Should I email info@ about a job?
Only if there is genuinely nothing else. A generic inbox such as info@ or enquiries@ replied 4 times out of 42, which is 10%, against 38% for a named person. It is the worst-performing address of any kind, because nobody in particular is responsible for reading it. Spend ten more minutes on the company's own contact, careers, about or team pages first. If info@ is all that exists, it is still better than the Apply button, which has nobody behind it at all.
The worst address of any kind
| Who received it | Sent | Replied | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| A named person | 34 | 13 | 38% |
A hiring inbox (careers@, hr@) | 10 | 5 | 50% |
A generic inbox (info@, enquiries@) | 42 | 4 | 10% |
The hiring-inbox row is only ten emails, so read 50% as "about as good as a named person", not as better. The row that is solid is the bottom one: 42 emails is a real sample and 10% is a real result.
Why it is so much worse
Nobody in particular is responsible for reading info@. It
collects supplier enquiries, complaints and spam, and the person who empties
it has no authority to do anything about a job. Your letter is not competing
with other applicants there — it is competing with a printer cartridge
invoice.
What to do instead, in ten minutes
- Read the advert to the very end. Addresses printed there replied 6 times out of 9.
- The company's own
/contact,/careers,/aboutand/teampages. 77 addresses came from there, replying at 21%. - A hiring inbox if no name is going.
When info@ is all there is
Send it. 10% is worse than 38% and still better than a portal, which has nobody behind it at all. Just do not spend a tailored hour on it, and do not follow it up twice.
Paste the advert and it will tell you which of these tiers it found, if any.
Where these numbers come from
86 cold emails to real UK employers over four weeks, sent by one person looking for work, logged as they went. 22 replies. The full method and every table is in the playbook, free, no account.
They are engineering and technician roles in Scotland, so a different trade may behave differently. Where a row is thin it says so on the row.
Since then: 171 applications across 137 employers, 32 replies, 19%. Live, and updated after every run.
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