How to find company email addresses

3 Easy Ways to Find Company Email Addresses

Have you found recruiters you want to contact, but you can’t find company email addresses for them?

A reader finds himself in that situation:

Hi Donna,

I was researching how to get in touch with Deloitte recruiters and came across your article about how to find Big 4 recruiters on LinkedIn.

I have had success in locating them. However, their contact information isn’t always provided.

I am a graduating senior. Deloitte doesn’t recruit from my campus, so I wonder how to contact the recruiters I’ve identified.

I studied Computer Science and am looking to get into consulting.

Thanks,

Chung

3 Fast Ways to Find Email Addresses

To help Chung, I shared 3 fast ways to find companies’ email addresses:

  1. Hunter.io
  2. Finder.io
  3. LinkedIn
Hunter.io

First, I like the email finder service, Hunter.io. Thanks to Chris Morton for telling me about it (see comments below).

Hunter allows 50 free searches per month. After that, you pay $49 per month for 1,000 requests (not an affiliate).

It gives you a company’s most common email syntax. If your recruiter isn’t explicitly listed, you can:

  1. Infer the person’s email address from the syntax.
  2. Click “Verifier” on the top horizontal rail.
  3. Insert your inferred address and click to see if it’s deliverable.
  4. If not, check other listed syntaxes.

All in all, this is a fabulous semi-automation of a tedious process.

While Hunter has a Chrome extension, I’m not comfortable with its privacy practices in a world of incredibly sophisticated hackers. Thus, I use it via its website.

Finder.io

I also like Finder.io.

For starters, it’s free.

In my testing, it found some email addresses Hunter missed.

On the downside, you have to give them an email address to use the tool.

Finder has a Chrome extension. I’m also not comfortable with its privacy practices.

Email Address Verification Tools

Know that Hunter’s and Finder’s verification tools aren’t perfect.

They both failed to verify some addresses I know work.

Thus, you might try using an address that seems reasonable even if it doesn’t verify.

LinkedIn

Chung asked me about company email addresses.

However, since he reached out and I originally wrote this post, LinkedIn contact information has improved.

So, always check to see if you can find a person’s email address in the Contact Info or About sections of their profiles.

If all your efforts to find a recruiter’s email address fail, get a Premium account on LinkedIn. It’s free for 30 days.

Then, send the recruiter a LinkedIn message or InMail. Recruiters tend to read their inbound LinkedIn correspondence.

Don’t Email, Call

As a last resort, pick up your phone and call the recruiter.

You will probably have to leave a voice mail.

Share your elevator pitch, the URL of your LinkedIn profile, and your phone number. Rehearse until you sound like someone you would want to call back.

Is a Recruiter’s Email Address Chung’s Best Bet?

Also, in Chung’s case, connecting directly with Deloitte might not be his best bet.

I advised him to ask his professors if they have contacts at Deloitte — that’s how I got my job there.

Chung can also use LinkedIn to find fellow alums with this search:

  1. People
  2. Current Companies: Deloitte
  3. Schools: [the name of his school]

Many companies give referred candidates priority attention. For example, last week, one of my clients gave her resume to an internal contact at a target company on Wednesday and had an interview on Friday.

What Worked for You?

While that’s how I advised Chung, I’m also curious to hear how you all find company email addresses. And how you connect with recruiters!

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Featured by Career Sherpa
Image: Fotolia/MG
Updated May 2022

© 2015 – 2023, Donna Svei. All rights reserved.

Comments 7

  1. Rehearse this until you sound like someone you would want to call back. – Love it!

    > Petra, Thank you! Donna

  2. Hi Donna,

    Thank you for the tips! I wanted to share with you another free tool for finding emails – Sherlock.
    Enjoy!

    Note: Sherlock has pretty much disappeared as of Feb. 2021.

  3. I use hunter.io a lot.

    I used to send several emails to the same person, each using a different address syntax. Comparing those that bounced back with a list of those sent, the one that didn’t bounce was the winner.

    That technique still works great, unless the company in question uses ..@..

  4. Chris,

    I just tried it with deloitte.com and also got a fail. Then I tried it with @ey.com and it worked. It’s good to have more than method!

    Donna

    2021 Update: I tried deloitte.com and got a hit on the third listing of the first page of results.
    2022 Update: I tried the deloitte.com search described in the post and got a wonderland of hits!

  5. Hi Chris, have you used tools like AeroLeads ? it simplify the whole prospecting processing and get rid of “guessing” work for business emails.

    Also what are your thoughts on linkedIn inmails, since for smaller direct connection, it can work well too.

    Arpita, Thanks for the tip! Donna

  6. As a recruiter, Lusha is a resource I use often to identify talent. For job seekers however, I would definitely suggest sticking with Prophet, as that invariably surfaces work email addresses, and that’s typically what a job seeker most often is seeking. Going to a hiring manager’s personal contact information will probably make that person a bit uncomfortable.

    There’s also Email Hunter, which is a favorite of Irina Shamaeva, queen of Boolean and LinkedIn training for sourcers & recruiters.

    Ed, Thank you for these ideas! Donna

    2021 Update:It looks as though Prophet is gone. Lusha is now AeroLeads.com.

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