56 articles on the hidden job market, running a reverse job search, buying executive coaching without being sold to, and what this platform does and refuses to do. No invented statistics; where something is unknowable, it says so.
Why senior seats are filled before they are advertised, and what becomes visible first.
The hidden job market is not a secret list. It is a timing gap between the moment a senior seat becomes real and the moment it is advertised.
Read →Confidentiality, incumbency and risk — the three reasons a chief-level seat is filled quietly, and what each one means for an outside candidate.
Read →From budget agreed to advert published — where a senior role is at each stage, who knows about it, and what an outside candidate can actually do.
Read →A senior seat emptying is a fact worth acting on — and it is not a vacancy. Reading the difference is what separates useful early intelligence from wishful thinking.
Read →Companies do not decide to hire an executive in a single moment. Knowing the sequence tells you when a seat becomes real — and how early that is.
Read →An executive replacement is rarely a like-for-like swap. Understanding what the company is actually trying to fix tells you whether the seat is yours.
Read →Choosing the companies first and working backwards — the method, step by step.
Instead of starting with adverts and working towards companies, you start with companies and work towards a conversation. The method, and who it suits.
Read →Thirty to sixty companies, chosen in three layers, filtered by the things that actually predict fit. The list is the foundation of a reverse search.
Read →There is a window between a seat becoming real and a shortlist existing. Arriving inside it is worth more than any improvement to your CV.
Read →There is no job to apply for, which is exactly the advantage. What to say, what to ask for, and the four mistakes that get senior approaches ignored.
Read →Fifteen years of colleagues is the most valuable and least used asset in a senior search. How to see it clearly, and how to ask without spending it badly.
Read →The ask that works is small, specific and easy to refuse. Most people make it large, vague and awkward to decline, and get silence.
Read →The awkwardness is almost entirely on your side. Here is how to reopen a dormant relationship without it reading as pure self-interest.
Read →A cold message to a senior person has about four lines to earn a reply. Here is what belongs in them, and what reliably wastes them.
Read →What coaching does well, what it cannot do, and how to buy it without being sold to.
Coaching is genuinely valuable for a narrow set of problems and cannot solve the two most common ones. Knowing the difference before you buy saves months.
Read →Seven questions that separate an operator who has done the job from a well-marketed programme, and the answers that should end the conversation.
Read →Four different kinds of help, four different business models, and one question that explains all of them — who is paying, and for what.
Read →A board hires a story it can repeat. How to build one from twenty years of circumstance without inflating anything.
Read →At executive level the headline is read by people deciding whether to open a conversation. Most senior headlines answer the wrong question.
Read →The two are sold together and do different jobs. Knowing which one you actually need saves a year of pleasant, ineffective conversation.
Read →What the platform is, what it refuses to do, and what a week of using it looks like.
Not a job board, not a recruiter, not a coach. What the platform actually does, and the two jobs it exists to do.
Read →The refusals are the product. What we do not claim, do not sell and do not guess — and why each limit exists.
Read →What running a reverse job search actually looks like day to day — roughly three hours a week, and where they go.
Read →Leaving a senior role, with or without a package — what the support covers, what it does not, and what you have to run yourself.
Outplacement is a service your former employer buys for you. Knowing what it is paid to do — and what it is not — is what stops you relying on it for the part it cannot reach.
Read →Most comparisons of outplacement providers compare brochures. These are the questions that separate a service from a schedule, and the answers worth insisting on.
Read →Career transition planning is the work of deciding where you are going before you are forced to answer — and it is mostly subtraction, not aspiration.
Read →A working transition plan fits on one page: four decisions, a company list, a weekly rhythm and a set of refusals. Here is how to write one that survives month five.
Read →The support on offer between senior roles is mostly emotional or administrative. The two things that decide the outcome are neither, and almost nobody supplies them.
Read →Coaching, outplacement and career programmes are priced across an enormous range with almost no visible logic. Here is what actually drives the number.
Read →What you do in the fortnight after leaving a senior role matters more than it should, because it is when the story that follows you gets set.
Read →Every senior process asks. The answer that works is short, true, unbitter, and lands the same way every time you give it.
Read →The disadvantages are real and mostly not the ones people worry about. So are the advantages, and they favour a particular method.
Read →The move from managing to leading, and from leading into the C-suite — what changes, and what nobody tells you before it does.
The step from managing work to leading a function is not a promotion in scale. It is a change in what you are paid to produce, and it catches good managers out.
Read →Nobody is handed the transition. It is made in a set of specific, unglamorous decisions — usually before the title arrives, and visibly enough that somebody notices.
Read →The move from senior management into the executive team changes who you answer to, what you are trusted with, and which mistakes are survivable.
Read →Chief roles are not senior versions of the jobs below them. They are a different contract — with the board, with peers, and with uncertainty.
Read →Most senior careers are managed by accident — a recruiter calls at the right moment. Deliberate management is a small, repeatable habit with a large compounding effect.
Read →Changing sector, function or company type after twenty years is possible, and the constraint is rarely capability. It is which part of your record transfers as evidence.
Read →The early period is not for proving yourself. It is for buying the right to make the decisions you were actually hired to make.
Read →Meaning at this level is rarely found in the mission statement. It comes from three concrete things, and they can be checked before you accept.
Read →A sector move at senior level is decided by how well you translate, and by who is willing to vouch for the translation.
Read →They have spent months assessing you. Most executives spend a fortnight assessing them, and it is the commonest cause of a short tenure.
Read →How executive interviews are actually decided, and how to prepare for the questions that carry the decision.
Senior interviews are decided on judgement, not answers. Preparing for them is therefore a different exercise from preparing for any interview you have had before.
Read →A handful of questions carry most of the decision at senior level. They look conversational and they are not.
Read →How a senior number is arrived at, what is still movable once you are the chosen candidate, and what happens in the quiet weeks before paperwork.
A senior number is not chosen when they meet you. It is mostly decided before the search opens, by a band, a budget and a comparison set you never see.
Read →At senior level the negotiation is short, mostly decided by what you established earlier, and far more about structure than about base salary.
Read →The headline number is the least informative part of an equity grant. These are the questions that decide what it is actually worth to you.
Read →The silence after a final interview is rarely about you. Here is what is usually happening in it, and what to do while it runs.
Read →At senior level, references are rarely the three names you supplied. Knowing how they are really gathered changes what you should do about them.
Read →How the firms are paid, what that makes them do, and what they were never going to do for you.
Almost everything a search firm does toward you is explained by who pays them and when. Once you know that, their behaviour stops being mysterious.
Read →You cannot apply to a search firm in any meaningful sense. What you can do is be findable, be specific, and be useful before you need anything.
Read →The call is flattering and it is also a data-gathering exercise. Both things are true, and knowing which one is happening changes how you answer.
Read →Search firms do real work extremely well. These are the four things executives reliably expect from them that are not part of the service.
Read →The most common situation at this level and the least written about: running a real search without putting the job you already have at risk.
Most executive searches happen while the executive still has a job. That constraint changes the method, not the ambition.
Read →Discretion is mostly about behaviour, not technology. Here is where executives are actually exposed, in order of how often it goes wrong.
Read →Senior searches take longer than anyone plans for, for structural reasons. Knowing where the time goes stops you reading normal delay as failure.
Read →Book a short call and we will run the argument against your own target list.