Name Last Name] @ [Company Website URL]
georgedavis@adobe.com
[First Name] [Last Name] [Location]
George Davis New York City
You can also narrow your search to just the company’s website. Use the following Google search formula:
[First Name] [Last Name] site: [Company Website]
George Davis site:https://www.adobe.com/
There’s almost a 100% chance that the hiring manager is on LinkedIn. Search by their name and company name if needed.
The hiring manager’s email address might not be in their contact info. Check out the rest of their profile for associations that could lead to an email address.
If you can’t get the email address, consider using the LinkedIn messaging option to contact the hiring manager. You may be able to send a message for free, or you may need to connect first or upgrade your account.
Follow the same steps on Twitter and Facebook. People sometimes include their contact information in their profiles. You may need to send a direct message to connect or request their email address.
There are quite a few email finder services that can get you the email address you are looking for.
Services like AeroLeads, LeadFinder, ZoomInfo, RocketReach, and Hunter can be great for any type of lead generation.
You can find email addresses just by inputting the name and company name on a website or adding an extension to your toolbar.
Although most of the services are paid, some offer a free trial period.
For extra assurance, you can verify the emails the services give you through sites like verify-email.org.
Find a colleague of the hiring manager.
There are two ways you can get help from a hiring manager’s co-workers.
Analyze the structure of the colleague’s email address. From the pattern, make a guess about the hiring manager’s email address.
If the colleague’s name is John Doe and his email is jdoe@companyname.com, you can guess what the email of your hiring manager is likely to be.
To get the best results, you can also analyze other email addresses used by the company. Determine the most probable address format.
Then, you can use email verification services to find out if the options you came up with are live email addresses or not.
Send a polite email to the colleague whose address you already have. Let them know you are interested in a job and in which department and request the hiring manager’s email address.
For the best and fastest results, try to reach out to a colleague who you already know. Also, a colleague from the same department would be a better option than someone from an unrelated unit of the company.
If everything else fails, do not give up hope.
Remember why you started in the first place. You want to get ahead of all the other applicants and get the job, right?
Put aside your hesitations and pick up the phone.
If the company you are applying to is a small organization, a call to their customer service number can get you results.
If it’s a large organization, you should get in touch with a person within the department that has posted the job.
Politely explain that you are trying to reach the best person for the role you are seeking and ask for their email address.
Reaching out to hiring managers after you have applied for a job can have many benefits.
It significantly increases your chances of getting noticed and helps to build a connection with the person.
Getting that coveted email address is not always easy. But with a bit of detective work, you can usually get it.
To summarize, use these steps to find a hiring manager’s email address:
- Check the job posting and the company’s website and LinkedIn profile to get the name of the person responsible for hiring.
- Google the name of the person and the company name to see if their email is listed anywhere else on the web.
- Search social media platforms and reach out to them there.
- Use email finder and verification services.
- Find a colleague and request the hiring manager’s email or, even better, for a warm introduction.
- Reach out to the organization, or more specifically the department that’s hiring, over the phone.
If you need more assistance connecting to hiring managers, we can help.
We offer Reverse Recruiting services that would take care of all of this and more for you, and a Career Coaching option to teach you more about doing it on your own.
