The job market, especially in marketing, sales, and public relations, is full of talented people hiding behind LinkedIn profiles and job board applications, waiting to be discovered. Yet the reality is that discovery rarely happens that way. Today’s employers, especially at high-performing and growth-oriented companies, are not scrolling through job boards looking for the perfect candidate. They’re looking for people who take initiative, demonstrate curiosity, and show evidence of action. That’s what separates the hunters from the herd.
Most job seekers still rely on passive tactics… submitting dozens of resumes through automated systems, waiting for callbacks, and endlessly refreshing inboxes. What they rarely do is what successful marketers, entrepreneurs, and leaders do every day: research their targets, build relationships, and make themselves impossible to ignore.
If you’re unemployed or seeking your next opportunity, this is not the time to hide behind a screen. It’s time to hunt.
The Fear of Hunting
Many job seekers are paralyzed by fear: fear of rejection, fear of being seen as pushy, fear of reaching out to the wrong person. This fear is understandable, but it’s also the most significant obstacle between them and a meaningful career. Hunting requires courage. It means identifying the specific companies you want to work for, not just the ones that happen to have openings. It means finding the hiring manager (not HR, not a recruiter) and learning everything you can about their team, products, goals, and pain points.
If you’re in marketing, for example, research their campaigns. What are they doing well? What’s missing? Could you improve their content strategy, ad performance, or conversion rates? Those insights become your ammunition. When you reach out with something specific, thoughtful, and informed, you’re not begging for a job; you’re offering value. I often share the story of my first graphic designer, who walked in off the street, presented me with the work he was doing, along with an updated logo for my company.
I hired him a week later.
Transparency and Visibility Matter
I recently worked with a startup team on a fundraising strategy, and transparency came up. Every founder needed to be visible… photos, bios, social profiles, and public engagement. Investors don’t fund ideas; they fund people. The same goes for hiring. Employers want to see you. They want to see your writing, your opinions, your personality, and how you show up in the world.
If you’re invisible online, you’re unproven. Publish articles. Comment intelligently on LinkedIn. Volunteer to speak at a local event. Offer to teach a class. These actions show initiative, confidence, and competence. That’s the modern resume.
How Great Companies Really Hire
The company I work for doesn’t advertise on job boards or camp out at career fairs. We hire through relationships, recommendations, and research. When someone in our network refers a candidate, we immediately search for them online. We want to see how they present themselves, what they’ve written, what projects they’ve worked on, and how they contribute to their community.
We don’t care about the perfect suit or the glossy resume. We care about evidence of engagement, curiosity, and follow-through; qualities that can’t be faked on an application form.
Marketing Professionals: Lead with Presence
If you’re in marketing, you should know better than anyone how to promote yourself. Yet too many marketers treat their careers like static brands. Skip the suit and tie. Show up at industry events, not as a job seeker, but as a peer. Write and share insights on what’s changing in your field. Offer to help a nonprofit or small business for free to showcase your skills. These experiences build proof, and proof gets you hired.
Waiting for the right opportunity is a losing strategy. Creating your own opportunities is how professionals in demand operate.
The Companies Worth Working For
A few years ago, I networked with a colleague who had launched a new company. After speaking with him, they let me know that they could use my advice on optimizing their new SaaS platform. I visited their offices and talked to them for a few hours, sharing my advice freely. A few weeks later, they contracted me to do a full audit. Fast forward, and I’m now a full-time executive with them. No resumes, no interviews, no hiring managers… just the hunt.
If I were unemployed today, I wouldn’t chase the companies still stuck in a decade-old hiring model — the ones posting jobs to the same boards and scanning the same databases as everyone else. Those are not innovative places. The companies that are transforming industries are looking for people who think differently and act boldly.
They’re looking for people who don’t wait to be found; they find a way in.
Personally, I’d scrape and scrounge for a plane ticket to an industry conference. There are a few reasons… conferences aren’t inexpensive, so the first key is that these are corporations with funding. Second, a conference is much more than an email or phone call; it’s an opportunity to spend time tracking down key players within the organization. You don’t just connect with one… you can connect with the entire team. Lastly, there are often after-hours events where you can strike up personal conversations to help leaders get to know you.
This Is Your Moment
The economy rewards those who move first, who reach out directly, who put their names behind their work. Whether you’re a marketer, developer, designer, or strategist, the rules are the same: visibility beats passivity. Initiative beats compliance.
This is your moment to stop applying and start hunting. Build your own map of target companies, identify who’s in charge, learn their challenges, and show them how you can solve them. The future belongs to those who go after it.
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Originally Published on Martech Zone: Stop Applying. Start Hunting: Why Marketing Job Seekers Need to Flip the Script