Competition for the very best roles at the hottest, most exciting, fastest growing, or most popular companies are inherently going to extremely competitive. These companies simply due to the media attention and PR don’t even have to post jobs as they get so much inbound. And the only inbound that gets hired are those who go about it in the most strategic way.

Even if this type of targeting specificity isn’t your goal or the type of role or company you want to connect to wouldn’t necessarily fit into those categories, and may be more mom and pop, local type of business, or larger slower moving, less headline oriented organizations, some data sources point to it taking the average person out there 1,500+ applications being submitted and other outlets are reporting it’s taking 6+ months to land a new job (an increase from last year).

But keep in mind, most if not all of those people are taking a very conventional approach to job hunting that’s typically going to involve at least some degree of leveraging their warm network, along with applying to posted jobs to try and get their next gig. And believe it or not, the way we’ll teach you to do it is no more or less painful, but the results you’ll get doing it our way will make the conventional way seem like the dark ages and a complete waste of time IF you learn how to approach it correctly.

The big idea is NOT to do what everyone else is doing. Especially because most, if not all of the best jobs are NEVER going to be posted publicly. Fun fact: Some may get posted by the companies investors on their job boards or only promoted to their network of pre-vetted candidates or leaders, as often times the company may not want to fully publicize the role for any number of reasons. But chances are that 80% or more of the best jobs that YOU’RE going to want you’re not going to find publicly posted. And if you do find some that are, as mentioned, they’ll already be in such high demand that you may be competing alongside hundreds or thousands of others, and while yes, it may help to get your resume on their desk first (or early), it’s still a shit show for you AND for the hiring team internally, AND for everyone else applying right alongside you. The best jobs, especially the more senior ones, you’ll most likely only learn about by being tapped on the shoulder by a search pro such as the team at Bearhug, or by your name surfacing within the companies larger network when they start floating it around confidentially that they’ve got an opening – because you’ve done a good job of positioning yourself, doing great work, and you’ve got a stellar reputation.

But here’s the rub. Often when you’re tapped by someone who knows you do great work, there’s only a small chance you’re really in a position to make a move. And the same thing happens when you’re finally ready to make a move, they may no longer have a hiring need. That’s why taking matters into your own hand and controlling as much of the process as you can gives you real leverage.

So what should you do? We’ll first you’ve got to get clear about what you have to offer and position yourself and you’re value in front of the right target audience who regardless of whether or not they’re actively hiring would still take a meeting to learn from you, and consider maybe even replacing someone they may have internally who could be a B player with an A player like you. And sure, you’ve got to have all your ducks in a row before you launch your search or you’ll trip and fall and waste cycles you’d otherwise not have to waste. But in the end, here’s the beauty of this whole approach. Not only will you be doing yourself a favor by being more strategic and taking an unconventional approach, but you’ll be doing the companies and the teams within those companies a HUGE favor by approaching them vs. them having to go through the effort of posting the job (which is often a HUGE lift both in terms of time and money) but you’ll also be doing every other job-hunter out there a favor by being strategic in your targeting and outreach as you’ll also keep them from the wasted time they’d have put in to apply to a job at the start, middle or end of a post cycle only to never hear back, along with the other 1,499 (or whatever) applicants who just used those automated softwares to dump their resumes into any/all postings that are out there on the internet hoping to just land any old job who’d supposedly have an interest in the value those people could offer, when the typical application process SUCKS at giving candidates any real way to differentiate themselves other than a stupid static resume and maybe a cover letter.