# How to run an MPC or spec campaign with Claude (https://www.hyreflow.ai/blog/how-to-run-a-spec-campaign-with-claude)

By Niklas Huetzen, Co-founder, hyreflow. Published 3 Oct 2026.

> To run an MPC or spec campaign with Claude, give it the candidate's profile and ask hyreflow to build the campaign. hyreflow finds companies likely to want the candidate, checks them against your CRM, finds the decision-maker and a work email at each, and shows you the list for approval. Once you approve it, the anonymised pitch is drafted and the contacts are staged in lemlist as an email and LinkedIn sequence. Nothing sends until you start it.

- A spec campaign pitches one specific person, so it is the outbound a hiring manager is most likely to read.
- hyreflow ranks companies on hiring signals it can check, such as open roles, hiring velocity, a funding round or a new leader, each with its date and source.
- You approve every company before any copy is written. Existing clients and off-limits companies are flagged first.
- The sequence is staged in lemlist across email and LinkedIn, and it does not start until you start it.

## What is an MPC or spec campaign in recruitment? [#what-is-an-mpc-or-spec-campaign-in-recruitment]

A spec campaign markets one strong candidate to companies that have not asked for them. Recruiters also call it an MPC campaign, speccing a candidate, or sending a candidate to market. Instead of pitching your service, you pitch a person.

<Callout type="definition" title="MPC (most placeable candidate)">
  The candidate on your desk you are most confident you can place. Top Echelon, a recruiting network, describes most placeable candidates as people with "a rare blend of skills, experience, and qualities closely aligned with the requirements of top-tier positions".
</Callout>

The approach matters more when new business is hard to win. In Bullhorn's 2026 Recruitment Industry Trends Report, a survey of nearly 2,300 recruitment professionals, firms named hiring freezes and budget constraints as the biggest obstacles to winning new business, with competition from other firms second. A pitch about a specific person is one of the few messages that stands out in that market.

Agencies rarely run spec campaigns at volume because of the work involved. One candidate means finding the right companies, working out who owns the hire at each, checking none of them is already a client, and writing something specific. hyreflow does that groundwork from one prompt in Claude.

## What do you need to run a spec campaign? [#what-do-you-need-to-run-a-spec-campaign]

Four things, and one of them is not a tool.

* **The candidate's profile**, as a CV file, pasted text, or a record in a connected ATS such as Atlas, Loxo or JobAdder.
* **The candidate's consent** to be represented speculatively. Do not start without it.
* **A connected CRM or ATS**, so existing clients are recognised before anyone cold-approaches them.
* **A lemlist account** with your mailbox and LinkedIn connected, and your own off-limits list if you have non-solicit agreements.

hyreflow itself is added to Claude as a connector. The setup is in [How to source candidates with Claude](/blog/how-to-source-candidates-with-claude).

## How does a spec campaign work, step by step? [#how-does-a-spec-campaign-work-step-by-step]

The campaign moves through five stages, and you approve the list in the middle of it.

<Flow
  steps="[
  { title: 'Candidate', detail: 'CV or ATS record' },
  { title: 'Companies', detail: 'who should want them' },
  { title: 'Decision-makers', detail: 'with work emails' },
  { title: 'Your approval', detail: 'every name reviewed' },
  { title: 'lemlist', detail: 'sequence staged', end: true },
]"
  caption="<><b>From one profile to a staged sequence.</b> Nothing is drafted before you approve the list, and nothing is sent before you start the campaign.</>"
/>

<Steps>
  <Step title="Bring the candidate into Claude">
    Paste the CV, attach the file, or point Claude at the candidate's record in your ATS. hyreflow first checks that this is a candidate worth speccing: someone in a discipline companies hire opportunistically, who can be pitched in a paragraph.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Find the companies, two ways">
    hyreflow looks for live job postings the candidate fits, and separately builds a list of companies that resemble their recent employers, whether or not those companies are advertising. The combined list is de-duplicated, tiered, and cut to your radius. You can ask it to check each company for further hiring signals, covered below.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check the list against your CRM">
    Each company is matched against your connected CRM by domain. Companies you already know are routed to you as a warm call. Current clients and anything on your off-limits list are flagged or dropped before any money is spent on contact data.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Find the decision-maker and their work email">
    For the companies that are new to you, hyreflow finds the person who would own this hire and looks up a work email. A work address is correct here, because you are contacting a company about a professional matter.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Approve the list">
    You see every company with the role or the reason it fits, the fit score, the CRM flag and any off-limits flag. You approve, edit or cut. No copy is written before this point.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Draft the pitch and stage the sequence">
    hyreflow writes the anonymised pitch and adds the approved contacts to your lemlist campaign. The campaign stays idle until you start it.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<WorksWith tools="['exa', 'predictleads', 'prospeo', 'lusha', 'atlas', 'loxo', 'bullhorn', 'lemlist']" label="Tools this workflow can use" />

## What prompt starts a spec campaign in Claude? [#what-prompt-starts-a-spec-campaign-in-claude]

Describe the candidate, say how many companies you want, and state the rules. The full prompt is on the [spec campaign playbook page](/skills/candidate-to-spec-campaign); this is the core of it.

Prompt (Claude):

> Use hyreflow and spec this candidate out to about 15 companies most likely to want them. Look for live roles they fit and for companies that resemble their recent employers. Check each company against my CRM and drop my existing clients. Find the decision-maker and a work email at the rest. Show me the full list for approval before you write any copy. Then draft an anonymised pitch and stage the sequence in lemlist. Do not send.

What comes back: A target list with one row per company: the role or the reason it fits, a fit score, whether you already know them, any off-limits flag, and the decision-maker with title and work email. After your approval, an anonymised pitch and a staged lemlist sequence.

<Callout type="tip">
  Ask for fewer companies than you think you need. For a strong candidate, eight companies you feel good about beat twenty-five with noise in them.
</Callout>

## Which hiring signals can hyreflow check? [#which-hiring-signals-can-hyreflow-check]

hyreflow can check a company for ten kinds of hiring signal, and each one is a reason that company might want your candidate now. By default a spec campaign uses two: open roles the candidate fits, and companies that resemble their recent employers. The others are separate hyreflow playbooks you can ask for in the same prompt.

| Signal                                                                     | What hyreflow checks                                                                 | What it tells you                                                  |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| [Open roles](/skills/cv-to-hiring-managers)                                | Live postings on LinkedIn, Indeed and company career pages that the candidate fits   | There is a budget and a named need today                           |
| [Hiring velocity](/skills/expansion-signal)                                | A run of roles first seen recently, a reported headcount increase, or a new location | The team is growing beyond one hire                                |
| [Volume without a recruiter](/skills/hiring-at-volume-without-a-recruiter) | Several roles in your discipline and no sign of an in-house recruiter                | A manager is carrying the hiring alone                             |
| [Stale roles](/skills/stale-job-ads-pitch)                                 | Roles open past a threshold you set, with the date each was first seen               | The hire is proving hard, so a ready candidate lands               |
| [Fundraising](/skills/funding-round-to-hiring-manager)                     | Recent funding rounds, by round type and date                                        | Hiring is coming before the job adverts appear                     |
| [New leader](/skills/new-leadership-hire-to-bd)                            | Recent leadership appointments in your market                                        | A new hiring manager is about to build a team and choose suppliers |
| [A leader left](/skills/a-leader-left-backfill-signal)                     | Senior departures at your target accounts, and any backfill already advertised       | A seat needs filling before the search is briefed out              |
| [Hiring posts](/skills/linkedin-hiring-posts-this-week)                    | LinkedIn posts from the past week in which a manager announces a role                | A need that may never become a job advert                          |
| [Contract wins](/skills/contract-win-signal)                               | Announced contracts, major clients and partnerships                                  | Work has been won that still has to be staffed                     |
| [Technology](/skills/tech-adoption-signal)                                 | Companies using a technology, hiring for it, or both                                 | The candidate's core skill is in demand there                      |

Signals change the list in three ways. They rank it: a company showing two signals sits above a company showing one. They make it checkable, because every signal comes back with its date and its source, so you can see why a company is on the list before you approve it. And they write the opening line. A pitch that starts from the funding round or the role that has been open for six weeks reads as specific, because it is.

To use them, add a second instruction after the main prompt.

Prompt (Claude):

> For each company on the list, check for hiring signals: open roles in this discipline, how many roles they have opened recently, a funding round in the last six months, and a new leader in this function. Rank companies with two or more signals first, and show the date and source for each signal.

What comes back: The same target list, re-ranked, with a signals column: what was found at each company, when, and where it came from. A company with no signal found stays on the list and shows none; nothing is invented to fill the gap.

## How does spec campaign outreach run through lemlist? [#how-does-spec-campaign-outreach-run-through-lemlist]

lemlist sends the campaign across email and LinkedIn as one sequence, so a hiring manager who ignores the email still gets a LinkedIn touch. hyreflow loads each approved contact with their email and LinkedIn profile, and lemlist runs the steps.

lemlist's help centre lists the LinkedIn steps it supports, including a profile visit, an invitation and a chat message, and notes that a standard invitation note can be "up to 200 characters". A spec sequence built on those steps might look like this:

| Day | Channel  | Step                                                      |
| --- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| 0   | Email    | The anonymised pitch, three or four sentences             |
| 2   | LinkedIn | Profile visit, then an invitation with a one-line note    |
| 5   | Email    | A short follow-up with one new detail about the candidate |
| 9   | LinkedIn | A message, sent only if the invitation was accepted       |

This is an example of the structure, not a tested recipe. Adjust the steps and the gaps in lemlist to match how your market responds. After the campaign starts, you can ask Claude who replied, and hyreflow reads the activity back from lemlist.

## What should a spec email say? [#what-should-a-spec-email-say]

The pitch is anonymised: discipline, seniority, achievements and availability, with no name and no current employer. That protects the candidate, and it means the company answers the profile instead of looking the person up.

The email is a teaser, not a CV. Sequencers do not accept file attachments through their APIs, so the full profile goes out from your own inbox once a hiring manager replies with interest. In practice that is the better order anyway: the reply starts a conversation.

<Callout type="warning">
  Give hyreflow your off-limits list before you run this. Non-solicit agreements are contractual, and the check can only flag the companies you have told it about.
</Callout>

## Where does an AI-run spec campaign fall short? [#where-does-an-ai-run-spec-campaign-fall-short]

<Limits>
  A spec campaign cannot fix the wrong candidate. Someone in a narrow discipline that companies only hire against an open requisition will not get replies, however good the outreach. hyreflow matches existing clients by company domain, so a client missing from your CRM will not be caught. LinkedIn steps run through your own LinkedIn account in lemlist and are subject to LinkedIn's limits. This guide describes how the workflow runs; it does not report results from a measured campaign. And judge a campaign by positive replies, not reply rate, because reply rate counts every polite no.
</Limits>

<InlineCTA title="Run it on a candidate you have today" action="Open the playbook" href="/skills/candidate-to-spec-campaign">
  The playbook page has the full prompt, each step and what it costs.
</InlineCTA>

## Questions recruiters ask about spec campaigns [#questions-recruiters-ask-about-spec-campaigns]

### Which candidates is a spec campaign worth running for?

Candidates in disciplines companies hire opportunistically, who can be described in a paragraph: sales people, engineers, qualified accountants, clinical staff. hyreflow checks this first and tells you if the candidate is a poor fit for the approach.

### Does the candidate's name go out?

No. The pitch hyreflow drafts is anonymised, with no name and no current employer. The name is shared only after a company engages and the candidate agrees.

### How does hyreflow know which companies are already my clients?

hyreflow matches each company against your connected CRM by domain before it looks up any contacts. Existing relationships are routed to you directly, so a client never receives a cold email from their own supplier.

### Why a work email, when candidate sourcing uses personal emails?

Because the direction is reversed. You are writing to a company about a professional matter, which is what a work address is for. When you approach a candidate about leaving their employer, the work inbox is the wrong channel.

### Can the candidate's profile be attached to the email?

No. The sequencers do not support attachments through their APIs. The sequence sends a teaser, and you send the profile from your own inbox when someone replies.

### Is this useful for in-house talent acquisition teams?

Not this workflow. A spec campaign is business development for agencies. In-house teams use hyreflow for the sourcing side: building a shortlist for an open role and syncing candidates into their ATS. If you are weighing sourcing tools, see [Juicebox vs hyreflow](/blog/juicebox-vs-hyreflow).

## Sources

- [Most Placeable Candidates: How to Market Them as a Recruiter](https://topechelon.com/recruiter-training/marketing-most-placeable-candidates-mpcs-for-search-assignments/), Top Echelon. Checked 3 Oct 2026
- [2026 Recruitment Industry Trends Report](https://www.bullhorn.com/grid/2026-industry-trends/report/), Bullhorn. Checked 3 Oct 2026
- [How to add LinkedIn steps to your sequence](https://help.lemlist.com/en/articles/4686779-how-to-add-linkedin-steps-to-your-sequence), lemlist Help Center. Checked 3 Oct 2026
- [Spec one strong candidate out to fifteen companies](https://www.hyreflow.ai/skills/candidate-to-spec-campaign), hyreflow. Checked 3 Oct 2026
- [lemlist in hyreflow](https://www.hyreflow.ai/tools/lemlist), hyreflow. Checked 3 Oct 2026