Why is a job posting a buying signal?
A job posting is a dated, public statement that a company is paying to add or replace someone for a named piece of work. Many also name the tools the team uses and, when they list pay, roughly what the company plans to spend on the problem. That gives you a reason to write that the reader can check.
Take one real example. Greenhouse, the hiring software company, was advertising an Enterprise Sales Development Representative role when we checked on 24 October 2026. The post tells a seller four things:
- The stack: it asks for experience with sales technology, naming Salesforce, Nooks and ZoomInfo.
- The target: it asks for experience handling enterprise accounts of 1,000 employees or more, and pairs the hire one-to-one with a dedicated enterprise account executive.
- The work: drive pipeline through account prioritisation and personalised outreach.
- The budget: an expected hiring range of $55,800 to $64,400 base pay.
A company putting about $86,000 a year into one seller wants that seller productive quickly. For this job post, that means offering something that helps an enterprise SDR prioritise accounts or reach first meetings sooner, since account prioritisation and personalised outreach are the work it lists. Our list of 15 free buying signals covers the other triggers worth pairing with a hiring post.
What do 890 sales and marketing job posts show?
About a third of the sales and marketing posts we read named a sales or marketing tool, and most were weeks old. On 24 October 2026 we pulled every public job post from 17 software companies' Greenhouse boards (including Stripe, Datadog, Cloudflare, GitLab and Samsara) through Greenhouse's Job Board API, kept the 890 sales, marketing and go-to-market roles, and counted:
| What we counted | Posts | Share of 890 |
|---|---|---|
| Named at least one of 15 sales or marketing tools | 272 | 30.6% |
| Named Salesforce | 243 | 27.3% |
| Named LinkedIn Sales Navigator | 39 | 4.4% |
| Named ZoomInfo | 31 | 3.5% |
| Named Marketo | 26 | 2.9% |
| Named Gong | 19 | 2.1% |
| Gave a dollar pay range | 345 | 38.8% |
| First published 30 days ago or less | 307 | 34.5% |
| First published more than 180 days ago | 204 | 22.9% |
The median post was 47 days old. Three caveats. These are large, well-known software companies, so small firms will look different. "Named" means the word appears in the post; a tool mentioned in a product description isn't proof the team uses it. And Greenhouse's own Mid-Market SDR post, outside our 17-board sample, was first published in August 2024 and still live, which looks like an always-open listing. Check the date before you treat a post as news.
If you sell a Salesforce add-on, a post that names Salesforce is a short list of likely buyers. Our guide to finding companies that use a specific tool covers the other places a stack shows up.
Which job posts are worth acting on?
Act on posts that show the work you help with is growing or changing, and skip the rest. This table is how we would sort them:
| The post | What it suggests | Contact | Angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| First SDR, BDR or "founding" sales hire | Outbound is starting from scratch | Founder or head of sales | Getting the new hire to first meetings faster |
| A role doing the work you automate | That work is piling up | The person the role reports to | Covering the gap before the hire starts, or alongside them |
| Sales or marketing ops role naming tools | Stack decisions are being made | Head of revenue or marketing ops | Fit with the tools they listed |
| Post names your competitor | They already pay for the category | The team lead using it | Integration, or a specific gap; never criticism |
| Several open roles in one team | The team is scaling | Team lead | Onboarding, process, capacity |
| Listed for more than 90 days | Hard to fill, or always open | Usually nobody | Weak signal on its own |
A company that is hiring and also raised money recently has both the need and the budget. Our guide to finding startups that just raised shows where to look. Skip posts from staffing agencies: the agency is hiring for a client you can't see.
Where can you find job posts for free?
Three free sources cover most of it: LinkedIn Jobs, Google, and the public feeds behind company careers pages.
- LinkedIn Jobs. Search a role title, then set the Date posted filter to the past 24 hours, past week or past month. LinkedIn's job search help says you can then turn on the alerts toggle for that search. The same page explains how to switch the search to Posts and pick Job posts, which finds people announcing that their own team is hiring.
- Google. The site: operator limits results to one domain or URL prefix. Searches such as site:job-boards.greenhouse.io "Sales Development" "HubSpot", or the same with jobs.lever.co or jobs.ashbyhq.com, find posts on those hosted boards that mention a tool.
- Applicant tracking system feeds. Careers pages hosted on Greenhouse, Lever or Ashby have a public, no-login feed. Once you know a company's board name, you can read every open post as data:
| System | Public feed (swap in the board name) | Date field | Pay field |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse | boards-api.greenhouse.io/v1/boards/NAME/jobs?content=true | first_published | pay_input_ranges with pay_transparency=true on a single job; often empty, so also search the post text |
| Lever | api.lever.co/v0/postings/NAME?mode=json | createdAt (in our test call) | salaryRange, when set |
| Ashby | api.ashbyhq.com/posting-api/job-board/NAME?includeCompensation=true | publishedAt (last published) | compensation |
Greenhouse says job board data is public and its GET endpoints need no authentication. Lever's documentation says published postings are publicly viewable and may be scraped by third parties, and Ashby's returns compensation only when you ask for it. Save the feeds of your 20 best-fit companies and search them weekly for your keywords.
Who should you contact about a job post?
Contact the person the new hire will report to, not the recruiter. The recruiter's job is to fill the seat; the manager owns the work that's piling up. Posts often say who that is: Greenhouse's VP, Security post, for example, says the role reports to the chief technology officer.
- If the post names a title, search LinkedIn for that title at the company.
- If it names a team, search LinkedIn People at that company for "Head of" or "Director" plus the team name, for example Head of Sales Development.
- For a first sales or marketing hire at a small company, it is usually a founder.
- Search LinkedIn Posts for "hiring" from people at the company; sometimes the manager posts the role.
Siela's AI SDR leaves recruiters out of its lead lists, along with consultants, freelancers and students. If you are building the list by hand, apply the same rule.
Message templates for job post signals
Name the post, name the work behind it, and ask one question. We wrote these templates for this guide; they have no measured reply rates behind them. LinkedIn's help page on personalised invitations says a note can be up to 200 characters and that free members can add a note to up to three requests a month; the two connection notes below fit.
- Connection note, first sales hire (158 characters). "Hi [name], saw [company] is hiring its first SDR. Are you planning to build the outbound process before they start, or have them build it? Curious either way."
- Connection note, role you automate (161 characters). "Hi [name], noticed the [role] opening on your team. If [task] is the bottleneck, I may have a way to cover part of it while you hire. Open to a quick note on it?"
- Email, post names their stack. Subject: "your [role] post". "Hi [name], your [role] post mentions [tool] and [goal from the post]. We help teams on [tool] [one-line outcome]. Is [goal] something you need the new hire to own from day one, or can it wait until they ramp?"
- Email, after the hire starts. "Hi [name], looks like [new hire] joined as [role]. Congratulations on filling it. The first 60 days usually go on [task]. Would a short write-up of how other teams shortcut that be useful for them?"
- One follow-up, five days later. "Bumping this once in case it got buried. If the timing is wrong, no reply needed."
Replace every bracket. If the first line could be sent to any company that is hiring, rewrite it. Our 30 connection request templates cover other openers.
How fast should you act on a job post?
Write within the first two weeks of a post going up, while the need is new and before the hire starts. That is our rule of thumb, not a measured cutoff. In our sample the median post was already 47 days old, so sort by the date field and work newest first.
Monday: pull new posts
Run your LinkedIn alerts and your saved Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby feeds. Keep posts first published in the last 14 days.
Tuesday: read and sort
Note the stack, the reporting line and the pay range. Sort each with the table above.
Wednesday: send
One message per manager, from the templates. Log the post URL and date in your CRM.
Next Monday: follow up once
Then stop, and check again if the post comes down or the hire starts.
A hiring post on its own is usually a warm signal; combined with a good fit and a direct mention of your problem, it can be hot. Our guide to hot, warm and cold leads explains the difference. If you would rather not run this by hand, Siela's AI SDR looks for companies hiring for the work you automate, scores each lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason, and writes each LinkedIn and X message from the person's profile and the signal that surfaced them.
Frequently asked questions
Should I contact the recruiter or the hiring manager about a job post?
The hiring manager. The recruiter's job is filling the role, not buying tools for the team. The manager owns the work that led to the post. Many posts name the reporting line, such as a role reporting to the chief technology officer, which tells you which title to look up.
Is it fine to mention their job post in a cold message?
Yes. A job post is public and published to attract attention, so referring to it gives a clear, checkable reason for writing. Mention the specific role and the work behind it, and avoid suggesting your product replaces the person they are hiring, which reads as a threat to the team.
How do I see which tools a company uses from its job posts?
Search the post text for tool names, or read the requirements section, where posts often list software such as Salesforce, ZoomInfo or Marketo. In our 24 October 2026 sample of 890 sales and marketing posts at 17 large software companies, 30.6% named at least one of 15 common tools. A mention suggests use but doesn't prove it, so confirm before you assume.
Can I pull job posts from Greenhouse, Lever or Ashby without an account?
Yes, for published posts. Greenhouse says its job board GET endpoints need no authentication, Lever says published postings are publicly viewable, and Ashby documents a public posting API. You need the company's board name, which is usually in the URL of its hosted careers page.
How old is too old for a job post to be a useful signal?
We use two weeks as a working cutoff for first contact. Older posts still tell you about the stack, but the need is no longer news and the hire may be close. Some posts stay up for months: in our sample, 22.9% had first been published more than 180 days earlier.
Sources
- Greenhouse careers: Enterprise Sales Development Representative (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Greenhouse careers: VP, Security (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (9 Sep 2026)
- Greenhouse: Job Board API (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Lever: Postings API documentation (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Ashby: Public Job Posting API (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Filter and sort job search results (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Search for jobs on LinkedIn (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Google Search Central: site: search operator (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Personalize invitations to connect (checked 24 Oct 2026)