When it comes to recruiting, finding the right candidate profile isn’t the hard part. The real hard part is getting in touch with that person! However, it doesn’t have to be, and is probably much easier than you think. If you utilize the right tools and know where to look, you will be able on your way to a more meaningful and successful approach, that doesn’t have to begin with “I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn”.
Below are 5 tools and tips I use on a regular basis to make sure I can locate the best email contact information for a candidate.
1. Hunter (formerly known as Email Hunter)
Hunter is a Chrome extension that uses the email naming convention of a company to guess the proper email address. For example, if your name is Joe Smith and your company uses the email template of jsmith@company.com, it is easy to guess another employees email… if you know their name; it’s clearly the first letter of the first name followed by last name at company.com. So, if you are on Sally Andrews’ LinkedIn page, Hunter would come up with the guess sandrews@company.com. Hunter will only find work-related emails and you are allowed 150 uses per month for free. The search is based off of the most recent employer on that persons LinkedIn page, so if the individual no longer works for that company, this will be a dead email.
2. Lusha
Another Chrome extension called Lusha will find both personal emails as well as phone numbers. It scours the web to pickup anywhere this persons email and or phone number is located. It is important to note that Lusha only allows 10 free uses per month (however for a price you can upgrade this option) and the free uses are shared between organizations. So, for example, if someone else from your company uses a company email address to sign up for Lusha, you are both sharing the 10 (imagine when an organization of 50 signs up?)
3. Prophet
This is also another chrome extension, Prophet scours the web for contact information as well as other sites this candidate may own or be on. Prophet works like Lusha and Hunter combined. It will search the web for a personal email address, however if it cannot find any it will take a guess of the email based on where the individual works. Like Hunter it uses the most recent work information listed on LinkedIn. If the candidate hosts any blogs or other sites it will list those as well in the extension.
4. Basic GitHub search
A good portion of Github users have an email publicly listed on their main profile page. Just perform a simple Google search of the “candidates name + GitHub” and you will bring up their profile, if they have one. Once on their profile site more times than not you can see their email in their contact info.
5. GitHub API search
GitHub’s API feature allows you to open a page of code associated with the user you are searching. More times than not lying within this code is their email. First you will use the following web address: “api.github.com/users/xxxxxxxx/events/public”. Then you will replace the “xxxxxxxx” portion in that address with the GitHub username of the person you are searching for. More times than not this will open a webpage of this persons code. Click “ctrl + F” to open the find function and then enter the “@” symbol. This will find any @ symbols listed in the code, which most of the time is their email address.
And of course once you have the candidate’s email, you want to make sure you are writing an email worth responding to. Send a poorly written email and all of this work goes to waste.
Happy sourcing and good luck!
