Hiring-signal prospecting

Applies when a role being hired proves the problem you solve exists at that company this quarter. Produces a short list of buyers inside hiring companies, each with the posting's own pain sentence as the opener.

A job posting is a budget line someone already approved, with the pain written in the job description. It is the one intent signal that names the problem, the timing and the owner in the same document. The trap is contacting the person being hired for, or the recruiter hiring them, instead of the buyer who signed the budget.

The play

1. Pick the roles that mean "about to buy". The role searched for is the one whose existence proves the problem; it is rarely the buyer. A first SDR means the founder is starting outbound with no tooling, so the buyer is the founder or the Head of Sales. Write the row for the product in hand: "what role does a company post the week before they would buy this?" The signal table is in references/signal-table.md.
2. Read the posting for three lines. The pain sentence ("build our outbound motion from scratch"), the stack (tools in the requirements are the tools they use or are leaving), and the boss ("reports to the VP Sales" names the buyer). Freshness beats volume: under 30 days is a live budget, over 90 is filled or frozen, a repost every two weeks is its own opener. Reading guide in references/reading-the-posting.md.
3. Find the buyer, not the recruiter. Never contact the recruiter or talent partner on the post. Go to the company page, people tab, filter by the buyer title from the table. Under 200 people the buyer is often the founder; above that, the function head named in "reports to". One buyer per company per signal.
4. Open on the hire, not on the tool. The note references the posting and says one true thing about what the role will face. No pitch, no link, no product name. The signal is the reason to talk; the product comes after they answer. Openers and the note pattern in references/openers.md.
5. Track the signal, not the list. Log the company, the role, the posting date, the buyer and the date of the first touch. A repost 14 days later is a second, stronger signal on the same company, and the log is what tells you it is a repost.

What good looks like

• The best operator reads the "reports to" line before anything else. It names the buyer in the company's own words and skips the guesswork on the people tab.
• The mediocre version messages the Head of Sales at every company with an SDR opening, same note, and hits two people at one company in the same week. That is the screenshot on LinkedIn. One buyer per company per signal.
• The opener quotes the posting back to them: "the first 90 days usually go into list building before anyone sends an email" is true of a first SDR hire and false of a fifth; a note that fits both is a template.
• Good output is a table: company, role posted, days since posted, pain sentence from the JD, buyer name and title, why that person. Anyone can send from it.

Rules

• MUST contact the buyer named by "reports to" or the function head, never the recruiter or the person being hired for.
• MUST limit to one buyer per company per signal.
• MUST reference the posting in the note and say one true thing about what the role will face.
• NEVER pitch, link or name the product in the opener; the hire is the reason to talk.
• NEVER treat a 90-day-old posting as live; it is filled or frozen.
• NEVER search for the buyer's own title as the signal; the signal role and the buyer role are different people.