What a departure signal really tells you

What it does tell you

• A specific seat is empty at a specific company, in a known month. That is an observed fact, not an inference from a job posting.
• Work is now unowned. Whatever that person did is being covered by somebody stretched, or not covered at all. There is pressure in the system whether or not a search ever starts.
• Almost nobody else knows. No advert exists, so there is no applicant pile forming and no process you are late for.
• The moment is dateable. Knowing a seat emptied last month rather than last year changes what a reasonable approach sounds like.

What it does not tell you

It does not tell you a job exists. Companies routinely merge a departed executive's remit into a neighbouring role, promote an internal deputy who has been doing the work anyway, or leave the chair empty while they decide whether the function should exist in its current form at all.

It does not tell you why the person left, and the difference matters enormously — a planned retirement, a poached star and a quiet dismissal produce three completely different conversations. Any product or person claiming to know the reason from the outside is guessing.

A departure is evidence of change. It is not evidence of a vacancy. Treating the first as the second is how good intelligence turns into a bad approach.

How to use it without overreaching

The move is not "I hear you are hiring" — you do not know that, and claiming it makes you sound like a database rather than a peer. The move is to be usefully present at a moment when the company is thinking about the function you happen to run.

• Approach a person, not a process. There is no process yet.
• Lead with something you know about the business, not something you know about their staffing.
• Give the reader an easy no. At this stage you are opening a relationship, not asking for a decision.
• Prefer an introduction over a cold approach every single time. The same words carry ten times the weight arriving through somebody they trust.

The timing trap nobody mentions

Recent months always look quiet. Departures become visible as records get updated, which happens on the departing person's schedule, not the company's — so the last few weeks are perpetually under-reported and fill in later. A thin recent month means "still filling in", not "nothing happened", and reading it the other way will talk you out of exactly the period you should be watching.