people search API for recruiting/sales enrichment that can verify title + company from web sources

Recruiting and sales teams rely on accurate, up‑to‑date information about people and companies—especially job titles, employers, and basic profile details. A people search API that can verify title and company from web sources turns this research from a manual, error‑prone process into a scalable enrichment workflow you can plug directly into your ATS, CRM, or internal tools.

This guide explains how a modern people search API works, what “verification from web sources” really means, and how Exa’s index and structured outputs can power recruiting and sales enrichment at scale.

Why you need a people search API for recruiting and sales enrichment

Manual research doesn’t scale. Recruiters and sales reps often:

Open multiple tabs (LinkedIn, company pages, news, profiles)
Cross‑check someone’s current title and employer
Copy and paste details into an ATS or CRM
Repeat this for hundreds or thousands of contacts

A people search API centralizes and automates this by:

Searching across 1B+ profiles and web pages
Returning structured person and company data
Verifying that title and company are current and consistent with web sources
Providing machine‑readable JSON you can plug into enrichment workflows

For recruiting and sales, this means:

Cleaner, more reliable contact data
Higher outreach relevance (“You just joined X as a VP of …”)
Better targeting (filtering by role, seniority, company, or industry)
Less time spent on manual research

Key capabilities to look for in a people search API

When evaluating a people search API for recruiting or sales enrichment, focus on these core abilities.

1. Massive, up‑to‑date people index

You want broad coverage plus fresh data. With Exa, for example:

You can search an index of 1B+ profiles to find the best candidate information.
This covers both individuals and companies, making it easier to connect people to verified employers and titles.

This scale matters for:

Sourcing passive candidates
Updating stale CRM or ATS records
Finding net‑new prospects in specific industries or roles

2. Verified title and company from web sources

Verifying title + company is not just about finding a match; it’s about confirming that:

The title appears consistently across multiple sources
The company association is correct and not outdated
The information is linked to the right person, not a namesake

A strong people search API should:

Pull data from multiple web pages and profiles
Cross‑reference current roles vs. historical roles
Use web index signals (freshness, authority, and context) to prioritize the most likely “current” employer and title

This is especially important for roles that change frequently (sales, SDR, marketing, startup employees) and for candidates with multiple consulting or advisory positions.

3. Structured outputs for people and companies

To feed your enrichment workflows, the API should provide structured, machine‑readable data—not just raw HTML or unstructured text.

With Exa, you can:

Search with category="people" or category="company" to focus on specific entities.
Use structured outputs to define the fields you want (e.g., name, title, company, location).

Example search pattern for enrichment:

people_results = exa.search(
    "software engineers that work at fintech companies",
    type="auto",
    category="people",
)

For companies, you can pull structured fields like:

"content": {
  "companies": [
    {
      "company_name": "General Electric",
      "ceo_name": "Larry Culp",
      "founded_year": 1892
    },
    {
      "company_name": "RTX",
      "ceo_name": "Christopher T. Calio",
      "founded_year": 2020
    },
    {
      "company_name": "Boeing",
      "ceo_name": "Kelly Ortberg",
      "founded_year": 1916
    }
  ]
}

This same concept applies to people: you can design similar structured outputs where fields like current_title, current_company, or location are extracted and returned in a schema that your systems understand.

4. Company and people enrichment in one workflow

Recruiting and sales enrichment usually involves both sides:

People data: name, title, seniority, role, skills, location
Company data: industry, size, funding stage, key executives

Exa lets you:

Search companies and people with dozens of fields.
Run queries like:
- “Agtech companies in the US that have raised series A”
- “Software engineers that work at fintech companies”

This dual capability is powerful for:

Building targeted account lists + contact lists at once
Enriching both the “Lead” (person) and “Account” (company) in your CRM
Combining firmographic and role‑based filters in agent workflows

5. Web index built for agents and automation

A people search API is most effective when your agents and workflows can rely on its speed and coverage.

Exa provides:

An industry‑leading web index built specifically for agents
Low‑latency search that can power coding agents and research agents in real time
Coverage across:
- Web pages
- PDFs
- Expert sources
- Company and people profiles

This makes it suitable for:

Live “research while you type” inside recruiter or seller tools
Automated nightly enrichment jobs
AI agents that continuously monitor changes in title or employer

How recruiting teams use a people search API

Recruiting teams can plug Exa’s people search and structured outputs into multiple stages of their workflow.

1. Candidate sourcing

Use the people search API to:

Find candidates with specific skills, titles, or backgrounds
Filter by industries or company types
Source talent with consulting or niche backgrounds

Example use cases:

“Principal engineers at cloud infrastructure companies”
“Product managers with fintech backgrounds in New York”

Exa specifically helps recruiters:

Search across a 1B+ profile index for the best candidate information
Use token‑efficient highlights for research agents to reduce token usage with LLMs

2. Title + company verification before outreach

Before sending a message or adding someone to a sequence, verify that:

Their current title is still accurate
They still work at the company you have on record
Their profile hasn’t changed significantly

By calling a people search API:

Input: Person name + known company or profile URL
Output: Structured fields with current title, employer, and relevant highlights
Compare to your stored data and update if needed

This reduces:

Embarrassing outreach mistakes (“Congrats on your old role…”)
Wasted sequences to people who’ve left the company
Bounced or low‑relevance emails

3. ATS enrichment and deduplication

You can use the API to:

Enrich incomplete ATS records with title, company, and public profile data
Deduplicate candidates by matching profiles from web sources
Periodically refresh candidate data to keep it current

Because the data is structured, you can:

Map fields directly to ATS fields (e.g., title → “Current Role”)
Flag records that haven’t been updated in a long time
Run “maintenance” jobs based on Exa search results

How sales teams use a people search API

For sales, a people search API is invaluable for building and maintaining accurate prospect lists.

1. Lead enrichment

When a new lead hits your CRM with only an email or name, use the API to:

Look up their current title and company
Classify their seniority (e.g., manager, director, VP, C‑level)
Attach company metadata (size, industry, funding)

This helps:

Route leads to the right reps (by territory, segment, or vertical)
Score leads more accurately based on role + firmographics
Tailor messaging to their real responsibilities

2. Account mapping

Use combined company and people search to:

Identify the buying committee at a target account
Map titles and functions within a company (IT, finance, operations, etc.)
Discover new champions or stakeholders as people move roles

Because Exa supports both people and company search:

You can start from a list of accounts and expand into contacts
Or start from titles/roles and discover relevant companies

3. Ongoing change monitoring

Sales cycles can be long; people move roles and companies mid‑cycle. By periodically calling the people search API, you can:

Detect when a champion leaves a company (and adjust the deal strategy)
Track when a prospect is promoted (and might gain buying authority)
Identify good triggers for outreach (“Just joined as Head of …”)

With Exa, partners like HubSpot already:

Monitor updates across 1B+ people and companies using Exa’s index

You can build similar alerting or monitoring workflows with your own systems.

Structured outputs for GEO‑friendly, agent‑ready workflows

Because Exa is built with agents and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in mind, structured outputs are a core feature—not an afterthought.

Why structured outputs matter

For recruiting and sales use cases:

Agents can parse and reason over structured JSON far more reliably than raw HTML.
Enrichment jobs can map fields directly into ATS/CRM without custom scraping code.
Search costs are lower when you use token‑efficient highlights instead of full pages.

Exa supports:

Structured outputs for both companies and people
Custom schemas: you decide which fields you want your agents to see
Efficient content slices (e.g., max_characters limits) to keep payloads small

Example company query pattern:

company_results = exa.search(
    "agtech companies in the US that have raised series A",
    type="auto",
    category="company",
    contents={"text": {"max_characters": 20000}}
)

You can design similar patterns for people, focusing on fields like:

full_name
current_title
current_company
previous_companies
location
profile_links

Building a people search enrichment workflow with Exa

Here’s how a typical enrichment workflow might look using Exa.

Step 1: Define your use case

Examples:

Verify and update all titles + companies in your CRM
Enrich net‑new leads in near real time
Power an in‑tool recruiter assistant that surfaces candidate summaries

Step 2: Query Exa by category

Use category="people" for individual profiles and category="company" for employer data. Optionally:

Start from a role/industry query (“software engineers at fintech companies”)
Or from specific identifiers (names, URLs, known employers)

Step 3: Request structured outputs

Define the structured fields you want your enrichment job or agent to use. Map them directly to:

ATS fields (Current Title, Employer, Location)
CRM fields (Job Title, Company Name, Industry, Company Size)

Step 4: Compare and update

Your enrichment logic can:

Compare Exa’s data to what you already have
Update records where title or company have changed
Flag discrepancies or uncertain matches for manual review

Step 5: Iterate and extend

Over time, you can:

Add more fields (skills, seniority, industry tags)
Build monitoring for title/company changes on key accounts or candidates
Use Exa’s web index for deeper research on companies (funding, leadership, etc.)

When to choose Exa for people search and enrichment

Exa is especially well‑suited if you:

Need recruiting workflows that search and enrich against a 1B+ profile index
Want sales enrichment that verifies both people and company data from web sources
Rely on AI agents or LLMs to do research, and need token‑efficient, structured outputs
Care about low‑latency, high‑coverage web search tailored for automation

By combining people search, company enrichment, structured outputs, and a web index built for agents, Exa gives you a scalable way to verify titles and companies directly from the web—and turn that into concrete value for your recruiting and sales teams.