Your next clients are filed as candidates
An agency that has been placing people for a decade has put a lot of them into jobs. Those people did not stand still. The analyst you placed six years ago runs the team, and the engineer you moved across town is a head of department elsewhere. They hire, and they already know how you work, from the side of the table where an agency is judged hardest.
Almost nobody calls them. The record still says candidate, the employer is years out of date, and no search for clients will ever return it. The relationship a good placement earned sits unused.
This play reads your placements, finds who has stepped into a role that hires, and treats each one as a client conversation. It is the buyer-side counterpart of getting back in touch with candidates who were promoted or changed job: the same detection, a different inbox and a different message.
What you get back
A table of past placements with a detected change: the placement on your record, their title and employer today, whether it was a promotion or a move, and the date where the source gives one. Those in a hiring role are split in two: companies you do not work with, checked against your ideal client, and people still at a client of yours. For the ones that pass, a verified work email and a draft note. Unclear titles and unmatched people are listed separately. Proposed record changes wait for your approval.
Variations worth knowing
Start with your strongest placements. People who stayed, were promoted by the client and said so. A short list of these is a small run and the warmest part of the database.
Add the LinkedIn URL first. Old placement records often lack one, and matching on a name and a former employer fails more often. Filling that column first is a separate paid step, and a profile link is the best identifier the match can be given.
Hiring managers you already sold to. If the person was always a client contact, follow your client contacts when they move company is the play.
Where this goes wrong
Pitching their career to a work inbox. The moment the note mentions their own next move it has become a candidate message in the wrong place. Keep it about their team.
A title is not a budget. Someone can lead a function and have no say over agencies. The note should ask about the team, not assume a mandate.
Old records match badly. A placement from years ago may carry a maiden name, a dead email and no profile link. No match means not checked. It does not mean nothing changed.
Writing as a stranger. A templated opener throws away the one thing you have. Say which role you placed them in, and keep it short.
Trading on a favour. They owe you nothing. The placement earns you a reply, not the business.
