A vacancy names the team, an employer page names a manager and your agency has a contact with the same surname. Before you build an approach around that person, check whether the sources identify the same individual, put them at the right employer and connect them to the relevant team.
This worksheet is for the consultant doing that research. It leaves the next consultant with a usable contact record and a clear question to resolve, rather than a confident name with no explanation behind it.
Start with the vacancy and the contact question
Write down the employer, the team or location and the role you are researching. Then state what you need to establish: perhaps the name of the manager for a particular function, or whether an existing contact still works in that part of the business.
Keep the question narrow. Finding a finance director does not establish that they own a regional payroll vacancy. Finding the person who posted the advertisement may give you a good route for clarification without identifying the hiring manager.
Start with the advertisement and the employer's own website. The Australian Government's employer-contact fact sheet recommends those sources and a general company contact route. It is written for jobseekers, but the source-finding method is useful here. Professional profiles can add context; retain the page and the wording that support your conclusion.
Before adding a new record, look for the person in your agency's existing records. A previous conversation may answer the question or reveal that the relationship belongs with a colleague. Treat those records as sources to check too, especially where the last contact was some time ago.
Copy this contact research worksheet
Use one research sheet per contact question, with a separate row for each source. That makes disagreements visible instead of hiding them inside a combined biography.
| Research field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Contact question | Employer, relevant vacancy or team, and what you need to establish |
| Person identified | Name and enough professional context to distinguish a namesake |
| Source | Exact page or permitted internal record reference |
| Checked on | Date you read the source |
| Information relates to | Date of the appointment, announcement or other fact, if known; otherwise say undated |
| What the source says | Employer, title, team, location or published contact route actually stated |
| What remains an inference | Connection to the vacancy or responsibility that the source does not confirm |
| Conflict | Different employer, title, location or person in another source |
| Next check | Specific question, appropriate contact route and person responsible |
| Use decision | Ready for the stated next step, needs clarification, or do not use; include the reason |
Below the source rows, add a short handover:
Contact question: [what we need to establish].
Sources support: [limited conclusion, with references].
Still unresolved: [specific uncertainty].
Next action: [person] will [check] through [appropriate route] before [proposed use].
These are working fields, not a demand to fill every gap with more personal information. Keep enough context to distinguish the person and resolve the task. The OAIC's APP 3 guidance explains collection limits and data minimisation for entities covered by the Australian Privacy Principles.
Resolve a disagreement without inventing a biography
Consider a hypothetical search for the manager responsible for a regional operations role. An employer announcement names a new regional lead. A professional profile still gives the previous employer, while an older agency note lists someone with the same name in another location.
Record the disagreement as it stands:
| Source | What it supports | What it leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Dated employer appointment announcement | A person with this name was appointed to the regional role at that time | Whether they remain in post and own this vacancy |
| Professional profile with no visible update date | The profile displays a different employer | When it was last maintained and whether it is the same person |
| Older agency note | The agency previously recorded a namesake in another location | Whether the note concerns this individual or a different contact |
The employer announcement is useful evidence of an appointment. It does not make the other records disappear or settle the current vacancy's ownership. Use the employer's published contact route to ask who handles recruitment for the relevant team. Preserve the answer's source and date beside the original research.
If the answer identifies a different person, record the correction. Do not overwrite the old note in a way that makes it appear the agency always knew. A colleague should be able to see why the proposed contact changed.
The OAIC's APP 10 guidance addresses reasonable steps to keep personal information accurate, current and complete, and relevant when used or disclosed. Its practical examples include recording when information was collected and the time to which it relates. Those are two different dates worth keeping in the sheet.
Decide what the contact record allows you to do next
You may have enough evidence to ask a general company contact who owns a vacancy while still lacking enough to approach a named manager with a candidate. Write that distinction in the use decision.
A title or an email address does not establish authority to engage your agency. Once you have the right person, use the separate hiring authority worksheet to confirm which decisions they can make. That article covers engagement, role requirements and offer responsibilities; this sheet establishes the identity and source trail you bring to that conversation.
Contact research also leaves information-use questions to resolve. For covered entities, APP 6 guidance sets out purpose limits and exceptions for secondary uses or disclosures. A research entry is not permission to send candidate information.
If the proposed approach is a marketing message covered by Australian spam rules, check consent, sender identification and the unsubscribe requirements in ACMA's guidance. Finding an address does not answer those questions. Keep the permission evidence with the proposed activity rather than adding a broad “safe to contact” label to the person.
Bring the same checks to Contact Finder
In FluxHire, you can ask the Global AI Centre's Contact Finder specialist to search, then inspect the returned people yourself. Contact Finder is built for Australian and UK searches and flags people who may already be in FluxHire. That flag gives you a reason to check the existing record before adding another; it does not confirm that two people are the same.
You can save people as contacts or candidates and add selected people to JobAdder. Before doing so, use the sheet to check identity, relevance and the intended use. Contact details can be incomplete or out of date, and an agent's ability to save a contact does not establish their hiring authority or your permission to approach them.
The useful handoff is a person you can place in context: where the information came from, what it establishes and who will resolve the remaining question. Bring that contact-research task when you Request early access. Supported records, integrations and review steps are confirmed with each team.