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CAREER STRATEGY NEWSLETTER
Here is a number that should change how you think about your job search at senior level.
Between 70% and 85% of senior roles are never publicly advertised. They are filled through search firms, referrals, and direct approaches before a job spec reaches a job board.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is how senior hiring works. Commercial sensitivity, succession confidentiality, the cost of a failed senior hire… all of it pushes the process underground.
The 30% Trap
Executive Connexions puts the arithmetic starkly: 63% of candidates are competing for 30% of all senior-level jobs. Those are the visible ones. The posted ones. The ones with 300 applicants.
The other 70% are filled through a fundamentally different mechanism. Someone already in the network surfaces a name. A search firm has a shortlist assembled before the role exists publicly.
Pinpoint’s analysis of 4.5 million applications found that referred candidates are 7 times more likely to be hired than job board applicants. They move through the process 11% faster. An academic study of executive director appointments found that referred directors have 15% longer tenure; a 6 month advantage.
What This Means for Your Strategy
If you are a Director or VP who has been made redundant or looking for your next move, and you are spending 80% of your job search time on applications to posted roles, you are optimising for the smallest and most competitive segment of the market.
The strategic response is not “apply harder.” It is “become findable by the people who fill the other 70%.”
That requires three things:
1. Your expertise needs to be legible. The people who fill hidden-market roles (search firms, board members, senior peers) need to know what you are good at without asking. Not your job title. Your specific domain and the kind of problems you solve.
2. Your network needs to be active, not archived. A connection from 3 years ago who cannot accurately describe what you do is not a network asset. A network audit (signal strength, reach diversity, recency) is a diagnostic that tells you where the gaps are.
3. You need to be visible in the spaces where decisions are made. For most senior professionals, that means LinkedIn. Posting perspective, commenting on relevant conversations, and being present in the professional ecosystem your ICP inhabits.
The Network Audit
Pick 20 people from your network, those you would call if you needed a role tomorrow. For each, ask 3 questions:
Would they describe what I do accurately and specifically?
Have I spoken to them in the last 6 months?
Would they think of me if they heard about a relevant opportunity?
If the answer to any of these is no for more than half your list, the problem is not the market. It is your signal.
What may be reassuring to read is that senior executives who lack this true network (outside of the company you spent years in) is far more common than you might think - in fact, the majority realise this is a weak point when the need to leverage it surfaces.
From the Research
A 2023 ScienceDirect study on social networks in board recruitment found that being connected to someone already on a board through professional networks increases the probability of being referred by approximately 10%.
This is not about who you know in the abstract but whether the people you know can connect you to the rooms where decisions happen.
The Spencer Stuart 2025 UK Board Index reinforces this: only 21% of non-executive directors appointed in 2025 were first-time directors, down from 44% in 2022. Boards are choosing known quantities. Being known is not optional at this level. It is a prerequisite.
Where to Start
If you are reading this and recognising that your network might not be as active or legible as it should be, the first move is simple. Audit it. A structured look at who actually knows what you do, who would recommend you unprompted, and where the gaps are hiding.
I built the Network Audit Framework for exactly this. A 30-minute exercise that maps your network by signal strength, reach, and recency, and shows you where the work is. It is not a magic fix, but it turns "I should probably network more" into a clear list of people to reconnect with this month.
Smart starts here.
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