Latest Free and Cheap Tools for Finding Candidates and Contact Information

Finding contact information starts with treating the search like detective work: one piece of data, whether it's a username, a picture, or an old email address, tends to lead to another until the right answer surfaces. A range of current tools and tactics make that chase faster and cheaper, many of them free.

• Reverse image search tools, including a facial-recognition Chrome extension, can take a LinkedIn photo and match it across YouTube, Twitter, GitHub, and other sites, often surfacing a personal email in the process.
• Username tracing works because people reuse the same handle across social platforms; a Chrome extension can highlight a name and search the social web to match it to profiles carrying an email address.
• GitHub and Bitbucket both leak contact information through small URL tricks: adding .patch to a commit URL or /raw to a Bitbucket link can reveal a developer's email, and a dedicated Chrome extension does the same job automatically.
• Bookmarklets, small stored browser commands, can pull work emails directly off a profile page without any coding required.
• Domain-based lookups let you enter a company's web address to guess its standard work email format, and that work email can then be searched to locate a LinkedIn profile listing a personal address.
• Boolean strings built around free email domains, phone and email icons instead of the words themselves, and site-specific searches (such as pulling Gmail addresses off LinkedIn profiles) round out the search options.
• A permutation method builds likely email addresses using the most common free domains, tests them through validation sites, and cross-checks the results against a search tool until a photo and address match confirm the right one.

Custom search engines aimed at technical candidates, X-ray searches into LinkedIn, and phone-number validation services for tracking down current cell numbers round out the toolkit. The consistent advice throughout: combine tools rather than relying on one, check a two-word last name both separately and combined, and remember that even the best software is only as good as the judgment behind it.