This article is called How to Use Market Intelligence in Recruitment and looks at what you can get by looking at your competitors’ job advertising and at your own team’s track record. When conducting Market Intelligence, consider your direct and indirect competitors’ hiring activities. Their recruiting activities can provide you with significant insight into what their next moves are. Platforms like Globalwork can help verify remote roles and streamline candidate outreach.
Question:
What is “market intelligence in recruitment,” and how can I use competitive hiring data to improve my own talent strategy?
Market intelligence in recruitment refers to the ethical gathering and analysis of your competitors’ hiring activities—such as their job ads, roles, required skills, pay, and locations—to anticipate their moves and inform your own hiring and retention decisions.
What is Market Intelligence?
Market Intelligence is the ethical collection and analysis of competitive information to enable you to avoid surprises, think ahead, and minimise uncertainty, allowing for more informed strategic decisions. It gives you the ability to differentiate yourself and stay ahead of the competition, and in many cases, can be the unspoken, hidden key to success.
Down the right path
It is highly unlikely that your competitor is posting job advertisements to distract you from their activities and lead you down the wrong path. In the UK it is illegal to place a job advert without an actual real job available. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, especially within a minority of organisations within the recruitment agency world. But it is a good assumption that it is probably not the case.
However unlikely, you have to take into account that it is feasible that a competitor may place adverts to throw you off the scent. So, like all things, you should verify anything you find.
How to use Market Intelligence in recruitment
Looking at job postings and talking to competitors at recruitment fairs, you will get an understanding of where they are spending their money. Now, some competitors will tell the world that they are opening a new factory or moving to a new office. Some won’t or will be doing something new within an existing operation.
So, try looking at the job titles they are recruiting for? What skills and qualifications do applicants need? Additionally, what have your recruitment team members heard about the company when speaking with candidates and recruiters?
What to look at for
When looking at their recruitment activity, ask what is this recruitment activity telling me?
- Where in the country are they recruiting? Do they currently have an operation there? Does it indicate a new operation, expansion, relocation or contraction? We have seen this sort of thing missed several times.
- Are they advertising brand new positions or replacements? Do they have retention issues? If so, why? How long are the job openings available? Does this suggest they are having trouble recruiting? Why is that?
- Does it reveal a new set of skills and qualifications which could indicate they are working on a new product or service?
- Are they looking for salespeople, digital marketers, distribution staff, specialist engineers, or software developers? What does this tell you?
- Is there any hint as to where they are looking for staff? Deeper than geographical location, but are they focusing on a competitor’s skill base, your employees or something completely different?
- Is the advertisement a replacement for someone who has left? Were they a vital member of the team? Where have they gone? Are they available, and do you want them?
- What are they offering in terms of package and benefits? Something you could add to your package? Does this make the competitor’s jobs more attractive to your people? What do you want to do about it?
- Are they many CVs within job boards of their current employees looking for a new role?
- What about the CVs of their former employees? What does this tell you? When did they leave? We have seen activity like this in the past, where it highlighted a sustained redundancy program in our client’s supposedly successful competitor. We have isolated this sort of thing, which was missed several times.
What makes a great employee?
You can also use Market Intelligence to look at your people. To determine what makes a great team member within your organisation. Look at their track record and assess what your best people have done in the past, and which university they went to. What did they study? Did they go to university? Have they been entrepreneurial? What makes the good people (and not so good people) tick?
Does that salesperson advert really need a degree in Modern History to develop relationships for your business? Is your receptionist or service manager great at what they do because they have gone through on-the-job training at John Lewis Partnership? The point is that if you don’t look and analyse the situation, you will never know.
Unhappy employee
Also, if you see a team member on a jobs board, it may a sign that they have itchy feet. It may be an excellent time to have a chat to see how they are doing and what the company can do for them.
We are sure there are plenty of analytics software solutions to take all the data and present you with a lovely chart. But we recommend conducting this sort of exercise manually. It needs your experience and intuition to see the patterns of activity and ask the question – So what?
As you can see this sort of insight will help you with your own recruiting and retention activities. And yes, of course, we can help.
How to Use Market Intelligence in Recruitment
Using Market Intelligence helps you understand where competitors are spending their money. What positions are they recruiting for, so you are able to work out what they are doing? What their next move is going to be. This article is called How to Use Market Intelligence in Recruitment and looks at what you can get by looking at your competitors’ job advertising and looking at your own team’s track record.
We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.
Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- How do I start gathering market intelligence on competitors’ hiring?
Begin by monitoring their public job boards, corporate career sites, LinkedIn listings, and recruitment events. Document job titles, required skills, locations, and compensation information. Over time, patterns will emerge that tell you where they may be heading next. - Is it legal or ethical to monitor how competitors hire?
Yes—as long as you only collect publicly available data (job ads, filings, public profiles) and avoid misrepresentation or deception. You should not solicit private documents or breach confidentiality. Always check local laws and codes of conduct relevant to recruitment. - What signals should I look for in competitor job adverts?
Watch for new geographic locations, rare skill sets, unusually long open durations, replacement versus expansion roles, and benefits or salary data. Each of these can hint at growth, difficulty hiring, or shifts in strategic focus. - How do I use internal team data alongside external intelligence?
Analyse your high performers: their backgrounds, education, career paths, and how long they’ve stayed. Compare that with what competitors are demanding to see gaps or opportunities in your own hiring criteria or development paths. - What red flags in market intelligence should prompt a deeper look?
If many competitor roles stay open for a long time, or if many employees from one company suddenly list themselves as open to new opportunities, it might indicate retention problems or a large restructure behind the scenes. - How does market intelligence help with employer branding and retention?
Knowing what your competitors offer in pay, benefits, or career paths enables you to adjust your offerings where needed. You can better tailor retention plans, perks, or training to stay competitive and reduce turnover. - What should I do if I spot a competitor recruiting in a new region?
Investigate whether they already have operations nearby, whether they’re expanding, relocating, or testing a satellite office. Consider your own presence or strategy in that area, and whether you should respond with local talent or employer positioning. - How often should I review and update my recruitment market intelligence?
At minimum quarterly, but monthly or even weekly monitoring can help you catch shifts early. The recruitment landscape changes fast—skills, salaries, and roles evolve—so regular updates are vi
