As you may have seen from my other posts, I am in the market looking for a new job.

I got a Linkedin call from a recruiter for a senior level position in a startup company saying my profile seemed interesting to them. I jumped at it and am in the process.

I noticed that this job is not posted anywhere. Neither on their website, not in LinkedIn. The person who called me was from an external recruiting firm

My question is why would they do so? What does it mean? Why not just post this on their website and get a ton of resumes and pick? It seems that they are being super selective and finding people rather than let people come to them. They have posted many other jobs that are lower in level.

Any insights?

Astroag said:

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infinity ag said:

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As you may have seen from my other posts, I am in the market looking for a new job.

I got a Linkedin call from a recruiter for a senior level position in a startup company saying my profile seemed interesting to them. I jumped at it and am in the process.

I noticed that this job is not posted anywhere. Neither on their website, not in LinkedIn. The person who called me was from an external recruiting firm

My question is why would they do so? What does it mean? Why not just post this on their website and get a ton of resumes and pick? It seems that they are being super selective and finding people rather than let people come to them. They have posted many other jobs that are lower in level.

Any insights?

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Because it's senior level position and the people they are after arent normally looking at LinkedIn for roles…

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Well, they did find me through LinkedIn. The rec said they were interested in my current company and my work 2 companies ago.

The story is she messaged me over Linkedin in early Oct. I ignored it as I loved my current job a lot and didn't want a change even though I was not too happy with the title. My boss was awesome and I did not want to take a risk with a bad boss as I had a lot of those. So then I unexpectedly got laid off mid Nov. Amazingly, the recruiters boss messaged me 2 days later saying her colleague messaged me and I didn't reply and wanted to check again. I said yes yes I am interested! A stroke of luck. Let's see if this goes anywhere.

birdman said:

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Because they don't want a bunch of people calling them about an opening.

Or you might be replacing someone that hasn't been fired yet.

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I don't see anyone on Linkedin who is in that role but I can see this as a good reason.

The startup I was at (grew from about 35 to 70 while I was there) never once posted for a position that was Director level or higher. Frequently took on contractors who would become full time later on.

Even the majors do it sometimes.... i got a call for my most recent job (large independent oil & gas) from a firm that I have never worked with. They found an old resume of mine on a job board.

I'd venture to guess, most job postings get about 50-60% of folks that are just interested because they tolerate their current spot, 20% way under qualified, and 20% over qualified or right fits, but regardless, a job posting creates work for some HR team / managers to sort through all the resumes to determine who to call, whereas the search firm can do that for the company and find for purpose folks right away.

Learn as much as you can about their company, goals and strategic focus to help you see and later convey alignment.
They may not want competition to know they are making this move. If they had posted a listing in this economy they could easily receive 300 resumes and someone has to read them- ALL of them - to find the 8 qualified prospects.
Have you looked them up on LinkedIn and careerShift (on HireAggies.com through the Aggienetwork.com link) to learn more about the leadership Team?

I have had this happen to me before but in the reverse. My boss interviewed someone for my position without telling me or his boss. The big boss was rather surprised when I resigned and couldn't understand why I was leaving.

infinity ag said:

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As you may have seen from my other posts, I am in the market looking for a new job.

I got a Linkedin call from a recruiter for a senior level position in a startup company saying my profile seemed interesting to them. I jumped at it and am in the process.

I noticed that this job is not posted anywhere. Neither on their website, not in LinkedIn. The person who called me was from an external recruiting firm

My question is why would they do so? What does it mean? Why not just post this on their website and get a ton of resumes and pick? It seems that they are being super selective and finding people rather than let people come to them. They have posted many other jobs that are lower in level.

Any insights?

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It is not unusual for companies to have openings that they haven't posted yet. Hence why is good to network. But in this case, the recruiter probably has a contact within the firm and that how they found out about the opening. They may very well post the opening but either wanted to go this route to see if they can find a candidate more easily that fits their needs or just haven't gotten around to actually posting the opening on their website and other job pages.

You could ask the recruiter too. It's not unreasonable to ask just to see why.

jakal0722 said:

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The startup I was at (grew from about 35 to 70 while I was there) never once posted for a position that was Director level or higher. Frequently took on contractors who would become full time later on.

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Hmm on Linkedin I see them posting about 5-6 jobs of lower experience levels, so maybe this is in line with what you say above.

Update.
This company had hired a recruiting company and contacted me in Oct over Linkedin. I did not reply. Then again in November. I jumped at it. Then I had a call with the recruiter, and she pushed me to the next round with the CEO. This is a VP level job in a small startup. The interview went very well and my experience matched well. We vibed well too in the interview. There was no situations where he asked me something and I did not have it. The only thing was this was for a VP job and I am at a Senior Manager level (though with 25 years work experience). I would have grabbed it if he offered me a Director level job. The CEO seemed happy and even said he would get me in touch with other senior leaders like the CTO. Next round, done deal?

After 2 days I got a reject from the recruiter. I was shocked. One of my best interviews ever with the top guy and I don't even get to the next round.
After a day, I wrote to the CEO thanking him for this time, asking for any feedback, and expressing interest in other roles that may come up in the future. No reply.

Oh well. This job would have been perfect.