Applying to jobs through the company page or job board online portal often feels like you are sending your resume into a black hole. But, you might feel like you can’t avoid this because you don’t “know anyone in the industry.” While warm leads and referrals are helpful for the job search, you should not underestimate the power of a cold email to the right person.
The fastest way to find a hiring manager’s email address is to use a free tool like the Career Connect app. The tool finds the emails of hiring managers, then uses AI to generate a personalized networking message optimized to get you an interview.
However, it’s possible that an app may not be able to find a hiring manager’s email for your chosen company. You could also be seeking a specific hiring manager. To find a hiring manager’s email address manually so you can send a compelling cold email with your job application, follow these steps.
Step 1: Find a company in which you are interested
If you like a company, want to work there, or use their product, reach out. These should be the first on your list. You can also check out conferences to hear different business people talk. Where do those speakers work? If your list is too short, search for competitors of companies and job postings you like.
Step 2: Figure out who you should contact
The easiest way to find who to contact is to find job postings at a company you’re interested in. LinkedIn job postings often list a hiring manager or recruiter who made the post. If the posting does not list a hiring manager, you can use our app to find the hiring manager who made the post as well as their email address.
You can also make a short list of companies and check out their websites, looking for a team page. You might be able to determine the hiring manager based on their bios or roles. If there is no team page on the company website, search on LinkedIn for the role within the company and find some team members. Do a little detective work to discover who the hiring manager is from their experience and what they do at the company.
Then, take a look at the person’s online profile to see if you can find something that relates to you, your interests, or your work. Maybe they gave a talk on a topic that you researched in school or they have a blog about dogs. These connections can help warm up a cold email and give them a reason to take a second look.
Step 3: Know how to search for their contact info
There are tools that you can use to find people’s email addresses, like GerProspect, which is a free Chrome extension that allows you to search for people and/or companies right from your inbox. It also provides personal information about the person so you can know more about them before you email them.
You can also try using AeroLeads, which is another Chrome extension that finds business email addresses and phone numbers from LinkedIn, AngelList, and similar sites. The service is free, but it also has paid options that come with additional features, like importing, exporting, and transporting contact lists. The paid packages also come with fewer limitations on the number of users and leads.
Another tool that can help find email addresses is LeadFinder. You can also use LinkedIn to find out people’s first & last names and then guess their email addresses using these likely combinations:
- FirstName@company.com
- First.Last@company.com
- FirstInitialLastName@company.com
This is a desperate move, but you can test your guesses in email address verification services like Hunter, Email Checker, and Neverbounce. These services scrape the Internet to ensure that the email address you’ve guessed is valid, so you know you’ll reach a real person.
You are not alone in your job search
Pathrise is a career accelerator that works with students and professionals 1-on-1 so they can land their dream job in tech. With these tips and guidance, we’ve seen up to 3x as many responses to cold emails.
If you want to work with any of our advisors 1-on-1 to get help with your cold emails or with any other aspect of the job search, become a Pathrise fellow.
Apply today.
