Best tools for recruitment agencies to find companies hiring
For business development and lead generation, a recruitment agency has four kinds of tool to choose from. They answer different questions, so most agencies end up using more than one.
We build one of them, so read this with that in mind. We name no winner and give no ratings. Below is what each kind does, what it is good at, and where it falls short.
The four kinds of tool
1. Job-board alerts and saved searches
What it does. You save a search on a job board and get an email when a matching role appears.
Good at. It is usually free or cheap, it needs no setup, and it shows you the role as the employer advertised it.
Falls short. Everyone with the same alert sees the same role at the same moment. It shows you the advert, not who owns the hire, so finding that person is a separate job. It covers only the boards you search.
2. Applicant-tracking-system (ATS) posting signals
What it does. Many employers publish their openings through an ATS such as Greenhouse, and those listings can be read directly from the employer’s own careers page. A signal tool watches them and flags new or changed postings.
Good at. It sees openings at the source, often before they are syndicated to boards, and it sees patterns a single advert hides: a burst of roles, a repost, a first hire in a new country.
Falls short. It only covers employers that publish this way. On its own it gives you the company and the role, and not the person to call.
3. Contact databases
What it does. A large searchable list of companies and the people who work at them, filtered by industry, size, location and job title.
Good at. Breadth. If you need to build a list of every company in a segment, or find a named person’s contact details, this is the fit.
Falls short. A record is the same today as it was last month, and it has no field for “started hiring this morning”. Every agency in your market can buy the same records, so the list alone gives you no timing advantage. Read more on why timing is the product.
4. SignalsAPI
What it does. It checks employers’ hiring systems every 15 minutes for postings that match what you place, finds the decision maker for each, and starts outreach. It sorts by when something changed, not by what a company is.
Good at. Reaching an employer in the first hours of a new requirement, with the person who owns the hire already attached. See a sample of the output.
Falls short. It is built for one job, finding employers who have just started hiring. It is not a list-building tool for a whole market and not a job board, and it is not an applicant tracking system for your own candidates.
Which to use
- You want to see roles in your niche as they are advertised: job-board alerts cost almost nothing. Start there.
- You want a complete list of companies in a segment: a contact database.
- You want to be first to call a company that has just started hiring, with the right contact: a signal tool. SignalsAPI is one; check any alternative covers the employers in your niche and gives you the contact, not only the advert.
These are not exclusive. A common setup is a database for the long list and a signal feed for who to call today.
Try SignalsAPI on your niche
Your first ten signals are free: ten companies hiring in your niche, each with the person who owns the hire and a verified work email. No demo call, no card. After that, plans start at €79 a month for 50 signals.