Competitive Intelligence

Competitor Hiring Roadmap Decoder

Reverse-engineer a rival's unannounced roadmap from the roles they just opened — then cross-check it against the news and open web

What it does

Companies telegraph their next 2-3 quarters through who they hire before they ship. By clustering a rival's freshest job posts by function and reading the JDs — then optionally cross-checking against news and the open web — you infer the initiatives behind the headcount and flag which are still hidden versus already surfacing publicly.

Who it's for: Founders, product leaders, and competitive strategy teams

Inputs

How your agent runs it

1. 1
   search_linkedin_companies

   search_linkedin_companies(query={competitor}, page=1)

   Take the top match's numeric company_id to use as the jobs filter.

2. 2
   search_linkedin_jobs

   search_linkedin_jobs(company_ids=<company_id>, posted_ago=7d, sort_by=most_recent)

   Capture net-new roles in the chosen freshness window (defaults to 7d if {posted_ago} is omitted) and group titles by function (eng, sales, ops, finance).

3. 3
   search_linkedin_jobs

   search_linkedin_jobs(company_ids=<company_id>, posted_ago=30d, sort_by=most_recent)

   Establish a 30-day baseline to see which functions are accelerating versus steady-state — this velocity diff is the core ranking signal.

4. 4
   linkedin_job_details

   linkedin_job_details(url=<job_url>)

   Read the responsibilities of each net-new role type to name the underlying product or GTM initiative behind the headcount.

5. 5
   search_news

   search_news(query={competitor}, time_published=7d)

   Only run if {platforms} includes news: pull the rival's last month of coverage (funding, launches, exec hires, partnerships) and tag each inferred initiative as still-hidden or already corroborated publicly.

6. 6
   google_ai_mode

   google_ai_mode(prompt=What new products, features, or markets is {competitor} building toward right now, and what is the evidence?)

   Only run if {platforms} includes web: cross-confirm and source-trace the inferred roadmap against blogs, changelogs, and public chatter, flagging any initiative the hiring signal missed.

Tools used

The full playbook

This is exactly what the MCP returns to your agent (via the competitor-hiring-roadmap-decoder prompt or get_skill tool), with your inputs filled in.

SKILL: Competitor Hiring Roadmap Decoder
Companies telegraph their next 2-3 quarters through who they hire before they ship. By clustering a rival's freshest job posts by function and reading the JDs — then optionally cross-checking against news and the open web — you infer the initiatives behind the headcount and flag which are still hidden versus already surfacing publicly.

You are running this skill on API Direct via its MCP tools. Execute the steps below yourself by calling the named tools in order — values in <angle brackets> come from a previous step. Then deliver the result described at the end.

INPUTS:
  - competitor (required): <competitor — ASK THE USER>
      The rival company's name to resolve to a LinkedIn company page
  - platforms (optional): (optional — e.g. linkedin, news, web)
      Comma-separated list of platforms to run — options: linkedin, news, web. Omit to run all of them; name specific platforms to limit the run.
  - posted_ago (optional): 7d (default — override if you like)
      Freshness window for the 'net-new roles' job search (maps to the LinkedIn jobs posted_ago param). Defaults to 7d. One of 1h, 24h, 7d, 30d.

PLATFORM SELECTION: some steps are gated with "Only run if {platforms} includes X". If the user supplied a `platforms` value, run only the steps whose platform is listed. If the user did NOT supply `platforms`, run ALL steps — every platform the skill supports.

STEPS:
  1. Tool `search_linkedin_companies` — search_linkedin_companies(query={competitor}, page=1)
     Take the top match's numeric company_id to use as the jobs filter.
  2. Tool `search_linkedin_jobs` — search_linkedin_jobs(company_ids=<company_id>, posted_ago=7d, sort_by=most_recent)
     Capture net-new roles in the chosen freshness window (defaults to 7d if 7d is omitted) and group titles by function (eng, sales, ops, finance).
  3. Tool `search_linkedin_jobs` — search_linkedin_jobs(company_ids=<company_id>, posted_ago=30d, sort_by=most_recent)
     Establish a 30-day baseline to see which functions are accelerating versus steady-state — this velocity diff is the core ranking signal.
  4. Tool `linkedin_job_details` — linkedin_job_details(url=<job_url>)
     Read the responsibilities of each net-new role type to name the underlying product or GTM initiative behind the headcount.
  5. Tool `search_news` — search_news(query={competitor}, time_published=7d)
     Only run if {platforms} includes news: pull the rival's last month of coverage (funding, launches, exec hires, partnerships) and tag each inferred initiative as still-hidden or already corroborated publicly.
  6. Tool `google_ai_mode` — google_ai_mode(prompt=What new products, features, or markets is {competitor} building toward right now, and what is the evidence?)
     Only run if {platforms} includes web: cross-confirm and source-trace the inferred roadmap against blogs, changelogs, and public chatter, flagging any initiative the hiring signal missed.

DELIVER: A roadmap brief mapping the rival's fresh hires into 3-5 likely product and GTM initiatives, ranked by hiring velocity, with each initiative tagged as still-hidden or already corroborated by public news/web signals.

Note: each underlying tool call is billed at its normal endpoint price; get_sentiment adds a small per-page surcharge. Page through results as needed but stop once you have enough to deliver the outcome.