Accessing The Hidden Job Market

What is the hidden job market? The hidden job market refers to jobs that are not displayed to the public.

There are a few types of “hidden jobs”

Company doesn’t know/hasn’t thought of hiring for this role yet.
Decision-maker is actively considering hiring for this role but has not gotten to the stage of creating a public job posting/escalating this need to HR.
Company is recruiting internally to start as they would like to give existing opportunities an opportunity first before opening to the public.

In this post, I’d like to share some insights on how to possibly tap into and find some of these hidden jobs.

Before we begin:

The advice here is not a quick fix. If you are looking to quickly obtain employment because you have mouths to feed, don’t waste your time here. Money is important, but what I’m sharing in this post applies more strongly to people who are looking for a career that they better align with and are passionate about.

The traditional approach

Look for job listings online.
Prepare your resume & cover letter.
Apply to as many as possible (of course, try to customize your resume & cover letter to each job you apply for if possible).
Accept all interview requests.
See who can provide you with the best offer.
Start working.
Hope that the company that hired you is a great company.
If not, look for a new job, rinse, and repeat.

The average job search period in Canada is 3-6 months, and most millennials & Gen-Zs stay with a company for an average of 3 years. If you’re picky about your stats, the numbers do vary greatly depending on industry and the type of roles. The more transactional a role, the quicker it is to fulfil and the higher the turnover – e.g. It’s much quicker to find a job as a restaurant server, but you’re also much more likely to switch jobs that are purely task-oriented.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. The traditional approach to education and recruitment was built in the industrial era – when companies needed skilled labour to fulfil specific roles. Much has evolved since then, AI & automation are replacing jobs, and business owners are looking for employees who can grow with their organization. As an employee, you’re also looking to have a more meaningful role where you’re not just a cog in the wheel.

The new approach

For you skim readers out there, here’s an overview of the process:

Define your values/mission.
Find a company(s) that you believe truly align with your values/mission.
Get to know them really well, show them that you’re passionate, add value to them.
Start as a contractor/PT-employee.

This process won’t work for EVERY company, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The main idea though is to focus on quality interactions rather than quantity.

This doesn’t mean that the traditional spray and pray doesn’t work. You could still send out 20 resumes a day, get as many interviews as possible, and end up getting hired in less than a month (this definitely works, I’ve been in this position and done exactly this before). But most companies that hire mass applicants are typically looking for mercenaries rather than advocates. You could get lucky but you’re more likely to end up working for a company that merely sees you as a tool for accomplishing their goals.

1. Define your values/mission

Obviously, this approach won’t work if you don’t know what you want in life. If you are still in discovery, it’s absolutely OK to try as many different things as possible to get closer towards understanding what you enjoy/don’t enjoy.

If you’re trying to get closer to understanding yourself. Start with your values.

Finding your personal mission is more of a journey, and while you’re in the discovery phase, this mission is more prone to change as you learn new things about yourself.

Values, on the other hand, are relatively static. They do change over time, but if you’re reading this and you’ve graduated from high school, odds are you already have some base values that have been instilled in you.

Why values? Values help you understand how you make decisions. If you were raised like I was, you were probably thought to weigh the pros vs. cons for decisions that you have to make. Create a list of benefits, a list of disadvantages, and compare them against each other.

What we don’t realize is – my pro might be your con. What’s underlying that is VALUES.

Example:

Option A: Work for a Startup

Risky
Work all day, every day
High potential for reward
Great opportunity for career growth
Exciting as the company is in an industry that you are passionate about

Option B: Work for a large corporation.

Stable Monday-Friday 9am-5pm work hours. No work on weekends
Reputable company
Slower career growth, but good mentorship
Less risky
Less exciting as the company may be less flexible to doing things that you want to try out.
Lower potential for reward, traditional pay structure, no equity.

Neither option is wrong/right. But if I told you that Amy is a family person, her personal values are security, growth, and health.

It’s much more likely that Amy will find Option B more fulfilling as the stability will speak to her sense of security, and the regular schedule will give her more room to spend time on her family & health.

I won’t go into exercises on value-discovery in this post, there are many other resources out there and I’ll blog about it in another post.

2. Find a company(s) that you believe truly align with your values/mission.

Once you know your values (even better if you’re clear on your personal mission), then you can start to look for companies that possibly align with those values.

Traditional job search platforms won’t help much with this. Why? Because listings are role/skill-based. It might help a little if you’re just looking to be exposed to local companies that are actively recruiting, but this doesn’t get you access to that “hidden job market” that I’ve been talking about. If you enter through this route, you’ll just be yet another resume amongst the many other applicants.

I don’t have an easy tip here. How you find your ideal company will depend on the industry, technologies, or causes that you’re passionate about. Try to find companies that are at the forefront of what you want to do.

e.g. If you’re huge on AI, you might be interested in finding a company that’s developing new AI and applying it in creative ways. Perhaps you might subscribe to an AI-related journal or magazine, or search online for companies that are innovating in that space.

e.g. If you’re looking to work for a company that’s contributing towards oceanic conservation, you could search hashtags or try to find companies that are contributing towards that in meaningful ways in the news.

The clearer you are on your mission, the easier it is to find your dream company.

What if you don’t have a clear mission yet? I would recommend starting with a shortlist of companies that you find exciting, don’t start with roles/careers, you’ll end up limiting yourself as most of these “hidden” roles often haven’t been clearly defined.

Use your values as a measuring stick and try to assess if these companies align with them (some companies have clearly defined and publically listed corporate values), start with informational interviews to gauge if these companies really walk the talk.

3. Get to know them really well, show them that you’re passionate, add value to them.

That brings us to the next point. Now you know which companies to approach, your next step is to get to know them well. Start by identifying possible people to reach out to and conduct informational interviews. You’ve probably heard this term thrown around a lot by career counsellors. A lot of people don’t do it the right way though.

How do you secure informational interviews?

Try to identify someone at the company who could give you good insight (preferably a manager or someone in a role that you’re targetting, NOT a recruiter/HR person).
How can you find this person? Look up the company on LinkedIn, see who works there and what role the person has. OR, visit the company’s team/about us page if they have one.
Now that you have a company and a name, use an email checker tool like http://hunter.io/ or https://www.voilanorbert.com/ to identify their email (or a best guess).
Reach out to them to book a meeting.

DONT: “Hey, can I interview you about your job/your company because I want to work at your company?”

Most people will shut you down, why would I want to waste time with someone who is still unvetted and probably won’t actually end up working with me?

DO: 2 options here

Flatter them
Flatter their company

Flatter them

I’m not referring to insincere praise. Make sure your praise is relevant and that you actually mean it. The goal here is to get them to meet you because they feel that you earnestly want to know them better.

e.g. Hey John, I see that you’re a senior iOS developer at Eventbrite. I’m still early along in my career and I’m envious of how you’ve been able to get to where you are in your career in such a short period of time. Would you mind sharing some advice with an aspiring developer? I’ll buy you breakfast. Does Monday/Tuesday next week at 9am work for you? Happy to meet at X near your office. If neither of those times works, I can also work around your schedule.

So much gold in this example text, I’ll try to break it down:

Notice how I’m not directly saying “hire me! I want to work for your company!”. They’ll be more willing to take a meeting as they will feel that this is something personal instead of for the company. They’ll also share more transparently as they’re not limited to what they can/can’t say as an employee.
Recognize that as the person asking for a favour, you are in a lower position of power. If they are meeting you at a restaurant/cafe, this is an additional cost that they may have to incur, offer to pick up the tab.
Notice how short this is? The shorter your message, the more likely someone will read it to the end and respond.
Avoid having multiple questions, the more someone needs to think in order to reply, the less likely they will reply (they’ll probably mark it as unread and try to get back to it later, only to never end up doing so).
Make it as easy as possible for them to say yes by providing options – Yes 9am Monday works.
But also recognize that you are in a lower position of power again by offering to work around their schedule if not.

(These techniques I learned from Ramit Sethi’s 50 email scripts book, and have tested with much success in sales/investor/entrepreneur emails).

Flatter their company

e.g. Hey John, I was reading the Journal of American Dentistry last week and came across this new VR/AR technology that you’re using to help dentist…That’s super excited, I’m big into VR/AR and I’m personally passionate about the dental industry because… I’d love to learn more about your company, your challenges, and what you’re working on creating and see if I can add value in any way…

Same as above, you’re not asking for a job interview, you’re expressing sincere and genuine interest in what they’re doing.
It shows that you’re passionate.

Get to know them + Add value

Just like dating, don’t rush to getting married. Get to know as many people in the organization as possible.

Interview as many people as reasonably possible
Volunteer for them
Suggest ideas for improvement
And if you’re even willing to and really want to work for the company, take initiative and start adding value by contributing in some way (even though there’s a very real chance that they may not compensate/reward you at all for your work).

All for the sake of really highlighting that you are really passionate about them. This will REALLY make you stand out apart from other candidates, and if a hiring manager/owner is smart, they’ll know that they’re losing a great opportunity by not hiring you. Of course, nothing I can help if you have personality issues that cause them to view you as not being a “cultural fit” with them. If you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, fix that attitude first, it’ll prevent you from getting ANY job, not just this dream job.

Of course, to do this, you need to be able to add value. But what if you’re inexperienced, or if you don’t have the skills to do what they are currently recruiting for?

Start by picking up skills that are relevant. At least the skills you’re learning now are contributing towards your mission, and aren’t just skills that you learn for the sake of learning.
Find other ways that you can currently contribute/add value. There may be an opportunity for you to create a new role for yourself if it doesn’t currently exist/they aren’t currently recruiting for.

4. Start as a contractor/PT-employee

Remember, not every company is flexible to creating new roles that don’t currently exist, there’s a risk to adding headcount where headcount wasn’t necessary. If they need to pay an extra person, that additional person better help them bring in more customers/retain existing customers.
Help them reduce risk my starting as a contractor or part-time employee. They’ll get to know you through this due-diligence process and fall more in love with you and want to hire you (again, it’s like dating, you’re not rushing to the altar).

That’s the outline in a nutshell. Of course, you might not need to go through the exact process verbatim.

Here’s my personal example:

In 2014, I wanted to join Spring. Why? I had experience running my first startup in 2011 and made a lot of mistakes that lead to failure. I wanted to be able to help other entrepreneurs avoid that same mistake.

When I joined Spring, I originally did so because I was planning on starting my own incubator. I decided to join Spring because:

Who am I to tell someone how to start a business if I haven’t successfully started one myself?
What better way to learn how to run a good incubator than to join one?

So, what did I do?

I started by volunteering for almost all of their workshops and events (of course, I wasn’t putting all my eggs in one basket, I was also volunteering for a bunch of other related startup organizations at that time).
I paid and joined their program as an entrepreneur.
- What better way to learn about their specific process than to experience it firsthand as a customer?
- Also, this was a good way for me to get to know the program manager better.
By this point, it was early 2015 and I pretty much knew everyone on their team. The 2nd business that I had started (a drone photography & filming company) was winding down because of the increasing stringent governmental regulation.
I approached Keith the CEO and proposed to work with them on 100% commission. I suggested that I loved their program and what they were doing, and would help them find more companies for their program in return for a small finder’s fee.
After 2 months, I was hired officially as a program manager to replace the existing program manager who was transitioning. Never wrote a resume or cover letter, that posting was never listed and was filled immediately.
I’ve been with them for 5 and a half years and loved every bit of working there. My transition to me leaving Spring this year was primarily because of a change in the business (towards a stronger focus on consulting and supporting other incubators/accelerators) and my desire to work on a more personal level with entrepreneurs and professionals.

This is only 1 of many examples, I’ve seen many other friends and entrepreneurs get jobs with different companies by applying a similar (albeit not entirely identical approach).

Quality over quantity.
Get them to know you really well (Date before getting married).
Demonstrate passion and add as much value as possible.