Brief Yourself on a Competitor's Hiring

When to use it

The prompt

Help me build a picture of how {{Competitor Company}} hires for roles like {{Job Title}}, so I can compete for the same candidates. WHAT I'VE OBSERVED: {{their open roles, JD text, candidates who chose them over us and what they said, anything public about their process or comp}} US: {{our stage, size, comp approach, work model, what we're genuinely good at}} WHY THIS MATTERS RIGHT NOW: {{we keep losing candidates to them / we want to source from them / they just raised}} Tell me: 1. What their hiring pattern suggests they're building, and what that implies about the work they can offer these candidates. 2. Where they're likely stronger than us for this profile, and where we're genuinely stronger. Be honest on both sides. 3. What a candidate weighing both of us is actually comparing, in their terms rather than ours. 4. How to position us against them in outreach without mentioning them or sounding defensive. 5. What to expect when a candidate has both offers, and what to have established before that point. 6. Whether their people are realistic sourcing targets, and if so what on those resumes tends to mislead. 7. Which of my observations are too thin to draw a conclusion from. Work only from what I've given you plus what you can reason about that company type. Don't invent specifics about their process or comp.

Tip

The honest 'where they're stronger' section is what you actually use. You cannot out-argue a candidate about a competitor's advantage, but you can stop competing on it and make the comparison happen on ground where you win.

How to use it

Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or whichever assistant you use, then replace every {{bracketed}} part with your own detail. The more specific and messier your input, the better the output — a model given raw notes has more to work with than one given a tidy summary you wrote first.

More Market Intelligence prompts

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