How to recruit candidates on LinkedIn
Last updated 10 November 2026
You write to a person who could take the role you are filling, not to everyone with the job title. HeyLead drafts the note from your brief: why you chose them, what the role is in one line, and one question they can answer without a call. Nothing is sent until you press Launch.
Who this is for
A hiring manager, a founder or a team lead filling a role without a recruiting team. You know the work. You do not have a recruiter to write the first note, and you do not want a blast to every profile that mentions the skill.
The reader of the note is the candidate. The fit question is whether this person would take the role. A buyer of your product is a different campaign.
What you put in the note
Say why this person, taken from their own profile or a post they wrote. Say what the role is and what makes it different, in one line. Ask one question they can answer without booking a call. That is the whole note.
Timing is the difference between a note they answer and one they archive. A headline that says they are looking, a new post from them, or a comment they left on a post you are watching is a reason to write this week rather than next quarter.
- Why this person, from their own profile or post
- What the role is, and what makes it different, in one line
- One question they can answer without a call
What stays out of the first note
A full job description belongs on the page you send after they answer, not in the opening. Pressure to apply today makes a careful person close the message. A salary range you have not decided is a number you will have to walk back.
- A full job description in the first message
- Pressure to apply today
- A salary range you have not decided
The brief, and the limit on hiring messages
You type the brief in Claude, Cursor or the HeyLead dashboard. Hiring does not have a message set of its own yet.
Campaigns with this goal (Hire people) work with a custom brief: say what you ask of the person.
Say in that sentence what you are asking of the person. HeyLead drafts the campaign. You review it and press Launch.
HeyLead is an AI agent for LinkedIn outreach: it finds the right people, writes to them in the voice of your own LinkedIn posts, follows up, and handles replies. It runs from Claude Code, Cursor, any MCP client or a web dashboard.
Hire a backend engineer who has run payments systems; remote in Europe; we pay above market and the team is small.Signals that make the note timely
Watch a headline that says the person is looking for a new role. Watch a post they publish while they are in your campaign. Watch a comment they leave on a post you follow, when they fit the role. Each of those is a reason the opener can name.
Before the invitation, HeyLead views the profile, follows, and comments on a recent post. The invitation can carry a note. Replies are read and answered from the facts you gave the campaign. A question those facts cannot answer is held for you. Someone who says not now gets a check-in in 30 days.
Opening messages, follow-ups and answers to replies go out without review unless you switch review on; then they wait for your approval. Invitations are not held. In review mode, invitations go out without a note.
Questions people ask
Who is the recruiting note for?
A person who could take the role, written to by a hiring manager, a founder or a team lead without a recruiting team.
What do I type to start?
One sentence that names the role and what you ask of the person. Hire people works with a custom brief.
What do I leave out of the first message?
The full job description, pressure to apply today, and a salary you have not decided.
HeyLead sends from your own LinkedIn account at a human pace: at most 20 invitations a day and 100 a week on a free LinkedIn account (more on Premium or Sales Navigator: a newly connected paid account starts at 20 a day and doubles each week up to its limit), Monday to Friday 08:00 to 22:00 in your time zone, minutes apart. It backs off when LinkedIn pushes back and resumes on its own. You can pause any campaign at any time.
HeyLead is not affiliated with LinkedIn. It reaches LinkedIn through Unipile, which is also not affiliated. LinkedIn's own rules are in the Terms.
Set up HeyLead using https://heylead.dev/llms.txt