Speculative application: the route to jobs that are never advertised

Speculative applications work best when three conditions come together:

• You know the industry and can show that you have solved these tasks before.
• The company is growing or permanently hiring – skills shortage, expansion, turnover.
• There is no suitable vacancy, but a function that needs your competence.

Weak speculative applications are mail-merge letters to 200 firms. They end up in the filing tray and damage your name, because HR managers remember.

Work with a list of 15 to 25 companies, not with a mass mailing. Criteria:

• Size and structure: SMEs with 20 to 250 employees rarely have an applicant portal and decide faster.
• Growth signals: new sites, vacancies in other areas, press releases, investments.
• Fit: products, markets or technologies that you know from your own experience.

Note one concrete connection per company – a project, a news item, a product. Without this line the letter becomes interchangeable.

The speculative application follows a different pattern from a response to an advert: you have to name the need first.

1. Short letter (max. one page): occasion, benefit in two to three sentences, one evidenced result, an offer to talk.
2. CV: identical to your application CV, with result figures for the last two positions.
3. One-page profile (optional): competencies and reference projects on one page – helpful for management and specialist roles.

What does not belong in it: a long company history, repetition of the CV, «I am convinced I would be an asset». The letter answers one question: which problem do you solve, and how quickly?

«Dear Sir or Madam» is the weakest option in a speculative application. A specific person is better:

• SME: management or owner – that is where hiring decisions are made.
• Large company: head of HR or the line manager of the target area; for management roles the executive board.
• Research: website, commercial register, LinkedIn, trade media. A name is enough; the job title should be correct.

If no person can be found: address the function («To the Management»), not «Dear Sir or Madam».

Most speculative applications are not answered – not out of rejection but out of lack of time. Following up is therefore part of the procedure, not pushiness.

• After 7 to 10 days a short email or a call: «I wrote to you on … and wanted to ask whether the documents arrived.»
• Following up once is enough. Twice feels pressing.
• Accept a rejection and ask for one sentence of feedback – some answer, and the contact remains.

Anyone who sends ten careful speculative applications with follow-up usually has more conversations than with fifty portal applications.

A speculative application is legally a non-binding enquiry – no right to a reply or to employment arises. Points to observe:

• Data: documents may only be processed for the application procedure. After it ends they must be deleted or returned, unless consent to retention exists.
• No sensitive details without relevance to the position (health, religion, family planning).
• Discretion: if you are employed, do not name your current employer as a reference and do not use a company email account for the application.

If the position is advertised publicly and you applied speculatively: apply again – now through the official channel, referring to your earlier letter.