A salutation is the greeting line at the beginning of your cover letter or application email, typically starting with “Dear” followed by the recipient’s name. It sits between your header (contact information and date) and the opening paragraph of your letter. While it’s only a few words, it sets the tone for everything that follows and signals whether you’ve done your homework about the role and the company.
Where the Salutation Goes
In a standard cover letter, you list your contact information at the top, then the date, then the recipient’s name, company name, and company address. The salutation comes directly after that block, separated by a line of space. It looks like this:
- Your contact info
- Date
- Recipient’s name, title, company, and address
- Salutation (e.g., “Dear Ms. Chen:”)
- Opening paragraph
In an email application where there’s no formal letterhead, the salutation is simply the first line of your message. The same rules about tone and specificity apply either way.
Best Salutations When You Know the Name
The strongest option is always addressing a specific person. “Dear Mr. Franklin” or “Dear Ms. Ortega” immediately tells the reader you took time to learn who they are. Use a colon after the name in a formal cover letter (“Dear Mr. Franklin:”) and a comma in a less formal email (“Dear Mr. Franklin,”).
If you’re unsure of the person’s gender, skip the honorific and use their full name: “Dear Alex Rivera.” This avoids an awkward guess and reads perfectly naturally. When someone holds a doctoral or medical title and you know it, “Dear Dr. Park” is appropriate, but don’t stress about tracking down credentials you can’t easily verify.
How to Find the Hiring Manager’s Name
A personalized salutation is worth a few minutes of research. Three approaches tend to work well.
First, try LinkedIn. Search the company name along with a likely department title, filter results to current employees, and look for someone who appears to manage the team you’d be joining. A director or manager in the relevant department is usually a safe bet.
Second, call the company’s main phone number. You can say something like, “I’m applying for the marketing coordinator role and want to address my cover letter correctly. Could you tell me the name of the hiring manager for that position?” Receptionists at smaller organizations are often happy to help.
Third, tap anyone you know at the company. Even a loose connection in a similar department can point you toward the right person. This has the added benefit of giving you an internal contact who might flag your application.
What to Write When You Can’t Find a Name
Sometimes, despite real effort, you won’t be able to identify a specific person. That’s fine. You have several solid alternatives that avoid sounding generic or dated.
For most private-sector and nonprofit roles, “Dear Hiring Manager” works well. You can make it slightly more personal by including the company name: “Dear Apex Consulting Hiring Manager.” If the job posting directs you to send materials to an HR department specifically, “Dear HR Manager” or “Dear [Company Name] HR Director” is appropriate.
In higher education, where search committees review applications, “Dear Search Committee” or “Dear Search Committee Chairperson” is standard and expected.
“Dear Hiring Professionals” is another acceptable catch-all, recommended by Purdue OWL, that works across industries.
Greetings to Avoid
“To Whom It May Concern” and “Dear Sir/Madam” are outdated. They signal that you either didn’t try to find a name or are working from a decades-old template. Hiring managers notice, and not in a good way.
On the other end of the spectrum, overly casual greetings like “Hey,” “Hiya,” or just the person’s first name with no greeting word fall flat in an application context. Even if the company has a relaxed culture, your cover letter is a professional document, and the salutation should reflect that. “Hi [Name]” can work in a follow-up email after you’ve already been in contact with someone, but it’s too informal for a first impression on a job application.
Skipping the salutation entirely is another misstep. Jumping straight into your first paragraph without any greeting reads as abrupt and can come across as careless.
Formatting Details That Matter
Capitalize all nouns in a general salutation. It’s “Dear Hiring Manager,” not “Dear hiring manager.” When using someone’s name, double-check the spelling. A misspelled name in the very first line of your letter undermines the professionalism you’re trying to establish.
Use a colon after the salutation in a printed or attached cover letter (“Dear Ms. Chen:”). In email, a comma is also acceptable and slightly less formal (“Dear Ms. Chen,”). Either punctuation mark works. What doesn’t work is no punctuation at all, or a period, which makes the greeting feel like a sentence fragment.
Keep the salutation on its own line, with a blank line between it and the first paragraph of your letter. This is standard business formatting and makes your document easier to scan.
When the Application Is an Email
If you’re sending your resume directly via email rather than through an online portal, the body of your email functions as your cover letter. The salutation goes at the very top of the email body. Everything else stays the same: address a specific person if possible, use “Dear Hiring Manager” if not, and keep it professional.
One thing to watch in email applications is consistency. If your salutation says “Dear Dr. Patel” but your subject line says “Hey, about the job,” the mismatch will raise eyebrows. Match the tone throughout, from the subject line to the sign-off.