How do I find jobs that aren't posted publicly?

Efri · 1 min read

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Most jobs, at some point, weren't public. They existed as a conversation before they existed as a listing.

You find them through people. There's no other route.

Tell people you're looking. Specifically, not vaguely. Most people don't tell anyone because it feels like admitting something, and then they wonder why nothing comes to them.

Talk to people at companies you'd want to work at,. before there's a job. Ask about the work, not for a role. Roles appear, and when they do you're already known.

Watch for the signals. Funding, expansion, a senior person joining, someone leaving. Hiring follows all of them, usually before anything gets posted.

Reach out to companies with no job open. This works far more than people expect, especially at small companies where hiring is informal and someone's been meaning to get help for months.

Stay in touch with people who left. They're somewhere else now and they know what's opening there.

The pattern is the same in all of it. Be a known quantity to enough people that your name comes up in a conversation you're not in.