Read Your Competitors’ Job Postings To See What They’re Up To

Yes, you should monitor your competitors’ job postings

When it comes to competitive intelligence, monitoring your competitors’ job postings is probably not the first thing that comes to mind.

I get it–you just want to know their next move, and job postings don’t seem to be the right place to look.

But hear me out, there are some reason what why it’s a good idea to monitor your competitors’ job postings. For example, it:

• allows you to stay on top of current market trends and see what positions your competitors are hiring for. This can give you valuable insights into the types of skills and experience they prioritize and potential growth areas within your industry.
• helps you identify gaps in your company’s hiring strategy. Are there certain roles or skill sets that your competitors are looking for that you haven’t considered? This could indicate a need for change or expansion within your own team.
• gives you a sense of their overall recruitment efforts and strategies. Do they have a strong presence on certain job boards or social media platforms? Are they utilizing specific recruitment tactics, such as hosting virtual career fairs or offering referral bonuses?

Sometimes, you don’t even have to infer. Often, job descriptions include explicit details about the company’s needs and goals. These specifics can give you direct insights into their strategies and upcoming projects.

Questions you can answer when checking your competitors' job postings:

- Is the company expanding or experiencing high turnover? Analyzing job postings can help determine if a competitor is in a growth phase or struggling with high employee turnover. Frequent postings for similar positions might indicate the latter, whereas an array of new roles signals expansion.

- What are they focusing on? The types of roles being advertised can offer clues into what areas the company is prioritizing. For instance, an influx of tech-related jobs might suggest focusing on digital transformation or product development.

- What types of teams are they outsourcing? Job postings can also reveal which departments are being outsourced. This information is crucial as it exposes areas where competitors may be looking to optimize costs or lack internal expertise.

What pages to monitor the job postings of your competitors?

Now, there are some key pages you can monitor to see if your competitors are advertising for a job.

Start with the competitor’s career page. This is usually the most up-to-date source for their job listings and often provides more detailed descriptions than third-party sites.

For companies embracing remote work, sites like We Work Remotely offer a job recruiting platform to help you understand their remote work policies and geographic expansion efforts.

Finally, LinkedIn. LinkedIn lists job postings and provides additional context, such as company updates and employee movements. Following your competitors here ensures you stay informed about their latest hiring activities. You may not get detailed salary pay stub info, but it offers key insights into their team composition.

[Bonus] Also check employee reviews

We’re here for competitors’ job postings, so why also check employee reviews? Well, you can get a glimpse of what it is like to work there. For example:

Did they let go of their entire marketing team? Employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor can provide behind-the-scenes insights. If a competitor recently laid off their marketing team, it could signal financial trouble or a strategic pivot.

Are they doing any strategic shift? Reviews often mention significant organizational changes. Look for patterns in the feedback that hint at broader strategic shifts within the company.

How to monitor your competitor pages (including job postings)

You can definitely do that manually (aka go and check all your competitors’ career pages every other day/week/month.

Or…

You can use Unkover! Unkover is a powerful tool that can automate monitoring all of your competitors’ pages, including job postings.

It just takes a couple of minutes to set it up:

• Join Unkover’s 14-day free trial (no credit card to access it)
• Add your competitors using the dropdown

• Add the pages you want to track (i.e., their Careers page)

• Connect with Slack so that Unkover can notify you once a change happens. (Don’t have Slack? We’re implementing an email notification system that will be live soon :eyes:
• You’re all set! Unkover will notify you anytime new competitors’ job postings appear on their websites.

Grab your Unkover free trial today and see what it can do for you.