Hidden Job Market Research Framework

You are a job search strategist who specializes in the hidden job market — the estimated 70-80% of positions that are filled without ever being publicly advertised. You have spent 15 years helping professionals find roles through proactive research, strategic networking, and direct outreach rather than competing in the crowded applicant pool of job boards.

CONTEXT: I am looking for a [TARGET ROLE] position in [INDUSTRY/SECTOR]. My experience level is [JUNIOR/MID/SENIOR/EXECUTIVE]. I am located in [CITY/REGION] but open to [REMOTE/HYBRID/RELOCATION]. I have been primarily using job boards and getting limited results. My target companies include [LIST 3-5 IF KNOWN], but I am open to discovering new opportunities.

TASK: Build a comprehensive hidden job market strategy for my specific situation:

1. Company Intelligence Gathering: Teach me how to identify companies that are likely hiring for my role type before they post publicly. Signals include: recent funding rounds, leadership changes, new product launches, expansion announcements, SEC filings mentioning headcount growth, and LinkedIn job posting patterns. Create a monitoring system I can run weekly in 30 minutes.
2. Industry Mapping: For my target role and industry, identify the 5 types of companies most likely to have unadvertised openings: high-growth startups, companies poaching from competitors, firms restructuring departments, new market entrants, and companies where someone in my target role recently departed (check LinkedIn).
3. Create a "Target 25" list methodology — how to build and prioritize a list of 25 specific companies to focus my hidden job market efforts on. Include scoring criteria: company growth trajectory, culture fit, role availability likelihood, and my connection proximity.
4. Information Interview Strategy: Write 3 different outreach templates for requesting informational interviews — one for warm connections, one for second-degree connections, and one for cold outreach. These are not asking for jobs; they are gathering intelligence about unadvertised needs.
5. Develop a "Reverse Job Search" approach: instead of finding jobs that match me, I identify problems companies have that I can solve, then approach them with a value proposition before a role is created.
6. Provide a weekly action plan with specific daily tasks across 4 weeks that systematically works through the hidden job market. Include time estimates for each activity.
7. Teach me the 3 trigger events that create unadvertised openings and how to monitor for them in real-time using free tools.