how to build a target company list with Claude.
Most job seekers start with job boards. Taylor Desseyn starts with a target list. In week two of his Guidance Counselor 2.0 series, Randstad's VP of global community showed how he uses Claude to treat a job search like sales: you're the product, and you need a list of companies worth calling on.
His first prompt asks Claude for 15 to 20 types of companies to target, including size, industry and why each would value your background. Claude came back with a tracker of 42 companies across four tiers, each with a note on how they'd value him. These aren't open jobs, he stressed. They're companies that fit your story. He also urged viewers to look past SaaS.
A company in an industry like agriculture that's modernizing with AI might find you more than qualified to move the needle. From there, the workflow gets specific. Desseyn had Claude research one company before reaching out, surfacing funding history and red flags, then draft a short DM tying his experience to what the company does. His rule: let AI get you 80 percent of the way, then add the last 20 percent yourself. Next, he ran a real job description through a red flag check. Claude called it "a title that's bigger than the job," estimated his fit at about 67 percent and listed the gaps he'd need to address early.
The point isn't to let AI run your search. It's to stop winging it. Desseyn closed by having Claude build a simple tracker so no lead goes cold. Watch the full episode to see the 42-company list come together live and hear the exact prompts he used at each step.
This article was developed from a transcript of a Randstad virtual event.
