To find companies that are hiring, start from published job ads: general job boards, APEC for managerial roles, France Travail, careers pages. Group them by company, then read the hiring signals: a new ad, a reposted ad, several ads in a short time. An agency then sorts the list against its specialism and its CRM.
This article lists the sources used in France, explains what each signal means, and shows how to go from a raw list to a list of companies to call.
Article checked on 11 November 2026.
Where to find companies that are hiring
Companies that are hiring show up in their job ads. No single source covers them all: an agency targeting managers looks at APEC, an agency hiring technicians looks at France Travail and Indeed, a tech agency looks at Welcome to the Jungle and LinkedIn Jobs. Combine two or three sources depending on your specialism.
| Source | What you find there |
|---|---|
| Indeed | The widest range of roles and company sizes |
| APEC | Managerial and executive ads |
| France Travail | Ads at every level, including outside big cities |
| Welcome to the Jungle | Startups, scale-ups and digital companies |
| LinkedIn Jobs | Ads from companies active on LinkedIn |
| Careers pages | Ads from the accounts you already follow |
Two public sources help you choose where to look, without giving a list of ads. La Bonne Boîte, a France Travail service, lists companies with strong hiring potential by occupation and area. France Travail's Besoins en main-d'œuvre survey gives hiring plans every year by occupation, sector and employment area.
The hiring signals to read
A hiring signal is a public event showing that a company is hiring, or struggling to. For an agency, three signals can be read in the ads themselves: the new ad, the reposted ad and the hiring spike. They do not say the same thing, and you do not approach them the same way.
The new ad
The need has just opened. The company will first try to hire on its own, but you can already offer a profile. The first agency that calls with a serious candidate has the edge.
The reposted ad
The ad reappears, or stays online for several weeks. The role is holding out: the company has tried, without success. It is often the best moment for an agency, because the hiring manager already feels the cost of the empty seat.
The hiring spike
The same company publishes several ads in a short time. It is growing, opening a site or reorganising. The topic goes beyond one role: offer to help with several hires, or at least the hardest one.
Funding rounds or leadership changes point to a probable need, not an open role. They help rank accounts, less to trigger a call the same day; we explain this in our article on sales intelligence for recruiting.
Sort the list before you call
A raw list of companies that are hiring holds too much noise for an agency: ads outside your specialism, roles already given to a competitor, clients you already look after. Three filters cut the list down to the companies worth a call this week.
- Your specialism. Roles, sectors, location, company size. An agency hiring industrial profiles in the Lyon region ignores the rest.
- Ads already assigned. An ad published by another agency or a temp agency, or "on behalf of our client", is set aside.
- Your CRM. Current client, process under way, account followed by a colleague, former client hiring again: each case calls for a different message.
What remains is your adchase list: companies hiring in your specialism, to which you can offer a candidate.
In Marvin
Marvin does this spotting every morning with its job ad monitoring, Radar, in beta and included in the Suite plan. Signals arrive in the same database as your clients and candidates, so you can sort the list against your CRM without copy-pasting.
- Sources. 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.
- Signals. It flags new ads, reposted ads and companies publishing several ads in a short time.
- Sorting. Ads published by known recruitment agencies are set aside by default. Companies you have a process under way with are flagged and moved down the list.
- Next step. Each company is completed with its legal data (SIREN number, sector, headcount). Radar suggests the type of contact for the role, and you add the decision-maker to an existing sequence.
Radar only reads job ads: it does not track funding rounds or appointments. The full method, from the ad to the meeting, is in our article on adchase.
FAQ
How can I find out which companies are hiring near me in France?
Filter ads by location on the job boards (Indeed, APEC for managerial roles, France Travail, Welcome to the Jungle, LinkedIn Jobs), then group them by company. La Bonne Boîte, a France Travail service, also lists companies with strong hiring potential, even without an ad online.
What is a hiring signal?
A public event showing that a company is hiring or about to hire. The most reliable is the published job ad. A reposted ad points to a role that is hard to fill, and several ads published in a short time by the same company point to growth or a reorganisation.
Is a reposted ad a good signal for an agency?
Often the best one. The role is holding out, the company has already tried to hire on its own, and the value of an agency becomes concrete. Just check that the ad was not published by another agency or a temp agency: in that case, the role is already assigned.
Where can I find statistics on the roles that are hiring in France?
France Travail's annual Besoins en main-d'œuvre survey gives hiring plans by occupation, sector and employment area. For managerial roles, APEC publishes its hiring forecasts every year. These figures help you choose a specialism, not build a prospecting list.