How can you write a speculative cover letter?

You need to write a Pain Point/ Problem Cover Letter that touches on the current problems and challenges they are dealing with at the moment. You can: 1. Read their Google reviews to see what customers are saying about them 2. You can read glass door reviews, to uncover what current challenges the department that you want to work in, is facing 3. Google deep dive search on the company, and read everything about this company private Reddit forms, blogs, articles, media coverage, news, press release, and the best, is private forms. Pro Tip - you want to go way beyond the first two pages of a Google search to really uncover dirt on the company :)

You want to find out who has the decision powers, the Decision Maker. Sales 101, you learn that you should not waste your time with the "Middle Person" and instead go straight to the one holding all the power, the decision maker. A simple way to find out who potentially is the Decision Maker is to use the search tool on LinkedIn, type in the department title "Marketing", pick people, filter by the company name and now you want to look for the most senior person in that department, i.e.... VP of Marketing, Head of Marketing, Director of Marketing. Click the "Follow" button to follow them on LinkedIn. 3rd. Read their LinkedIn Profile and content. 4th. Start engaging with their content on LinkedIn to create awareness about you.

Once you have been engaging with their content on LinkedIn for a good week or so, you are now good to connect with them and send them a message. At this point, they are aware of you as you have been writing comments on their posts (you created awareness about you). The first message you send to them has to be all about them, nothing about you. Pick one piece of their content that moved you, how it impacted you, and how it helped you. This will write away grab their attention and get them to reply back to you, because who doesn't want to know how their content has helped another human being? If they are not posting on LinkedIn, then the first message should be about them based on what they wrote on their LinkedIn profile.

Once they have replied back to your message on LinkedIn, take the time to nurture the relationship a little bit before you invite them for a call. Engage with them based on what they said to you in their response to carry on the conversation. Court them, before you ask them out on a date. Do not ask for informational interviews, don't ask for a meeting or a phone call. Instead, first, court them. Be patient and court them, engage with them, and nurture the relationship first. During the conversation, you can now bring up the problem you have discovered that they are facing, to get them to confirm if they are facing this problem or not. You will come across as an expert in your field, vs. someone who just looking for a job.

Decision makers, are super busy professionals and will not read your Cover Letter, lets be real and honest about this. No one is going to take out their valuable time to read a random email from a random stranger. Not to mention your email adding up in junk mail or spam (high chance of this happening). That is why I recommend leveraging social media, i.e... LinkedIn as a form of connecting and messaging the decision-make, the key to grabbing the decision-maker's attention. You can also use Video messages or audio voice notes to send them a message vs. text message. LinkedIn Dm's allows you the opportunity to connect and build the relationship organically vs sending an email, which 99% of the time is going to go ignored.

You don't. Nobody reads them. There a thing of the past. Spend time optimizing your LinkedIn profile, optimize the headline for keywords, same with the About section and the skill section. Make sure headhunters find you whenever they have an open position.