Clients, not candidates: what this page covers
Recruitment agencies run two kinds of outreach. One goes to candidates and is part of delivery. The other goes to hiring companies and is business development. This page, and Startories, are about the second: finding companies that need to hire, reaching the person who owns the role and signing terms of business.
Candidate sourcing has its own rules, tools and etiquette, and Startories is not built for it. Keep the two pipelines apart, with separate messaging and separate data, so a candidate never receives a sales email and a client never feels sourced.
The rest of the page assumes you place professionals for business clients: engineers, sales and marketing hires, finance and operations roles, executives, or contract staff for companies that need temporary capacity.
How to read a job post like a business development lead
Every agency sees the same job boards. The edge is in what you notice. A post carries more than a title: when it went up, whether it was reposted, how it is worded, what it pays and what else the company is hiring for.
| What you notice | What it suggests | Strength | Angle for the first email |
|---|---|---|---|
| Same role reposted after 30+ days | The internal search is stuck | Strong | A shortlist from a pool they have not reached |
| Five or more roles posted in one week | Funding or a new plan is turning into headcount | Strong | Capacity: one internal recruiter cannot run five searches at once |
| First recruiter or talent role posted | They know hiring is the bottleneck | Medium | Cover the urgent roles until the recruiter starts, then hand over |
| A niche skill appears for the first time | A technical shift, such as a new data stack or a move into payments | Strong | Your network in that exact skill |
| Same role listed in several cities | Expansion into new markets | Medium | Local knowledge: pay levels, who else is hiring there |
| Senior role, no talent team visible | The founder is running the search alone | Strong | Time: a founder interviewing all week is not running the company |
| Evergreen post that never closes | Pipeline building, not urgency | Weak | Skip, or wait for something to change |
Who signs the terms of business?
The person who posted the job is often not the person who can sign an agency agreement. Write to whoever feels the empty seat and can approve the fee.
Founders and CEOs at companies under 50 people
Approve every hire and every fee. Care more about speed and the cost of a wrong hire than about the fee percentage. They reply to short, specific emails that show you understand the role.
Hiring managers: VP Engineering, VP Sales, CFO
Own the outcome and live with the vacancy every day. Often they can bring an agency in even when HR prefers to stay in-house. Write about the role and the team, not about your agency's history.
Heads of talent and in-house recruiters
Control the agency list at larger companies and may see you as competition. Approach them as overflow capacity for the hardest roles, and never go around them once they have answered; that ends the relationship.
HR generalists and people operations
At companies without a recruiter they coordinate hiring but rarely hold the budget. Useful for understanding the process, seldom the decision-maker.
What is a search worth before you pitch it?
Fee math decides which signals deserve your time. Pay transparency laws help: Colorado, California, Washington and New York, among other states, require many employers to put a pay range in job postings, so for roles there you can estimate your fee before writing a word.
The example uses assumptions, not market rates. Plug in your own terms and your own fill rate.
- Research pays. At roughly $400 of expected fees per well-chosen pitch, ten minutes of reading per company is cheap.
- Fill rate is the biggest lever. Pitching only roles where you have a real network, and moving the fill rate from 25% to 50%, doubles the value of every email.
- Retained search changes the math. Part of the fee is paid at engagement, so a lower volume of larger, retained mandates can beat a high volume of contingency roles.
- Contract staffing is margin over time. Billing a contractor at $95 an hour and paying $70, a six-month full-time assignment of about 1,000 hours yields roughly $25,000 of gross margin before your costs (again, assumptions). Companies that just won a large project or opened a new site are the natural targets for that offer.
| Input | Example value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $160,000 | Midpoint of a posted $140,000–$180,000 range for a senior engineer |
| Contingency fee | 20% of first-year base | Use your own terms |
| Fee if you fill it | $32,000 | $160,000 × 20% |
| Chance you fill a contingency role you are given | 25% | You compete with other agencies and with internal hiring |
| Expected value of winning the role | $8,000 | $32,000 × 25% |
| Chance a pitch turns into a signed role | 5% | One signed role per 20 well-chosen pitches |
| Expected value of one pitch | $400 | $8,000 × 5% |
Sample sequence: a senior role stuck for six weeks
Fictional example: a 40-person fintech company has reposted a staff backend engineer role for the second time. The post asks for ledger experience. You place backend engineers in fintech. The sequence goes to the VP Engineering.
Email 1, day 0
Subject: the staff backend role (ledger experience). "Hi Priya, I saw the staff backend engineer role at Tallyworks is up for a second round. Ledger experience narrows the pool a lot: most strong people sit at payments companies and are not looking. I place backend engineers in fintech and know several who have built double-entry ledgers at scale. Would a short call to compare notes on the profile help? Sam, [Agency], [address]. Reply 'stop' and I won't write again." It names the repost without judging it and explains why the search is hard, which she already feels.
Email 2, day 3
"One idea that often helps with ledger roles: widen the search to engineers from accounting software and core banking, not only payments. The skill transfers even when the title doesn't." Useful whether or not she ever replies.
Email 3, day 8
"If it helps, my terms for this role would be [fee] on contingency with a 90-day replacement period [example terms]. I can share three anonymized profiles within a week of a call, each with the candidate's consent." Clear terms and a concrete next step.
Email 4, day 15
"Closing the loop. If the role is filled, congratulations; if not, the offer stands." Then stop. A third repost or a new batch of roles is a new signal and a new reason to write.
Reach companies with a reason to buy this week
Startories finds the buying signal, verifies the decision-maker and runs the outreach until they book a call.
Candidate data, fairness and the lines not to cross
- Never present a candidate without consent. Speculative CVs, often called "most placeable candidate" marketing, are a common tactic, but sharing someone's profile with a company they did not agree to be presented to breaks their trust and, depending on where they live, may breach privacy law. Anonymize, and ask first.
- Refuse discriminatory briefs. Federal equal employment opportunity laws cover employment agencies as well as employers. If a client asks you to screen out people by age, sex, race, religion, disability or another protected characteristic, decline in writing.
- Know the rules for AI screening. If you use automated tools to screen or rank candidates for New York City roles, the city's law on automated employment decision tools requires a bias audit and notices to candidates. Clients increasingly ask agencies about this; a clear answer is a selling point.
- Follow commercial email law with clients. Business development email to hiring companies must meet CAN-SPAM: accurate sender, honest subject line, postal address, working opt-out.
- Respect a no. A hiring manager who says they never use agencies should be suppressed everywhere, not added to another campaign next quarter.
Objections from hiring companies, and how to answer
"We don't use agencies."
Often true until a role has been open for two months. Do not argue. Ask whether you may check back if this particular search is still open in a few weeks, and only write again when a new signal appears.
"Your fee is too high."
Compare it with the cost of the empty seat, not with a job board listing. For a revenue role, a quarter without the hire is lost pipeline; for an engineering role, a delayed release. If the budget truly is fixed, offer a smaller scope, such as a shortlist-only fee, rather than a lower percentage.
"We already work with three agencies."
Then the question is whether any of them specializes in this role. Ask for one narrow search, the hardest on their list, rather than a place on the roster.
"Just send CVs."
Agree terms of business first. Profiles sent without signed terms invite disputes about who introduced whom, and expose candidates who agreed to be presented on your terms only.
"We're hiring an in-house recruiter."
Offer to cover the two hardest roles until that person starts and to hand over your notes. Many in-house recruiters keep one or two agencies for roles outside their own network.
When do companies hire, and when should you prospect?
Hiring follows budgets, and budgets follow the fiscal year. For companies on a calendar fiscal year the pattern below is common. Check your own placements by month to confirm it for your niche.
| Period | What happens at clients | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| January–February | New headcount plans approved, roles posted in batches | Peak prospecting: target companies posting several roles at once |
| March–May | Searches started in January stall or close | Target reposted roles and second attempts |
| June–August | Vacations slow interview loops | Focus on recently funded companies, which hire on their own clock |
| September–October | Last push to hire before year-end; next year's plan drafted | Pitch roles that must start this year; ask about next year's plan |
| November–December | Holidays slow decisions; budgets set | Book January intro calls; send less |
Where to find hiring companies beyond the big job boards
If you also place HR and people roles, our HR tech playbook describes the same buyers from a software seller's point of view, which helps you understand what else competes for their budget.
- Careers pages and applicant tracking system boards. Many startups list roles only on their own careers page, hosted by their ATS. These listings are often fresher than aggregator boards.
- Google's job results. Employers mark up listings with job posting structured data so they appear in Google's job search, which makes a niche query (a job title plus a city) a quick way to see who is hiring right now.
- Founder posts on X and Reddit. "We're hiring our first head of sales, any tips?" or "how did you find a good fractional CFO?" are public requests for help. Startories detects these as hiring signals and recommendation requests.
- Launches and directories. A company that launches on Product Hunt or appears in a startup directory today will be hiring within months. Early, low-key contact makes you the agency they remember.
- Funding news in your niche. The best leading indicator of a hiring wave.
Running agency business development with Startories
Startories automates the part of recruitment BD that eats a consultant's mornings: spotting the signal, finding the company, identifying the hiring manager, verifying the email and writing the first message. It detects hiring, funding, expansion and tech stack signals in public sources, plus founders asking for help on Reddit and X, then scores each company against your client profile with the reasons shown. The first email cites the real event, such as the reposted role or the new office. In effect it works as an AI SDR dedicated to business development; if you are weighing it against hiring a BD rep, see AI SDR vs human SDR.
Emails go out from dedicated inboxes on separate domains, so the domain candidates and clients write to is never exposed. Replies are classified (positive, interested, neutral, negative, out of office, unsubscribe) with a suggested answer, and you can approve everything before it is sent.
Start with one niche and one signal on Starter ($99 a month; your first project starts with a 3-day full-access trial for $1). Growth ($499) adds funnels, for example reposted roles, post-funding bursts and expansion. See pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How do recruitment agencies get new clients without cold calling?
Use job posts and company news as reasons to write. Reach the hiring manager about a specific role that is stuck, a hiring burst after funding or a new office, with short emails and clear terms. Timed to a signal, email can replace most cold calls.
Who should a recruiter contact at a hiring company?
Whoever feels the vacancy and can approve the fee: the founder at small companies, the hiring manager (VP Engineering, VP Sales, CFO) at mid-size ones, and the head of talent where an in-house team exists. Never go around a talent lead who has replied.
Can I use Startories to source candidates?
No. Startories is built for B2B business development: finding hiring companies and reaching their decision-makers. Candidate sourcing is a different process with different rules and expectations, and it should stay in your recruiting tools.
Which job posts are worth pitching?
Roles reposted after a month, several roles posted in the same week, a niche skill appearing for the first time, a senior role at a company with no talent team, and the same role opening in new cities. Evergreen postings that never close are usually weak signals.
How do staffing agencies find companies that need contract workers?
Look for companies that just won a large project, opened a new location, face a launch deadline or posted several short-term roles. Offer flexible capacity for a defined period, with a clear hourly rate, a start date and an easy way to extend.
Is it legal to cold email hiring managers in the US?
Yes, when the email follows CAN-SPAM: truthful sender and subject line, a physical postal address and an opt-out you honor. Business development to companies is the common case; candidate outreach involves separate privacy considerations.