How Does One Make A Speculative Job Application?

Question

What I mean is that, when sending my CV to a company, do I just simply send the CV to the HR department or do I send it addressed to someone specific - such as a director or head or department or line manager???

Thanks

Answer 1

Use the phone directories!  Look up the number of the company you are going to mail to, ring it up and tell the telephone operator that you have to send your CV to the HR Manager can you have his/her name please. Then address it personally.

Just be aware that the response to speculative cv's is very very low!

Answer 2

Its better to send it to a specific person, preferably the manager of the department you're interested in. If you don't know the person or can't find out who the person is, then simply address it to the company's HR department and they will forward it on to the right department.

Answer 3

I would check out the company's website first of all - usually it will have information regarding submitting speculative applications.

If you're not able to find anything out there, I would send it to the HR Department (or Internal Recruitment Department), particularly if it's a large organisation.  The reason being that if it is a large company then it's likely that your skills could be a fit for more than one department, and HR will know about vacancies across all departments, not just one.  Also, in many companies, if you were to send it to a Manager it's likely that they'd just pass it to HR anyway.  HR usually has a database filled with applications and they need to make sure that yours is logged and tracked - Managers don't have time to do this kind of thing themselves.