How Recruiters Find Companies That Are Hiring Before the Req Goes Public
A practical framework for recruiting consultants to detect hiring intent early, prioritize outreach, and build a more predictable client pipeline.
Recruiting consultants usually lose before the conversation starts.
Not because of outreach quality. Not because of offer positioning.
Because timing is wrong.
Most outreach starts when a company has already posted publicly and every recruiter is already in the inbox. At that point, competition is high and differentiation is hard.
The better approach is to identify companies that are entering hiring mode before reqs become crowded.
What “hiring intent” actually means
Hiring intent is the set of signals that suggest a company is likely to add headcount in the next 30 to 90 days.
This is different from just seeing one random job post.
Strong hiring intent usually appears as a pattern:
The 5-signal framework
Use a weekly scan and score companies across five indicators.
1) Job posting velocity
Track posting frequency by company and by function.
A sudden increase is often the first clear indicator.
2) Role mix change
If a company starts adding adjacent roles (Ops + Sales + CS), that points to growth phase, not one-off replacement.
3) Senior hire trigger
New VP/Head-level hires are common precursors to team buildouts.
4) Team expansion language
Watch for language like “scaling,” “new market,” “expanding team,” or “building from the ground up.”
5) Repeat hiring behavior
Companies that hired in waves in prior quarters usually do it again.
Prioritization model (high / medium / low intent)
High intent
Medium intent
Low intent
Outreach sequence by intent tier
For high-intent companies:
1) Personalized opener tied to active hiring signals
2) Short capability proof (niche candidates, speed, fill history)
3) Clear next step (15-minute qualification call)
For medium-intent companies:
1) Value-first message + market observation
2) Follow-up with signal update when new indicator appears
3) Move to high-intent queue when threshold is met
Common mistakes recruiting consultants make
Implementation cadence (simple and repeatable)
Run this cadence every week:
Done consistently, this improves meeting quality and pipeline predictability.
Final takeaway
The edge is not “more outreach.”
The edge is targeting companies when hiring intent is real and timing is favorable.
If you want to operationalize this workflow quickly, use Annabot to build a high-intent company list and run your outreach against ranked demand signals.