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Is a relationship-first job search right for me?
See the article for more info about what the relationship-first approach is.
Answer these six questions as best you can. it'll take just a couple of minutes. These 6 questions, in my experience, determine how much a relationship-first approach will help you achieve the career transition you're desiring.
This relationship-first approach is not helpful for everyone to the same degree. For some, it's a helpful, like having a friend on the inside. For others, it makes the impossible possible.
Caution: Keep in mind that this is directionally correct, not scientific. It is based on my experience hiring 200+ people and interviewing 1000+ across different roles and companies.
Question 1 of 6
Are you going for a role that has specific credentials, or a role that in theory almost anyone could go for?
Specific credentials: Legal, Engineering, Information Security
General role: Customer Success, Product Management, Data Science
Specific roles that require credentials automatically filter out a lot of people. Far fewer people apply to them or qualify for interview.
General roles attract far more applicants. For hiring managers, the volume can be so high that each resume/CV gets only a few seconds of consideration.
Question 2 of 6
How many people would you estimate have this job in your city?
Under 200: small city, or a rare type of job
200 to 1000: moderate-sized city, and a somewhat common job
1000+: large city or a fairly common type of role
This is not really about city size by itself. It is about how many realistic shots exist for someone like you in the market you are actually targeting.
That matters because some people are in perfectly decent cities, but they are chasing roles that barely exist there. Someone like Sofia, Laura, or Matthias may not be constrained by a tiny city. They are constrained by the fact that the exact role they want is rare enough that there are just not many bites at the apple.
If there are fewer than 200 people doing that job in your city, each opportunity matters a lot, and relationship-first search becomes dramatically more valuable.
Question 3 of 6
What stage are you at in your career?
Early in career: under 3 years, mostly IC roles
In the middle: senior IC, team lead, strategic HQ roles
Advanced: managing teams of teams, VP or C-suite
Early in your career, this works partly because it shows guts, and because you have so much to learn.
In the middle of your career, opportunities get scarcer while competition stays heavy.
At advanced levels, this is how a lot of roles are really found. The opportunities are rarer, the cost of a bad hire is higher, and companies want insiders to vouch for you.
Question 4 of 6
How big is the change you are trying to make?
Small change: same role at a similar company, in the same city
Moderate change: different type of company, stepping into people leadership, moving sub-industries
Huge change: different country, different industry, different field, not formally qualified, or a very large jump in scope
If the change is small, you are low-risk on paper. You will probably get the interview and then need to prove yourself there.
If the change is moderate, you are easier to pass over, even when the move is sensible.
If the change is huge, you have very little chance unless at least a handful of people inside the company already know you. Otherwise it feels too risky.
Question 5 of 6
How natural are you in interviews and conversations?
Born conversationalist from smalltalk to deep conversations, you get along easily with most people quickly
In the middle
Not a natural conversationalist: interviews stress you out and you're afraid that in most cases, your nervousness shows
Born conversationalists already do well in interviews. People like them. They create energy quickly. Outside sponsors can still help seal the deal.
But if you are not naturally comfortable, a relationship-first process can help even more. You know what you are walking into. You know the culture better. You may already know the person interviewing you. You have practised in a lower-pressure setting where you were in the driver’s seat.
Question 6 of 6
How much better would you do in an interview if you had 2 to 3 insider conversations first?
Imagine two versions of the same interview. In one, you have already had two 30-minute calls with people around your future manager’s level. In the other, you are going in cold with only whatever you could find online.
If those conversations would make a huge difference, that is a strong sign this approach fits you.
This matters most when you are an outsider to the role, company type, or industry language. Think about the words, KPIs, OKRs, success metrics, and behind-the-scenes problems that insiders know and outsiders do not.
Your result
20x
What this means
A relationship-first search takes more effort than sending cold applications. But for the right kind of move, it can improve your odds so much that the extra effort is easily worth it.
Your result suggests that a relationship-first approach could outperform a cold application strategy by a large margin.
In practical terms, that means one well-run relationship-first search may be worth dozens, and sometimes even hundreds, of cold applications.
That does not mean outcomes are guaranteed. It means that if your background needs context, if your move is non-obvious, or if the roles you want are limited, relying on cold applications alone is usually a weak bet.