Your first RecruitMCP call in 5 minutes

Find backend engineers in Ghent from inside Claude or Cursor, with one config file and one question.

Get your free API key: 1,250 free credits. No card needed.

What you need

A RecruitMCP API key (step 1)
Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor
For Claude Desktop only: Node.js, so npx works

1. Get your key (1 minute)

Open recruitmcp.com/login.
Continue with GitHub, Google or email (you get a sign-in link by email).
Your first sign-in creates your workspace with 1,250 free credits and opens a Your API key popup. Copy the key right away. It starts with rmcp_live_ and is shown only once.

Keep the key out of your code and out of git. Put it in an environment variable:

export RECRUITMCP_KEY="paste-your-key-here"

2. Add the MCP server (2 minutes)

The server lives at https://mcp.recruitmcp.com/mcp and takes your key as a Bearer token. Pick your client.

Claude Code

Create .mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recruitmcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.recruitmcp.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${RECRUITMCP_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code reads ${RECRUITMCP_KEY} from your environment, so the key never lands in the file. Start Claude Code from the shell where you exported the key, then run /mcp to check that recruitmcp is connected.

Cursor

Create .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for all projects):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recruitmcp": {
      "url": "https://mcp.recruitmcp.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:RECRUITMCP_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor needs the ${env:NAME} form. A plain $RECRUITMCP_KEY is sent as literal text and will not authenticate. Open Cursor Settings, then MCP, and check that recruitmcp shows its tools.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop connects to remote servers through mcp-remote. Add this to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recruitmcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote@latest",
        "https://mcp.recruitmcp.com/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer ${RECRUITMCP_KEY}"
      ],
      "env": {
        "RECRUITMCP_KEY": "paste-your-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving. This file holds your key, so keep it private.

3. Ask for a people search (1 minute)

Type this in your client:

Find backend engineers in Ghent, Belgium. Do a dry run first and show me the estimate, then show me 5 results.

Behind the scenes your client makes three tool calls:

resolve_location turns "Ghent, Belgium" into an id. Location filters take ids, not free text. You get 90009596, the Ghent Metropolitan Area. This call is free.

search_people with dry_run: true previews the search and charges nothing:

{
  "filters": {
    "current_job_titles": ["Backend Engineer"],
    "geo_ids": ["90009596"]
  },
  "limit": 5,
  "dry_run": true
}

search_people runs the same call without dry_run.

4. See your results (1 minute)

You get a short profile per person: full_name, current position, location, profile_id and profile_url. The response also has cost.credits, so you always see what a call spent.

From here, ask for full profiles of the people you like (enrich_profiles), save them to a list (save_to_list), or narrow the search with more filters.

Prefer curl?

Same flow over the REST API.

Resolve the place (free):

curl -sS 'https://api.recruitmcp.com/v1/lookups/locations?q=Ghent&prefer_area=true' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RECRUITMCP_KEY"

Preview the search (free):

curl -sS -X POST 'https://api.recruitmcp.com/v1/people/search?dry_run=true' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RECRUITMCP_KEY" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"filters":{"current_job_titles":["Backend Engineer"],"geo_ids":["90009596"]},"limit":5}'

Run it. A paid REST call needs an Idempotency-Key header, so a retry never charges twice:

curl -sS -X POST 'https://api.recruitmcp.com/v1/people/search' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RECRUITMCP_KEY" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: first-call-$(date +%s)" \
  -d '{"filters":{"current_job_titles":["Backend Engineer"],"geo_ids":["90009596"]},"limit":5}'

The X-Credits-Charged response header shows what the call spent.

Troubleshooting

401 or no tools in Cursor: check that you used ${env:RECRUITMCP_KEY} and that Cursor was started with the variable set.
No tools in Claude Code: start it from the shell where you ran export RECRUITMCP_KEY=..., then check /mcp.
Missing a tool: tools/list only shows the tools your key's scopes allow.

Full reference: recruitmcp.com/docs and recruitmcp.com/docs/mcp.

Ready?

Get your free API key and run your first search in the next 5 minutes. 1,250 free credits.

Your first RecruitMCP call in 5 minutes