How recruiters map who else is hiring for the same roles
Before you source a nurse, an engineer or a store manager, see which employers and agencies in the same city are chasing the same people, and how often they post.
Recruiters map who else is hiring for the same roles by searching live job postings for the exact titles they fill, in the cities they cover, and keeping every posting rather than one per company. Grouped by who posted them, the postings show which employers are competing for the same people, which other agencies are working the same roles, and which titles have been open long enough to be hard to fill.
This is for agency recruiters, in-house talent teams and recruitment business owners. It covers what the map tells you, how to tell an employer from an agency in the postings, a worked example in Singapore, the mistakes that make the map misleading, and an AI employee that refreshes it every week.
What the map is for
Most recruiters already know their clients. What they rarely see in one place is the competition for the candidates. That picture helps in four ways:
- Salary and offer talks. If twelve employers in the city are advertising for the same title this month, a client offering the bottom of the range will struggle, and you can say so with the list in hand.
- New clients. An employer posting the same role again and again is either growing fast or failing to fill it. Both are reasons to call.
- Rival agencies. Postings written by agencies show which firms are working the roles you specialise in, and for which kind of employer.
- Candidate pools. Employers who hire the same titles are also where experienced candidates work today.
Reading the postings correctly
The Job postings block searches live public job postings by keywords and a location. A few facts shape how you read the results:
- One posting per company is on by default. That suits lead finding, but for a competition map switch it off, so a company with five openings for the same title counts five times.
- A posting has no street address. Its position is the centre of its city (the location_precision field says city), so the map is a city-level picture, not a street map. Use Within (10 to 100 km) to keep postings near the city you cover.
- Short titles find more. Search "ICU nurse" rather than a full sentence, and run one search per title family.
- Agencies post too. For senior and specialist roles, many postings in some cities come from agencies rather than the employer. The posting's company name and description usually make it clear which is which.
A worked example: data engineers in Singapore
Say a specialist agency places data engineers in Singapore. The example is made up to show the method. Each Monday it searches three titles: data engineer, analytics engineer and data platform engineer, posted in the last 7 days, with one posting per company switched off and full details on.
An AI step reads each posting and labels the poster as employer or agency, writes the industry and the seniority, and notes when a company appears with more than three postings. A whole-list report then sums up the week. In this made-up week the report reads something like: "Banks and payment companies posted most data engineer roles. Two employers posted the same senior title four times each. Five agencies posted for undisclosed clients, three of them for senior roles."
The team uses it three ways. The two repeat posters go to the business developer, who calls with two shortlisted candidates. The agency list goes into the monthly competitor review. The banks and payment companies become the source list for headhunting, because that is where experienced engineers already work.
Mistakes to avoid
- Counting a company once. With one posting per company on, a firm with ten openings looks the same as one with a single role. Switch it off for this job.
- Treating agency postings as employers. Five agencies advertising the same role may be one employer in disguise. Label them separately.
- Drawing street-level conclusions. Postings sit at the city centre. To find an employer's office, look the company up on the map with a later step.
- Reading one week as a trend. Hiring moves with budgets and seasons. Keep the weekly summaries and compare months, not single weeks.
- Searching too many titles at once. One long list of keywords mixes markets that behave differently. One search per title family keeps the picture clean.
The AI employee that keeps the map fresh
- Schedule: every Monday at 07:00.
- Job postings: your titles, your city, posted in the last 7 days, one posting per company off, full details on.
- xMap LLM, each item: label the poster as employer or agency, with the industry and seniority.
- Sort and limit: by company, so repeat posters sit together.
- xMap LLM, the whole list: a short written summary of who is competing for the roles this week.
- Make a report or Email: the summary and the full list to the desk.
What lands each Monday is a one-page brief and a table behind it. The desk reads the summary in two minutes and opens the table only for the companies worth a call. Templates close to this: Hottest roles to source candidates for, Roles open for weeks: offer your help and Rival security firms hiring guards, which watches rivals in one industry the same way.
Questions
Can I see which agency is behind a posting?
Often, because agencies usually post under their own name. When an agency hides the client, the description sometimes names the industry or area, which the AI step can pick up.
Does it show salaries?
Only when the posting itself says one in its text. Many do not, so treat salary notes as occasional, not a full picture.
Can I map postings to neighbourhoods?
Not from the postings alone, since they carry a city, not an address. A later step can look each employer up on the map to find its office.
How often should it run?
Weekly suits most desks. A daily run with Only new is better for very busy titles, where you want each new posting the morning it appears.