Most senior appointments are decided before a job posting exists, and many are made without one ever appearing. That is not a conspiracy; it is how boards and CEOs reduce risk. Understanding the sequence tells an executive where to be, and when, to be considered.
The sequence
A senior vacancy follows a recognisable path. A CEO or board identifies a need: a departure, a growth plan, a turnaround, a new function. They speak to their own network first, because a known quantity is the lowest-risk hire. If that produces no candidate, they brief a retained search partner, who builds a longlist from the firm's database and its own network, then a shortlist of three to five. Only if the search is contingency-based, or the role is below the level a retained firm would take, does a public posting appear, and by then a shortlist often already exists.
At each stage the field narrows, and at each stage the people being considered were put there by someone who already knew them or had them on file. Applying to the posting means entering at the final stage, against a shortlist assembled weeks earlier.
Where the openings actually are
- Leadership changes. A new CEO or division head reshapes the team within a year. Every such announcement is a leading indicator of two or three senior roles.
- Funding and expansion. A funding round, an acquisition, or a new market entry creates roles months before they are budgeted publicly.
- Search-firm activity. Retained partners work specific functions and bands. Being on file with the partners who work your band is worth more than any job board.
- Board and advisory seats. These circulate almost entirely by referral and are the most invisible part of the market.
- Regulatory and sector shifts. New compliance regimes, technology adoption, and consolidation each create demand for leaders who have done it before.
Entering early
Three things move a candidate from the final stage to the first. The first is being findable: a LinkedIn profile that describes the leader you are, in the words a search partner types, with visibility settings that allow recruiters to see it. The second is being on file: a deliberate, personal introduction to the search partners who work your target, with a résumé they can place without rewriting. The third is being in the conversation: direct, well-timed outreach to the hiring executives at companies showing the signals above, before a role is defined, framed as a conversation rather than an application.
None of these is complicated. All of them take time, judgement, and persistence, which is precisely what a sitting executive does not have to spare. That gap is the reason reverse recruiting exists: someone runs those three activities on the executive's behalf, every week, so the candidacy is in the room before the posting is written.
What to stop doing
Stop treating the job board as the market. It is the last, most crowded corner of it. Stop sending the same résumé to everything. And stop waiting to be found: at the senior level, the people who get found are the ones who arranged to be.
Before you change anything, see which of the four doors your résumé opens: take the Executive Visibility Assessment. Three minutes, no score.