The Curiosity Tour
"A way to approach a job hunt that uncovers extraordinary, unlisted opportunities" - using a distilled framework that makes something that might look daunting feel easy.
This resonated:
“I had always been a linchpin and had chafed under cog-like conditions. I uncovered a key insight:
The process for finding a cog job and the process for finding a linchpin job are completely different.
I had been following a cog path. Reacting to job postings that were easily classifiable on LinkedIn and had a hiring process run by middle management who had no idea what to do with a linchpin when they saw one.”
What follows is — characteristically for Corey — a clear-eyed, easy-to-follow framework for finding linchpin-shaped jobs.
These are very different kinds of jobs: they often can’t be described cleanly, and although I’d argue strongly that all jobs should be hired through an open process, they might not even be positions that have been defined yet. At any rate, there are only good things to be gained by meeting with leaders and learning about their needs from a position of genuine curiosity.
When I was reading this piece, I realized I’d suggested that a friend do something similar in the publishing industry a long time ago. She wanted to break into publishing and had a core set of skills that operated at the intersection of a few things. More than anything else, she was a doer. So I suggested that she make a list of publishers she’d like to talk to — perhaps by looking at books that she loved and checking who ran the imprint — and reach out to them cold to have a conversation.
It worked, and within a few months she had a linchpin job at a publishing company in London. She wound up empowering an entire range of books to be published, writing some of her own, and transforming the way the publishing company ran.
So, you know, try it. You just might find you get your dream job.
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