If you’re applying for a role you saw posted online, I’m sorry to tell you that you are already late in the process. That role has been available for weeks, perhaps months, and the hiring manager has considered multiple candidates before it was even posted online. So where do hiring managers look first to fill the opportunities that are available? Let’s take a look.

So where do hiring managers look first to fill the opportunities that are available? Let’s take a look.

3 Places Where Hiring Managers Look First

1. Personal Network: Logically speaking, who would someone trust first- a total stranger or a colleague they have worked with in previous roles or someone they know from their own network? Obviously, the individual with a personal connection wins that round.

   When a role is available, the hiring manager will look across all of their contacts first. Do they know somebody who would be a good fit? Can any of their close colleagues recommend a great fit?

2. Network of their Peers: After exhausting their personal network, hiring managers often move to ask their peers and direct reports if they know someone who would be a good fit. The hope is that someone, perhaps the leader of an adjacent team, can recommend a great candidate. Even better is if the hiring manager’s direct report, someone who is famiiliar with the role, can recommend someone who would fit the team.
3. Professional Recruiters: Once their personal and secondary networks have been exhausted, its time to hire the pros to do their thing. Professional recruiters are expensive but they are excellent at filtering out a set of strong candidates from numerous applications and sources.

When you see a position posted online, that means none of the previous steps were successful. When this job is posted online, EVERYONE has access to the role. This means getting the actual job now becomes an incredibly competitive tasks. When you apply for online job postings, you are competing against hundreds, if not thousands of applicants.

How to Get Considered for a Role Before it Gets Posted

Don’t you want to improve your odds of earning that interview and landing that perfect role? Common sense dictates that you would rather compete against a much smaller number of candidates for that job opportunity than apply when your application would be measured against hundred of others.

Networking is your key to beat the crowd. When you are actively networking, you are able to stay top of mind for the decision makers and their secondary circles. This means your name is much more likely to come up when someone is thinking of an ideal candidate for a role.

Get your name in front of that hiring manager BEFORE the role is posted online by being an active and diligent networker.