To find the hiring manager for a job, start with the ad itself, then the company's own website, then public profiles found through a search engine or a LinkedIn search you run yourself. Look for the person who leads the team the role sits in, usually one level above the job title. Confirm the name in at least two public places before you write to them, and send one short, specific message yourself.
Everything below uses public information that anyone can see. No logged-in scraping, no tools that message people on your behalf.
Why the hiring manager, and not only the recruiter
The recruiter runs the process. The hiring manager decides who joins the team, and is often the one who wrote the requirements in the ad. A short note to them can get your application read by the person who cares most about the role.
Recruiters still matter. If you can only find the recruiter, write to the recruiter: they can answer questions about the process and the pay, and they pass strong candidates on.
Where to look, step by step
- Read the whole ad again. Some ads name the hiring manager, the recruiter, or the team ("you will report to the Head of Data"). The application page on the company's careers site sometimes shows a recruiter's name even when the board copy does not.
- Work out the title you are looking for. For a Senior Backend Engineer the manager is probably an Engineering Manager or a Team Lead; for a Marketing Specialist, a Marketing Manager or Head of Marketing. In a small company it may be a founder.
- Check the company's own website. Team pages, the engineering or design blog, press releases and case studies often name team leads. A blog post by "our Head of Data Platform" is a strong lead.
- Search the web. Try the company name with the title you worked out, for example
"Northwind" "engineering manager", and add the city if the company is large. Public profile pages, conference speaker lists, podcast guest pages and meetup pages all show up this way. - Search LinkedIn yourself. Filter people by current company and title. Look for someone whose title and team match the ad and who has been at the company a while. Do it by hand. LinkedIn's help page on prohibited software and extensions (checked 2 November 2026) bans third-party tools that scrape the site or automate activity such as sending messages, and says members who use them risk having their accounts restricted or shut down.
- Check other public traces. For technical roles, the company's GitHub organisation shows who maintains what. For research roles, recent papers list team members. For public sector roles, organisation charts are often published.
- Confirm before you write. Two independent public sources that agree on name, title and team are enough. People change roles often, and writing to someone who left the team two years ago wastes your best opening.
Finding a work email address
Many people prefer a professional message by email. Look for a public address first: the ad, the company's contact page, a talk abstract, a blog author box. If you find other addresses at the company, they usually follow one pattern (such as [email protected]), and an email verification service can tell you whether a guessed address exists before you send.
Do not buy contact lists, and do not send the same message to several people at one company. One person, one message.
What to write
Keep it under 120 words. Say which role you applied for, give one concrete reason you fit what their team does, and ask one easy question. For example:
Hi Marta, I applied for the Senior Data Analyst role on your team last week. For the last three years I have run the weekly experiment reporting for a subscription product, which sounds close to what the ad describes. Is the team mostly working on pricing tests at the moment, or on retention? Thanks for reading.
Then wait. One follow-up about a week later is fine. After that, leave it.
How gojob.now helps
Each job in gojob.now has a People tab. It shows contacts named in the ad, and its "On the web" search reads public pages to find the people likely to run that team and the recruiters behind the role. Contacts you save are private to you. gojob.now then drafts a short LinkedIn note or email in your voice, using your experience and the ad, and you read, edit and send it yourself. Nothing goes out without your click, and LinkedIn is never automated.
Every contact stays next to its application in the job application tracker, so you can see who you wrote to and when. For tailoring the CV you send them, see resume tailoring.
FAQ
Is it OK to message a hiring manager directly?
Yes, if the message is short, relevant to the role and sent once or twice. Many managers would rather hear from a strong candidate directly than miss them in a pile of applications.
Should I message before or after applying?
After, in most cases. Then you can say "I applied for" and the manager can find your application in their system.
What if I cannot find the hiring manager?
Write to the recruiter, or to the most senior person in that team you can confirm. If you find no one, a well-tailored application is still your main route in.
Can I use tools that find emails automatically?
Email verification on a single address you have worked out from public sources is fine. Avoid tools that scrape logged-in sites or send messages for you.
How do I find the recruiter for a job?
The same way: check the ad and the careers page first, then search the company name with "recruiter" or "talent acquisition" and the role's location.