How to Source Candidates on SEEK in 2026: A Complete Guide

SEEK is Australia's largest job board, with over 175,000 active listings at any given time. For recruitment agencies, it serves a dual purpose: it's where candidates search for roles, and it's the richest source of data on which companies are actively hiring. Yet most agencies use SEEK the same way a job seeker does — scrolling through listings one at a time. There's a better way.

This guide covers how to use SEEK systematically for sourcing: setting up search configurations, understanding classification codes, building keyword strategies, managing duplicates, and automating the process.

Step 1: Understanding SEEK Classifications

SEEK organises all job listings into 29 top-level classifications (such as Information & Communication Technology, Accounting, and Healthcare & Medical) and over 350 sub-classifications. Using the correct classification code in your search is critical because employers choose their classification when posting, and a keyword-only search will miss listings where the title doesn't match your keywords but the classification does.

SEEK doesn't just use keywords to categorise jobs. Every listing is assigned a classification and sub-classification by the employer when posting. The 29 top-level classifications include:

• Information & Communication Technology (6281) — 27 sub-classifications from Business/Systems Analysts to Web Development
• Accounting (1200) — includes Financial Accounting, Management, Taxation
• Healthcare & Medical (1211) — 34 sub-classifications from Dental to Physiotherapy
• Construction (1209) — from Estimating to Project Management
• Engineering (1209) — Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Mining

When you search by classification, you capture every listing in that category regardless of job title variations. A "Software Developer," "Software Engineer," and "Full Stack Dev" are all in the same sub-classification, so classification-based searching catches them all without needing to guess every possible title variation.

Step 2: Setting Up Search Configurations

A search configuration is a saved combination of keywords, classification code, location, and filters that can be run repeatedly to monitor new listings. Effective search configurations use classification codes as the primary filter and keywords as a secondary refinement. The optimal approach is to create one configuration per niche or vertical, running each daily to catch new listings within 24 hours of posting.

Rather than running ad-hoc searches, the most effective approach is to create saved search configurations that you run daily or weekly. Each configuration should specify:

• Classification + sub-classification — your primary filter
• Location — state, city, or postcode radius
• Keywords — additional terms to narrow results within the classification
• Date range — typically last 7-14 days to avoid stale listings
• Salary range — optional, useful for filtering seniority

For a recruitment agency specialising in IT in Sydney, an example configuration might be: Classification 6281 (ICT), Sub-classification "Developers/Programmers," Location "Sydney CBD & Inner Suburbs," Keywords "Python OR Java OR TypeScript," Date range "Last 7 days."

Step 3: Keyword Strategies That Work

SEEK's search engine supports Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and exact phrase matching with quotation marks. The most effective keyword strategy for recruitment agencies combines skill-based terms with seniority indicators: for example, "Python AND (Senior OR Lead OR Principal) NOT Junior NOT Graduate." This reduces noise from entry-level listings while capturing the mid-to-senior roles where recruitment fees are highest.

SEEK supports Boolean operators, which most recruiters underuse. Here are keyword patterns that work well for sourcing:

• Skill + seniority: "SAP" AND ("Senior" OR "Lead" OR "Manager")
• Exclusion: "Project Manager" NOT "Junior" NOT "Graduate" NOT "Assistant"
• Tech stack: "React" OR "Angular" OR "Vue" AND "Senior"
• Industry-specific: "Mining" AND ("Electrical Engineer" OR "Instrumentation")

Avoid single broad keywords like "developer" or "manager" — they return thousands of irrelevant results. The more specific your keyword combination, the higher the signal-to-noise ratio.

Step 4: Location Targeting

SEEK's location system uses a hierarchy of areas: national, state, region, and suburb. For business development, state-level searches identify the most hiring companies across a broad area, while suburb-level searches are useful for verticals like healthcare and construction where proximity matters. Remote and hybrid roles should be captured separately, as SEEK now allows "Work from home" as a location filter.

SEEK's location hierarchy is important for coverage:

• National — all of Australia (useful for niche roles with few listings)
• State — e.g., "New South Wales" or "Victoria" (best for broad BD sweeps)
• Region — e.g., "Sydney" or "Melbourne" (most common)
• Suburb/area — e.g., "North Sydney" or "Parramatta" (useful for geo-specific verticals)

For business development, start with state-level searches to identify companies hiring across your vertical, then drill into specific regions for your outreach list. Don't forget to run a separate search for "Work from home" listings, which have grown to represent over 18% of SEEK listings in 2026.

Step 5: Deduplication and Data Quality

Running multiple SEEK search configurations across overlapping classifications and locations generates duplicate company and job records. Effective deduplication requires matching on a combination of company name (normalised to handle variations like "Pty Ltd" vs "PTY LTD"), job title, and location. Without deduplication, agencies waste time contacting the same company multiple times from different lists.

When you run multiple search configurations, duplicates are inevitable. The same company might appear in both "ICT > Developers" and "ICT > Architects" searches. Effective deduplication needs to handle:

• Company name variations — "Acme Pty Ltd" vs "ACME PTY LTD" vs "Acme"
• Same company, different roles — a company with 5 open roles should appear once in your target list, not five times
• Relisted roles — employers often relist the same role after 30 days, creating false "new" listings

Manual deduplication in a spreadsheet breaks down at scale. For agencies running 5+ search configurations weekly, automated deduplication is essential.

Step 6: From Listings to Outreach

The final step in SEEK sourcing is converting job listing data into an outreach-ready prospect list. For each company found with active listings, the key enrichment steps are: identify the hiring decision-maker (usually Head of Talent, HR Director, or Hiring Manager for larger companies; CEO or MD for smaller ones), find their email address, verify the email, and add them to a personalised outreach sequence that references their specific open role.

A SEEK listing tells you that a company is hiring, what role they need, and where they're located. What it doesn't give you is the decision-maker's name, email, or phone number. The enrichment process bridges that gap:

1. Identify the decision-maker — for companies under 50 employees, this is usually the MD or CEO. For larger companies, it's Head of Talent or HR Director.
2. Find their email — using company domain + name patterns
3. Verify the email — essential before sending. A bounced cold email damages your domain reputation.
4. Build the outreach sequence — referencing the specific SEEK listing as your opening signal

How Kolvera Automates SEEK Sourcing

Kolvera automates the entire SEEK sourcing workflow from search to outreach. Users configure searches by classification, location, and keywords, and Kolvera runs them on a schedule, automatically deduplicating results against the existing database. Each new company is enriched with decision-maker contacts, and prospects can be enrolled into AI-personalised email campaigns directly from the pipeline, with the SEEK job listing used as the personalisation signal.

Kolvera's lead scraping engine handles the entire workflow described above. You set up a search configuration with your classification, location, and keywords. The system runs the search on your schedule, deduplicates against your existing database (using normalised company names and a 1-hour smart-skip window to avoid re-scraping), and presents new companies in your pipeline.

From the pipeline, one click finds decision-maker contacts. Another click adds them to an AI-powered email campaign that uses the SEEK job listing as its personalisation signal. The system generates a first line like "I noticed the Senior Developer role you posted in Sydney last week" — because it actually scraped that listing and knows the details.

For agencies running 5-10 SEEK search configurations across multiple verticals and locations, this replaces 2-3 hours of daily manual work with a process that runs in the background.