How to find a candidate’s phone number and email (2026 guide)

You have the right person. Now you need a way to reach them. This guide answers the questions recruiters search for most, with the short answer first and the steps after.

How do you find a candidate's phone number?

Short answer: check the places the candidate has already shared it — their CV, their application, their public profiles — before you pay for a lookup tool.

1. Search your own database first. Many "new" candidates applied or were sent to you before.
2. Read the CV. Most CVs list a phone number at the top.
3. Check the profile you found them on. Some people show a number on LinkedIn's contact info or on a personal site.
4. If you still have nothing, send a short message on the platform where you found them and ask for the best number.
5. Paid contact-data tools exist, but check that their data is lawfully sourced in your country before you use them.

Always ask before you call a number the candidate did not give you directly. A cold call out of nowhere is a poor first impression.

How do you find a candidate's email address?

Short answer: the CV, the application email, and public profiles cover most people. For the rest, work out the company email pattern and verify it.

1. Look at the CV and the email the résumé arrived from.
2. Check GitHub, personal websites, conference talks and published papers. Technical people often list an email there.
3. Find the company's email pattern from press or partner pages (for example first.last@company.com).
4. Verify the guess with an email checker before you send. A bounce hurts your sender reputation.
5. Write a short, specific first email. Mention why this role fits them.

How do you find candidate emails for free?

Short answer: yes, you can, and most good contact details come from free sources.

• Your own inbox. CVs sent to you over the years are the best free database you have. If they are still sitting in email, pull them into your ATS.
• Public profiles. GitHub, Stack Overflow, Behance, Dribbble and personal sites.
• Company websites. Team pages and press releases reveal email patterns.
• Ask. A connection request or message with a clear reason gets a reply more often than you would think.

Free tools usually have daily limits. That is fine for a small agency working a few roles at a time.

How do you find contact details for passive candidates without manual research?

Short answer: stop starting from zero. Most of the manual work is retyping details you already have, scattered across email, folders and browser tabs.

1. Put every CV you already hold in one searchable place, so a "passive" candidate you met last year shows up again.
2. Let AI read each CV and fill in name, email, phone and skills, instead of typing them.
3. When you find someone on LinkedIn, import the profile in one click rather than copying it field by field.
4. Match new roles against your whole pool, so the people you already know come up first.

This is the part SohamRecruit helps with. It does not sell contact data or look up hidden phone numbers. It keeps the details candidates have already shared with you, and makes them easy to find again.

How do you find candidate contact info easily, day to day?

Short answer: one place for all of it, filled in automatically. Here is a simple routine:

• Email intake. Connect your mailbox and résumés that arrive by email become candidates automatically. See Importing candidates from email.
• Bulk upload. Drag in a folder of PDF or DOCX CVs; AI extracts name, contact details, skills and experience. See Bulk-uploading resumes.
• LinkedIn profiles. The Chrome extension imports the profile you have open in about a click. Email and phone are only filled in when they are visible on the profile — empty fields stay empty. See the Chrome extension guide.
• No duplicates. Each import is checked against existing candidates by email or phone, so you do not end up with two records for one person.

You can see all of this on the features page.

Check before you contact anyone

• Make sure the person still works where you think they do.
• Use a contact detail for the reason it was shared — recruiting.
• Respect data protection rules where you work, such as GDPR in Europe or the DPDP Act in India. Keep a record of where each detail came from.
• Remove people who ask you to.

Which tool should you use?

If you mainly need to buy contact data at scale, look at a dedicated data provider. If you need to keep and reuse the contacts you collect, you need an applicant tracking system. Compare options on our ATS comparison pages, and see pricing: SohamRecruit is $7, $12 or $24 per seat per month, with a 30-day free trial and no card.