Underutilized Prospecting Strategy

Read time: 3 minutes

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Job descriptions are a perfect source of sales intelligence

If a company posts a job, they’re broadcasting their internal priorities.

Behind the job title is a story:

• A new function they’re building

• A capability they’re missing

• A toolset they’re using (or planning to adopt)

• A pain point they need to fix

And they write it all down for you publicly.

Most reps don’t take the time or effort to do anything with this information.

The best reps use it to:

• Personalize messaging with surgical relevance

• Spot accounts that are likely to buy soon

• Match your product to an active pain, not a passive one

Here’s how you use JDs to get meetings

1. Build your “trigger keyword” list

   1. You need a lens to filter thousands of job postings

   2. Start with three categories:

      • Tools your product integrates with, replaces, or complements (e.g., FlowJo, CRISPR, ELN, Akoya, BD FACSymphony)

      • Skills your tool makes easier or faster (e.g., single-cell RNA-seq, image quantification, morphological phenotyping)

      • Problems your buyers face (e.g., batch variability, inconsistent data, long turnaround times)

      • Bonus: Add common competing solutions to this list, too!

      • Examples

        • Tools: FlowJo, CellProfiler, OMIQ, Cytobank, LIMS

        • Skills: Flow cytometry analysis, CRISPR screen optimization, high-throughput screening

        • Problems: inconsistent data entry, poor reproducibility, updating SOPs

2. Find the right job descriptions

   • You can search on LinkedIn by company or jobs or you can use Google to search sites

   • Use Google search like this:

     • site:careers.companyname.com "flow cytometry"

     • site:jobs.indeed.com "high-throughput screening" AND "Research Associate"

     • site:linkedin.com/jobs/ "scientist" AND ("Akoya" OR "CellProfiler")

3. Drop 10–20 JDs into ChatGPT and extract insights

   1. The new o3 model is excellent at summarizing patterns and connecting dots.

      1. Use this prompt: I’m researching job descriptions to understand tools, workflows, and challenges relevant to [insert product category]. Here are 10 job descriptions. Summarize the common tools, desired skills, and responsibilities. Identify patterns and potential challenges this team is trying to solve.

      2. Based on these job descriptions, suggest how [your product/service] might support this team or solve a recurring problem.

4. Write your outreach using what you find

   1. Mentioning a technology or challenge they care about increases reply rates.

   2. Reference the JD directly.

      1. “I saw you're hiring for a [title] and listed experience with [skill or tools or platforms]. Curious, do you ever run into issues scaling those workflows across different teams? We're helping [peer company] achieve [outcome] using [solution].”

      2. “Noticed you’re building out a [type of team] team. We work with folks using [tools or techniques] and are seeing a common bottleneck in data analysis. Wondered if that’s on your radar too?”

Try this today:

• Pick 5 target accounts and check their careers page, search on Google, or look at LinkedIn jobs

• Identify 1 role that overlaps with your product’s use case

• Use the “JD prompt” above to generate angles you can use in email or LinkedIn outreach

Once you’ve solidified your keywords and titles to look for, you can automate this using a tool like Clay + Leadmagic. Every week have an automation scour the internet for all jobs using those keywords and pull them into a Clay table. Once in that table you can run additional analysis and enrichments to reach out directly or ping your reps with all the research done so they can reach out themselves.

Now you have an “always-on” campaign where you can be the first to find and capitalize on these insights!

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Episode 61: Nick did a hack week and here’s what he learned

1. Lead Generation: We’ll build target lists, write scientifically relevant messaging, and send messages on your behalf to book qualified sales meetings with biotech and pharma companies.

2. Training for Reps: A skill development platform for life science sales reps who want to improve their sales skills, exceed their quota, and take the next step in their career.

3. Training for Teams: If you want to upskill your team around prospecting, driving to close, key account management, AI, or any other topic, we can put together a training plan specific to your organization’s needs.

4. Strategy Call: Need more than training? Want help implementing and executing your sales strategy? In a 30-minute call, we will assess your company’s current situation and identify growth opportunities.