Should I guess a hiring manager's email address?
No. Guessed addresses bounce, and every bounce makes the next email from your inbox more likely to land in spam. In one UK job hunt, 304 emails sent to guessed addresses saw 132 bounce, 43%, and 26 replies. The next 264, sent only to addresses the employers had published themselves, saw 5 bounce, 2%, and 61 replies. Use an address printed in the advert or on the company's own contact, careers or team pages. If there is none, write to the next employer instead.
Why guessing fails
Most advice on this search tells you to guess a pattern such as
firstname.lastname@company.co.uk and run it through a checker.
Never guess. Plenty of companies use another pattern, the person has left, or
the checker says "maybe". Each wrong guess bounces, and mail providers read a
run of bounces as a spammer. That spam score sits on your own inbox, so the
next real application, to an address that does exist, is more likely to land
in spam too.
| Sent | Bounced | Replied | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guessed addresses | 304 | 132 (43%) | 26 |
| Published addresses only | 264 | 5 (2%) | 61 |
One UK job hunt, May to October 2026, counted email by email.
Where real addresses are
- The advert itself. Often at the bottom, in the small print.
- The company's own website:
/contact,/careers,/about,/team. Small firms often list the whole team. - A careers@ or hr@ inbox is fine. An info@ inbox works, but is read by nobody in particular and replies far less.
Type the company's name here and it checks those pages for you, then shows the addresses the company publishes. If there are none, it says so rather than guessing one.
Where these numbers come from
Every application email in one UK job hunt, May to October 2026: 568 of them, counted one by one from the sent folder. Addresses were guessed from a pattern in May; from August only addresses employers publish were used. The interviews are the jobseeker's own count, rounds and phone invitations included; the offers are all in writing. One person's figures, so a guide, not a promise.
Since then: 171 applications across 137 employers, 32 replies, 19%. Live, and updated after every run.
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