For recruitment firms
Finding new client companies as a recruitment firm of 15 to 50 people
Trouve Tes Clients helps recruitment firms of 15 to 50 people approach new client companies with real context: spotting the job ads and signals that matter, choosing the right contact for the company’s size and preparing a message that the consultant reviews and sends themselves.
A recruitment firm prospects candidates all day long, but its clients are companies. This page describes how to approach them differently from the message every competitor sends, while keeping candidate data and prospect data apart.
The problem: a signal every competitor sees
A published job ad is an obvious buying signal: a role to fill, a likely deadline, a budget already approved. Its weakness is that it is public. The company often receives several approaches in the week after posting, almost all built the same way: “we saw your job ad”, a presentation of the firm, an attached CV.
What sets a firm apart is what it knows about the market for the role: how scarce a profile is, a pay gap, what candidates look at. The full reasoning is in the guide to finding client companies.
How it works, in five steps
These steps follow the five-stage system (target, understand, personalise, prospect, manage), applied to a recruitment firm.
- Target: define the roles and sectors of your specialism, and keep only the ads posted by the employer itself, under its own name.
- Understand: note how long the ad has been online and whether related roles are open. Several hires, a new site or a change of management make a stronger account than a single ad (see buying signals).
- Personalise: write to the right person (the managing director below fifty people, the hiring manager and the HR lead above that), after checking their current role, opening with an observation that can be checked in the ad.
- Prospect: a short first message, with no CV attached and no promise on timing, ending with a question that can be answered in one line. One or two follow-ups, then stop.
- Manage: track each company in a pipeline, kept apart from your candidate database, with information on where the contact details came from and a way to object in every contact.
Two files that never mix
Company contacts fall under the usual framework for B2B prospecting, which differs between France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg: see GDPR market by market.
Candidates are another matter. Their data was collected for their career plans: do not use it to approach companies, share a profile only with the person’s agreement, preferably anonymised at first contact, and never build a file by harvesting profiles from a website or network.
What Trouve Tes Clients does for a recruitment firm, and what it does not do
| Trouve Tes Clients | |
|---|---|
| Who it is for | Managing directors and consultants of recruitment firms of 15 to 50 people in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg looking for new client companies. |
| What it does | Helps you define your target client companies, analyses the profile and posts of the decision-makers you provide, highlights the buying signals found in that information, suggests a message for each contact and organises follow-ups in a pipeline. For French companies, a search in trade register data helps you find those that match your target. |
| How the message is sent | On LinkedIn, you review the suggested message, copy it and send it yourself. By email, campaigns and sequences with unsubscribe management. |
| What it does not do | It sends no LinkedIn invitation or message on your behalf, does not collect LinkedIn profiles automatically and is not candidate management software: it is for prospecting client companies. |
For the rules that protect your account, see prospecting on LinkedIn without risk.
Frequently asked questions
Is a job ad enough of a reason to contact a company?
It is a good starting point, but every competitor sees it. Keep the ads posted by the employer itself and linked to your specialism. Several related roles, a new site or a change of management make the account stronger than a single ad.
Should you write to HR or to the hiring manager?
It depends on the size. Below fifty people, write to the managing director, who often decides without an HR department. In a more structured SME, the line manager lives with the vacancy every day, and the HR lead, who runs the process, should be kept informed.
Can you attach a CV to the first message?
Better not. A CV sent unasked is a sales pitch, not a reason to write, and it shares a candidate’s data without need. If a profile must be presented, do it with the candidate’s agreement and preferably anonymised at first contact.
Can you use your candidate database to prospect companies?
No. Candidate data was collected for their career plans, not to approach companies. Keep two separate files: candidates on one side, company contacts on the other.
Which GDPR rules apply to company contacts?
The message must relate to the person’s role, tell them where their contact details came from and give them a simple way to object. Email rules differ by country: Belgium and Switzerland are stricter than France and Luxembourg on named addresses.
Does Trouve Tes Clients contact companies on the firm’s behalf?
Not on LinkedIn: the tool prepares the message, and the consultant reviews it and sends it from their own account. By email, campaigns and sequences include unsubscribe management. A firm’s LinkedIn account is also how it reaches candidates: it is never exposed to automated sending.
Further reading
- Recruitment firms: how to find new client companies
- Buying signals: the right moment to contact a company
- GDPR and B2B prospecting in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg
- Write your ideal customer in one sentence