Adchase is business development by a recruitment agency based on published job ads. The agency spots a company that is hiring, finds the person who decides on that hire and offers to handle the role, often by presenting the anonymised profile of a candidate it already knows. The word is French agency jargon, built from the English ad and chase.
This article gives a definition, walks through the method from the job ad to the follow-up, and lists the rules that apply in France: your clients, GDPR for business-to-business prospecting and the right to object.
Article checked on 11 November 2026. The prospecting rules quoted are those published by the CNIL, the French data protection authority.
Adchase: the definition
Adchase means prospecting by a recruitment agency that starts from a job ad published by a company. The agency contacts the person who decides on that hire and offers to handle it. The word comes from the English ad and chase. It is mostly used in French agencies; English-speaking recruiters talk about business development from job ads.
Adchase sits next to three related practices:
| Practice | Starting point | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Cold prospecting | A list of companies in your target | Open a relationship, with no identified need |
| Adchase | A published job ad | Win the assignment for that role |
| Sales intelligence | Signals across your whole market | Know who to contact, and when |
| Headhunting | A role given to you by a client | Find and convince the candidate |
Sales intelligence for recruiting feeds adchase: it supplies the list of companies that are hiring, and adchase turns it into meetings.
Why start from a job ad
A published job ad tells you three things a prospecting list does not: the company has an open need, it has approved the hire internally, and it roughly knows what it is looking for. The agency does not have to create the need. It only has to show that it can meet it better or faster than the company alone.
The ad also gives you the material for the first message: the job title, the location, the skills required. A hiring manager who receives a message about the role they published yesterday reads it more willingly than a general presentation of the agency.
Not every ad is worth the same. An ad that is reposted, or still online after several weeks, points to a role that is hard to fill. Several ads published in a short time by the same company point to growth or a reorganisation. These signals are covered in our article on companies that are hiring.
The five-step method
Effective adchase always follows the same sequence: spot an ad in your specialism, check that the company is a good target, find the person who decides, approach them with a concrete candidate, then follow up with something new. Each step removes accounts. Ten well-prepared approaches are worth more than a hundred identical messages.
1. Spot the ad
Watch the sources where your market publishes: Indeed, APEC for managerial roles, France Travail (the French public employment service), Welcome to the Jungle, LinkedIn Jobs and the careers pages of the companies you target. Filter on your specialism (roles, sectors, locations) and set aside ads published by other agencies or temp agencies: the role is already assigned.
Rhythm matters more than volume. Checking the same sources every morning beats one big search on Friday, because a role published three weeks ago has often already had several calls from agencies.
2. Qualify the company
Before any contact, open your CRM. Is the company already a client? Is a process under way with them? Does a colleague look after them? A former client reposting an ad is called back differently from an unknown prospect. Then look at the size, the sector, whether there is an HR team and how many ads are open.
Ask yourself one question: can you present a credible candidate for this role in the coming days? If not, keep the company on watch and move on to the next one.
3. Find the decision-maker
The decision-maker is the person who signs off the hire, not necessarily the one who published the ad. For a technical role, it is often the head of the team (technical director, plant director). For a support role, the relevant department head. In a small company, the managing director. In a large company, the recruitment team is often the required point of entry.
Look for the name on LinkedIn and on the company website, then for their work contact details. On the switchboard, ask for the person by job title and quote the role.
4. Approach with a profile
The first contact has four parts: the reference to the ad, the profile of a matching candidate, what you are offering, and a question that calls for an answer. The profile is anonymised: current job title, experience, key skills, location and availability. It shows you have already worked on the subject.
Example email:
Hello Ms Martin, I saw your ad for a maintenance manager in Lyon. I am in touch with a maintenance manager who has ten years' experience in food processing, leads a team of eight technicians and wants to move closer to Lyon. She is available within three months. Would you like me to send you her detailed profile?
The phone remains the most direct channel to a decision-maker; the call method is in our article on phone prospecting for a recruitment agency. On LinkedIn, see LinkedIn prospecting in recruitment. Prepare the answer to the question that always comes, the price: see how to set your fees.
5. Follow up
With no answer, follow up with something new each time: a second profile, a piece of information about the market for that role, a question on how the hire is going. Alternate channels: phone, email, then LinkedIn. A clear refusal ends the sequence, and you record it in your CRM so that nobody calls again.
A withdrawn ad is not a failure: the company has hired, or given up. Either way, ask how it went. It is often the start of a relationship for the next hire.
The rules: your clients, GDPR and the right to object
Adchase is still commercial prospecting. In France, it follows the rules for business-to-business prospecting set by the CNIL, and the fairness rules specific to recruitment: you do not poach from your clients, and you do not present a candidate without their agreement. These rules also protect your reputation in a market where everyone knows each other.
Do not poach from your clients
A candidate employed by one of your clients is never presented to a prospect. Most agency terms of business include a non-solicitation clause, and a client who discovers that one of its employees is circulating in your adchase messages stops giving you roles. Check the candidate's current employer before sending their profile.
The rule also works the other way: never present a candidate to their own employer. The CNIL describes as unfair the act of disclosing to an employer the application of one of its employees without that employee's express agreement (decision no. 02-017 of 21 March 2002).
GDPR for business-to-business prospecting
To approach a professional by email or by phone, the CNIL does not require prior consent: prospecting can rest on the agency's legitimate interest, provided the message relates to the person's job. Offering a candidate to a manager who is hiring meets that condition. The message must say who sent it, and the person must have been told how their contact details are used.
The prior consent required for telephone canvassing since 11 August 2026 applies to private individuals. The CNIL says so in its page on telephone prospecting: professionals, for their part, can object to it.
The candidate's profile
The profile you send contains personal data. Anonymised, it does not identify the candidate: no name, no current employer, no overly specific detail. Before passing their name to a company they did not know about, get their agreement: the CNIL has recommended this since the decision quoted above. Never invent a profile to win a meeting.
The right to object
A person who asks you to stop contacting them must be able to do so easily, and the request applies to all your channels and all your consultants. Record it on their record in your CRM as soon as they reply. A follow-up sent after a refusal by a colleague who did not know is the surest way to lose an account.
The mistakes that sink an adchase
Failures rarely come from the message itself. They come from a poorly qualified company, a profile that does not hold up, or a badly managed follow-up. Here are the mistakes most often seen in agencies starting out with adchase, and the habit that avoids each one.
- Writing to a client without knowing it. The CRM check happens before the message, not after.
- Answering an ad already given to an agency. An ad published "on behalf of our client" is already taken.
- Sending a profile that does not match. The hiring manager judges your agency on that first profile.
- A general presentation message. Without a reference to the ad, adchase becomes cold prospecting again.
- Following up with nothing new. Each follow-up brings something new, otherwise it does not happen.
In Marvin
Marvin brings monitoring, the CRM and sequences together: the ad you spotted, the company's history and the message you sent live in the same database. Job ad monitoring, Radar, is in beta and included in the Suite plan. It relies on the CRM and sequences of the recruitment agency software.
What you get, step by step:
- Spot the ad. Every morning, Radar reads the ads published on Indeed, APEC, Welcome to the Jungle, LinkedIn Jobs and France Travail, filtered on your roles, sectors, locations and company sizes. It flags new ads, reposted ads and companies publishing several ads in a short time. Ads published by known recruitment agencies are set aside by default.
- Qualify the company. Companies you already have a process under way with are flagged and moved down the list. Each company is completed with its legal data (SIREN number, sector, headcount).
- Find the decision-maker. Radar suggests the type of contact for the role and looks for them among the profiles you already know; you complete their contact details with your enrichment credits.
- Approach and follow up. From the signal, you add the decision-maker to an existing sequence: LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp. A call step creates a reminder for the consultant who enrolled the contact.
Signals arrive in Marvin, and each watch can also send a summary by email, daily or weekly, or push the signals to your other tools by webhook. Radar only reads job ads: it does not track funding rounds or appointments.
FAQ
What is adchase in recruitment?
Adchase is business development by a recruitment agency based on published job ads. The agency spots a company that is hiring, finds the person who decides on that hire and offers to handle the role, often by presenting the anonymised profile of a candidate it already knows.
Where does the word adchase come from?
From the English words ad and chase: you hunt from the job ads. The word is mostly used by French recruitment agencies. English-speaking recruiters usually call it business development from job ads, or simply job-ad prospecting.
Is adchase legal in France?
Yes, if it follows the rules for business-to-business prospecting: a message related to the contact's job, the agency's identity clearly shown and a simple way to refuse further approaches. A candidate's profile is only sent with their name once they have agreed.
Should you attach a CV to an adchase message?
An anonymised profile is enough, and it is the safest option: current job title, years of experience, key skills, location and availability, with no name or current employer. The named CV follows once the candidate has been told and agrees to be put forward to that company.
What is the difference between adchase and headhunting?
Headhunting approaches candidates for a role a client has given you. Adchase approaches a company so that it gives you a role it has published. The first fills an assignment; the second is how you win one.