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How effective is it to send out a resume & cover letter to companies cold without knowing if there is an jobs?

A job or position may not be advertised. So, if you are sending out a resume & cover letter cold to select companies, how effective is this tactic? Addressing it to: Human Resources Manager.

Public Comments

1. PLEASE! take a serious few minutes to reflect on this strategy. This will not be effective for one main reason. The key to a job search is finding a MATCH. That is, a match between you (your skills, personality), a company, and a position. Sending your resume cold will be unspeakably inefficient - even IF your resume actually gets looked at, it will be looked at for less than 60 seconds, and even THEN there might not be any jobs there that you want. Please don't waste your time. There are tons of resources online to find jobs. Career sites like monster.com and careerbuilder.com are obvious starters, plus job sections on your local paper's website. I would make a list of the companies you'd like to work for, go to their websites' Career sections and apply through those. Quick, easy, and you can see what positions they're hiring for. For other career advice you can check out: http://thealumniadvisor.com/Career-Planning.html.
2. You have nothing to lose except the cost of printing the resume and the stamp to mail it. You don't even have to buy a stamp if you email it. You should send the resume to the HR department and also to the manager of a specific department within the organization if you know where you want to work. Example, if you are a billing specialist, you would send a copy to the business office manager. You should have some idea of what job you want and for what type of job you are qualified, so target businesses that might need your skills and experience. However, don't wait until a position is advertised. Most managers know well in advance when a position will become open, long before a position is advertised. Oftentimes a position is never advertised. I have been a manager in several organizations and always kept a file of promising candidates, so that when I knew a posiiton might be opening up, I would be in a position to hire quickly. As people would send me resumes, I would copy the promising ones for my file and send all of the originals to HR. In my career, whenever I was seeking work (I have a medical skill), I always sent a resume and cover letter directly to the manager of the department in which I wanted to work. If the manager was interested, he/she would call me to schedule an interview, at which time I would fill out an application. If the manager wanted to hire me, he would take me to HR.
3. In reality, it probably gives results in less than 1% of cases. But it depends of how desperate you are. A better strategy is to try to find the name and contact info of a hiring manager and send them your resume directly. HR is unlikely to react unless they are truly seeking for your skill set at that exact moment.
4. I can't give you a percentage of effectiveness. But I know this, as a hiring manager... even when there are no job positions available, I still look at resumes, applications, and do interviews. The reason is this, if I find the Right person, I will figure out a way to bring them into the company. ANY business, with good business sense does this. When I got hired by my company there were no vacancies for the job position. One was created for me. I walked in and told the manager, "You WANT to hire me. It would be in your best interest and the company's best interest to hire me." I was promoted a year later and promoted again 1 1/2 years later. You might not get hired right away. And it's definately easier to get hired when a company is advertising a vacancy. But (!) I would keep doing that if I were you.