You'd call it a broken go-to-market strategy. So why have we accepted it as the default for the talent market?
If your VP of Sales told you their entire strategy was to sit by the phone and wait for RFPs to hit their inbox, you would fire them on the spot.
You would correctly argue that they're abdicating control, entering a commoditized race to the bottom, and ignoring the vast majority of the market where real value is created.
Yet this is precisely the playbook we've accepted as the default for talent. The "Apply Now" button is the professional equivalent of the blind RFP—and it's failing everyone.
The Broken Mechanism
In enterprise sales, responding only to RFPs is a losing strategy. By the time a company issues a formal request, they've usually already talked to three vendors. They have a frontrunner. The RFP is often a formality—a box to check.
The job market works the same way.
When companies post an opening, they've often already interviewed candidates through their network. They have someone in mind. The posting frequently exists because policy requires it, not because they're genuinely starting from scratch.
Job seekers who only respond to postings are playing someone else's game, on someone else's timeline, with rules designed to screen them out. And companies relying solely on inbound applications are fishing in a self-selected pool of people who happened to be looking at the right time.
Both sides lose.
The AI Amplification Problem
Here's where it gets worse.
AI has made it trivially easy to generate tailored applications—resume optimization, cover letter personalization, keyword matching. The result? Application volumes have exploded.
Companies have responded predictably: more AI on their end to filter the flood. ATS systems rank and reject before human eyes ever scan.
We've created a closed loop of noise. Candidates blast out AI-generated applications. Companies deploy AI to filter them out. The human element—nuance, culture fit, potential—gets stripped away by algorithms on both sides.
The people who should be connecting never do. High-potential candidates remain invisible because they don't know how to "hack" the system. Companies miss signal in the noise.
This isn't a technology problem. It's a mindset problem that technology is amplifying.
There Is No "Hidden" Market
We talk about the "hidden job market" as if it's some secret economy that only insiders can access.
It's not hidden. It's simply how business actually works.
People hire people they know, or people who come recommended by people they trust. This isn't nepotism—it's risk reduction. Hiring is expensive and getting it wrong is costly. Of course decision-makers prefer candidates who arrive with context and credibility.
Private companies make hires based on conversations that started months before any role was formalized. Early-stage startups rarely post positions at all—they hire from their networks until they're forced to scale differently.
The market isn't hidden. Our approach to it is broken.
We've trained an entire generation to believe that if there's no job posting, there's no opportunity. We've commoditized human potential into a matching algorithm. And then we wonder why the process feels dehumanizing.
The Open Application Paradox
Here's the irony: many companies actively encourage unsolicited applications. They have "Join Us" pages. They say "We're always looking for great people."
Yet almost no one sends them.
Why? Because we've internalized that without a req number, there's no real opportunity. We wait for permission to start a conversation.
The companies winning the talent war understand this. They're making it easier to have a conversation—not harder. They're building relationships before there's a role to fill.
What Great Salespeople Actually Do
The best enterprise sales professionals share a methodology that applies directly here—for candidates and companies alike:
They identify ideal profiles. Before any outreach, they map which targets represent the best fit—based on industry, growth stage, culture, and strategic direction. They don't spray and pray.
They research before they reach. They understand challenges, recent news, competitive landscape. They come to conversations with context, not just credentials.
They build relationships before there's a deal on the table. The best outcomes happen when trust is already established. When budget appears or a role opens, they're not competing—they're continuing a conversation.
They create opportunities, not just capture them. They help the other side see problems they hadn't fully articulated and solutions they hadn't considered.
This is Account-Based Marketing applied to talent. And it works for both sides.
A Different Playbook
For candidates:
Define your Ideal Company Profile. Get specific—industry, stage, culture, geography, growth trajectory. Most job seekers apply to hundreds of roles with no real thesis. Great salespeople work focused territories.
Build a target account list. Identify 20-30 companies where you could genuinely add value. Research them deeply. Understand their challenges, strategy, and competitive position.
Start conversations before you need a job. Comment on their content. Share relevant insights. Attend their events. The best time to build relationships is when you're not desperate for something.
Lead with value. What insight, connection, or perspective can you offer before you ask for anything?
For companies:
Make it easier to start a conversation, not harder. If your careers page is a form that disappears into a void, you're filtering out exactly the proactive people you want.
Treat talent acquisition like business development. Your best hires probably aren't actively looking. How are you building relationships with them before you have a role to fill?
Arm your team to be talent scouts. Every employee interaction is a potential recruiting conversation. Are you enabling that, or leaving it to the careers page?
The Reframe
We tell people to be passive—to post a resume, apply to listings, and hope. Then we're surprised when they feel powerless, when the process feels dehumanizing, when results are poor.
What if we reframed it entirely?
You're not just sitting around hoping to be picked. You're a professional with valuable capabilities, looking for the right fit. You're doing what every good salesperson does: identifying where you can create value, building relationships, and positioning yourself to be the obvious choice when the time is right.
Some of this thinking is baked into what we're building at ByeByeApply—tools that help people move beyond the application treadmill and help companies connect with candidates who think strategically about their careers.
But the bigger shift is mindset.
Stop thinking like a job applicant. Start thinking like an executive sales professional.
Your career is a portfolio of value you create. Finding the next opportunity to deploy that value isn't about playing the resume lottery. It's about strategic positioning, relationship building, and being proactive about your own future.
The companies you want to work for? They're not waiting for your application.
Why are you waiting for their posting?
