The method sounds abstract until you see the week. It is a few hours, most of it thinking rather than typing, and it compounds in a way that applying does not.
Twenty minutes. What moved at your target companies since last week: seats that emptied, functions being built, money raised. Most weeks, two or three things are worth a second look and the rest is noise you dismiss in seconds.
The discipline is doing this weekly rather than in a burst. Change is intermittent, and the whole advantage of the method is being early — which is a function of frequency, not effort.
Thirty minutes, and the most valuable half hour of the week. For each thing that moved: is this a company I actually want, is there a plausible reason for me to be useful, and do I know anybody there? Two of the three usually fail, and killing those quickly is what keeps the week to three hours.
Forty minutes. For the one or two that survived Tuesday, look at who you already know — directly, or one introduction away. Where a route exists, the task is a short message to your contact. Where none exists, the task is deciding whether a cold approach is worth it, and the honest answer is often no.
Forty minutes. One or two messages, short, specific, easy to decline. Plus the unglamorous half of the job: replying to whatever came back from three weeks ago, which is where most of the actual conversations come from.
Twenty minutes. Re-engage one dormant contact with no ask attached. Update the target list — remove one company you have gone off, add one you heard about. Note which pursuits have gone quiet and decide whether to nudge or drop them.
Three hours a week, indefinitely, beats forty hours of applications in a burst — because the first compounds into relationships and the second expires the day the shortlist closes.
Slow, and slightly pointless. You will send four messages and get one reply. This is the part where most people quit and go back to applying, because applying produces the feeling of progress immediately and the reality of it rarely.
Different in kind. You have had eight or ten real conversations, several people now know what you do, and one or two of them have mentioned you to somebody else without telling you. That last thing — being mentioned in a room you are not in — is the entire objective, and it only becomes possible after months of unremarkable weeks.
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 → Where Brinksignal fitsNot a job board, not a recruiter, not a coach. What the platform actually does, and the two jobs it exists to do.
Read → The reverse job searchFifteen 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 →A short call, your target list, and an honest answer about whether this fits how you are running your search.