HiringPlay · Intermediate

A team is growing faster than its tools

Five or more open roles in one function in the last 30 days. A step-by-step playbook: what the signal means, whom to write to, what to say and how to measure it.

By the Breaknorm team · Updated 24 Oct 2026 · 8 min read

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The hiring surge play in two minutes · Read the transcript

For

Anyone selling to one function: support, sales, engineering, finance or HR tools and services, plus recruiting and onboarding vendors.

Level

IntermediateOne timing signal

Setup

20 minutes, then weekly

Data

Companies · People · Signals

How do you find companies that are hiring fast in one team?

Look for companies with five or more open roles in one function, posted in the last 30 days, and write to the head of that function. A team growing that fast runs into gaps in onboarding, tooling and process before anyone budgets for them. Count roles from the company's own career system, remove reposts and backfills, and offer help with the growth instead of a demo.

Why

Why does the hiring surge play work?

Hiring is the signal companies cannot fake: every posting is budget someone approved. When several land in one team at once, that team is about to outgrow the way it works.

Postings are approved budget

A role goes live after headcount is signed off. Several in one team means the plan for that team has grown, with money attached.

Growth breaks process first

What worked for ten people strains at twenty. Onboarding, documentation, routing and reporting become problems the head of the team feels every week.

The function head owns the pain

New hires report to them. They have to make ramp-up work, so they pay attention to anything that shortens it.

Postings give you the details

Titles, locations, seniority and the tools an ad asks for give you the opener without guessing.

Signal

What counts as a hiring surge?

All of these, at the same company:

Five or more open roles in one function, such as support, sales or engineering.
Posted within the last 30 days, so the surge is current.
Counted from the company's own careers page or ATS, with the same role in several cities counted once.
A company large enough that five roles is a real change for the team, usually 50 employees and up.

What looks like the signal but is not

Reposted roles: The same job re-posted every few weeks looks like growth. Merge reposts and count unique roles.
Agency postings: Recruiting agencies post for clients, sometimes for roles that do not exist yet. Count only the company's own career system.
Seasonal hiring: Retail and logistics hire in waves every year. Compare with the same months last year before you call it a surge.
Backfills after departures: Many roles at once can mean people left. Check whether the team is growing, not just posting.

How

How to run it, step by step

Six steps in the same five-part frame as every play. Each step says what you are after, why it matters and how to do it with any tools; the Breaknorm boxes show the shortcut.

01Signal
Pick the function you sell to
Goal. One team whose growth creates a need you can meet.
Why. A surge in engineering means nothing to a support tool. The function decides whom you write to and what you offer, so it comes first.
How.
- Choose the function your product or service is for.
- Set the threshold: five open roles is a good start; raise it for large companies.
- Limit to the size range and countries you can serve.
Find surges with Breaknormsearch_jobs
```
{ "hiring": { "function": "support", "min_open": 5, "posted_within_days": 30 }, "employees": { "min": 50 } }
```
You end withA list of companies with a surge in your function, and the number of open roles at each.
02Signal
Check that the surge is real
Goal. Only companies where the team is actually growing.
Why. Reposts, agency ads and backfills all look like growth in a raw count. Removing them is what turns a list of postings into a list of growing teams.
How.
- Count unique roles from the company's own careers page or ATS.
- Drop companies where the roles replace people who left.
- Prefer surges that are new this month over teams that are always hiring.
You end withA shorter list you trust, with role titles, locations and posting dates for each company.
03Who
Find the head of that function
Goal. The person the new hires will report to.
Why. The recruiter fills seats. The head of the team has to make the new people productive, so the problem you solve is theirs.
How.
- Look for the VP, Head or Director of the function.
- At smaller companies, the founder or COO may still run the team.
- If hiring is split across cities, note the lead where most of the roles are.
Find the function headsearch_people
```
{ "function": "support", "level": ["vp", "head", "director"], "company": "cargolio.com" }
```
You end withOne named contact per company, with title and location.
04Find
Get an email that is verified
Goal. A working address for each contact, checked before you send.
Why. A surge list is small and time-sensitive. Every bounce is a lost account, and bounces hurt the domain you send all your other email from.
How.
- Find the address from the name and the company domain.
- Verify it at the mail server before it goes into a sequence.
- Hold contacts whose address cannot be confirmed.
Find and verify with Breaknormfind_email · verify_email
```
find_email({ "name": "Ana Ruiz", "domain": "cargolio.com" })
```
You end withA verified email per contact.
05Say
Offer help with the growth
Goal. A message about the team they are building, with something useful attached.
Why. The head of a growing team is busy hiring. A note that makes the next month easier gets read; a demo request waits.
How.
- Name the roles and where they are, from the postings.
- Name the problem that much hiring usually creates for that function.
- Offer one concrete, useful thing and ask if you can send it.
You end withOne message per company, built from the postings.
06Measure
Run it weekly and compare by surge size
Goal. New surges every week, and a clear view of which ones answer.
Why. Surges are short. A team that posted seven roles this month will have filled most of them within a couple of months, so a weekly run catches them while the need is live.
How.
- Save the search and get new matches every week.
- Tag each company with the number of open roles and the function.
- Compare replies by surge size, then adjust the threshold.
Push new matcheswebhook
```
POST https://hooks.your-tool.com/… ← one row per new surge
```
You end withA weekly list and a note on which surge sizes reply.

Example

A worked example, start to finish

One company, through every step. The company and the person are invented; the steps are the real ones.

Signal
Cargolio makes freight software in Milan and has about 210 people. Seven support roles went up between October 3 and October 20, three of them in Lisbon.
Signal
All seven are on Cargolio's own careers page, none are reposts, and the support team has not shrunk this year. The surge is real.
Who
Ana Ruiz runs support. The Lisbon hires will report to her too.
Find
[email protected] comes back valid from the mail server.
Say
The message names the seven roles and the new Lisbon team, and offers an onboarding plan for support hires.
Measure
Tagged as 7 open roles in support, so the reply can be compared with smaller surges.

Prompt

Find companies hiring 5+ support roles this month

7 support roles

Posted this month

CargolioFreight software · Milan · 210 peopleSurge

Open roles7 support, 3 in Lisbon

PostedOct 3 – Oct 20

Head of SupportAna Ruiz · valid

Daily digest46 companiesthis week · example

ILLUSTRATIVE · EXAMPLE DATA

Say

What to write to a team that is hiring fast

A short email that gives before it asks: something useful for the situation they are in, not a meeting request. Why each line is there:

SubjectSeven support hires, three in Lisbon

Hi Ana, Cargolio has seven support roles open this month, three of them for a new team in Lisbon.

When a team hires that many at once, new people usually learn from live tickets, and the senior agents spend their weeks answering questions instead of customers.

We wrote a two-week onboarding plan for support hires: which ticket types to start them on, when to let them answer alone, and how to keep the senior team free.

Can I send it over?

Pitfalls

When not to run this play

The surge is in a function you don't sell to.
The roles are spread across many functions; that is general growth and needs a different message.
Most of the roles replace people who left.
The company hires the same roles every season.
You plan to write to the recruiter about the open roles.

Measure

How to measure whether it works

Track a few numbers per batch and compare them over time. What counts as good depends on your market, so the trend matters more than any benchmark.

Reply rate by surge size: Five to seven roles versus ten or more. Bigger surges often mean a bigger need.
Reply rate by function: If you sell to more than one function, see which one answers.
Yes rate to the offer: How many say yes to what you offered. A low rate means the offer needs work, not the list.
Meetings per 100 companies: The number that tells you whether the play is worth the weekly time.

Data

From our data

Figures from Breaknorm's own hiring data, refreshed every 1 to 7 days.

—

Companies with 5+ open roles in one function, last 30 days, US, UK and EU

Live figure from our data, to be added before launch.

—

Functions with the most surges this month

Live figure from our data, to be added before launch.

—

Median days a surge role stays open

Live figure from our data, to be added before launch.

Recap

Checklist

Function chosen: the one you sell to
Five or more open roles in that function, posted in the last 30 days
Roles counted from the company's own career system
Reposts, agency ads and backfills removed
Contact: the head of the function, not the recruiter
Email verified at the mail server
Message names the roles and offers something useful for the growth
Search re-run weekly, replies tracked by surge size

FAQ

Questions about this play

How many open roles count as a hiring surge?

Five in one function within 30 days is a good default for companies of 50 to 500 people. For larger companies, raise it, since five roles can be normal turnover. Track replies by surge size to find your own threshold.

Should I contact the recruiter or the hiring manager?

The hiring manager, meaning the head of the function. The recruiter fills seats; the head of the team owns the problems that growth creates.

How do I tell growth from backfills?

Look at whether the team is getting bigger. If people with those titles recently left, the roles are probably replacements. Reposts of the same role also inflate the count, so count unique roles.

What is the difference between this play and the team build-out play?

Team build-out needs two signals at once: a new sales leader and open sales roles. Hiring surge needs one: many open roles in one team. It is simpler to run and works for any function.

Can I run this play without Breaknorm?

Yes. Pick the companies in your market and check their careers pages each week, counting roles by team. It works for a few dozen companies; past that, counting and deduplicating roles is the part a data API does for you.

Video transcript: The hiring surge play in two minutes

Every job posting is budget someone approved. When five or more land in one team within a month, that team is about to change shape.

Pick the function you sell to and look for companies with five or more open roles there, posted in the last thirty days. Count them from the company's own careers page, and remove reposts, agency ads and backfills.

Write to the head of that team, the person the new hires will report to. Name the roles and where they are, and the problem that size of hiring tends to create.

Then offer something that makes the next month easier, like an onboarding plan for the new hires. Run it weekly: surges are short, and most roles are filled within a couple of months.

Run it

Run it with Breaknorm

Steps one to four in one prompt, from any agent with the Breaknorm MCP server connected. Writing the message and measuring the replies stay yours.

Find companies hiring 5+ support roles this month

{
  "hiring": { "function": "support", "min_open": 5, "posted_within_days": 30 },
  "employees": { "min": 50 },
  "people": { "function": "support", "level": ["vp", "head", "director"] }
}

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