The time has come to get down to the business of writing an approach letter. Approach letters, together with approach phone calls, are the means by which you gain access to job opportunities.

Selecting Your Target

It obviously helps in drafting your letter to know to whom it will be sent. Let’s say you have learned of a company or organization that interests you. Ideally, you will do some research—learn the products or services the company provides, study the business condition and key issues, and talk with one or more people who work there or have other reasons to know the organization. If WetFeet publishes an Insider Guide on the company, this will be a good investment. This research should provide you with a solid foundation for building an effective communication campaign, such as:

• A fairly clear idea of where your talents might fit within the organization
• Enough knowledge of the company culture to guide how you describe yourself and your interests
• One or more names of senior people to whom you might address your letters, along with some information about their history, interests, and accomplishments. (Don’t be afraid to reach high. Senior people often need staff assistance—a great learning opportunity and preparation for future management responsibility, provided the person is a good mentor.)
• And, if you are lucky, an introduction to the person or people who head up the functional areas in which you have an interest

If you’ve done this research and come up with names of senior managers and functional heads—or better yet, introductions—these are the people to write to first. If, however, you can’t acquire names or you’ve already written to those people and not achieved your goal, then it makes sense to address a letter to the head of human resources, whose name (correctly spelled) and exact title should be available from the switchboard operator. If the switchboard operator can’t provide this name, ask for someone in the HR department. One reason we recommend starting with senior managers and functional heads before writing to human resources is that the hiring managers will know of situations, needs, and future intentions that have not crystallized enough to take the form of a job requisition that human resources would know about.

HR managers will almost never hire you for a job that doesn’t already exist. Another reason for dealing with hiring managers first is that HR departments in most companies tend to send you only to interviews for which you are fully qualified by your past experience. This means that HR may rate you below your level of interest and capability—in contrast to a manager who may be more receptive to finding the right person regardless of the little boxes she can check off by a review of your resume, letting the person learn by taking on challenges.

Objectives of the Approach Letter

The objective of an approach letter to a senior manager or head of a functional area is simple: to secure a meeting with the person to whom the letter is addressed or with a hiring manager in the person’s organization who would be even more appropriate for you to see. The hiring manager is the person to whom you would report, the person who makes the decision and who has the money to spend. The hiring manager is not the HR person, except in the case of HR positions. The objective of a letter sent to HR, on the other hand, is to be invited in for a screening interview, which may then lead to interviews with an appropriate hiring manager who has an open job requisition.

You may achieve part of your objective if the person agrees to hold a discussion with you by phone (especially if you live in different cities) but this is not normally as desirable as a face-to-face meeting. There will likely be a variety of purposes to the meetings you seek during the course of your job search. You may be gathering information and seeking referrals; you may be looking for help in getting introductions within a particular company; or you may be seeking an interview for a position with the person you are targeting. Perhaps you are not sure which is your true purpose, because you have no idea when you write whether you would like to work for the person targeted or even whether you would be suited to do the work the person might have for you. Fortunately, you don’t have to know. Your initial meeting is intended for both you and the other party to get to know each other, exchange information, and test the possibilities. If you restrict its purpose to a job interview, you rule out all other reasons for meeting and actually reduce your chances of gaining an interview— even when such an interview would be appropriate.

Sample Approach Letter:

April 12, 200–
Andrew Kalimian

President

Technical Publishing

200 5th Street

San Mateo, CA 94061

Dear Mr. Kalimian,

I am contacting you on the recommendation of your son Tom’s college roommate, Dick Ellsworth. Dick and I serve together on the executive board of the Harvard Crimson, and he has told me of your remarkable success in developing several first-in-their-field trade publications, including Lighting Perspectives, Metal- Forming Monthly, and Flexible Circuits. I am hoping you will be willing to share some of your insights on the publishing industry with me.

I would like to work on the business side of publishing—in both print and electronic media—and eventually become a publisher. Publishing has been in my blood since my preteen experiences delivering papers and selling magazine subscriptions. What I am unclear about is where I should begin—newspapers, trade publications, or Internet publishing. Your perspectives and advice would be invaluable to me. I’ve done some homework and put together some trend data that I would like to show you. I’d also like to discuss my interpretation of the data, and find out what you think.

By way of personal background, I am a senior at Harvard, graduating with honors in government and economics. This year I was elected to head the Crimson’s business office, and we’ve achieved a $125,000 surplus as of March, the largest in the Crimson’s 91-year history. Several of our advertisers have written to thank us for ideas we provided that were particularly effective in reaching the student market here and elsewhere.

I very much hope that you can find time to meet with me, as I know how impressed Dick was with what you had to say when you took Tom and him to dinner recently. I’ll call early next week to see what day and time might be convenient for you.

Sincerely yours,
Roger Parker