The Reason You’re Not Hearing Back… And It’s Not Your CV

Let me tell you what I watch happen, over and over again, to smart and capable senior technology leaders who approach their job search the wrong way.

They update their CV. They optimise their LinkedIn. They set up job alerts on SEEK. And then they start applying, methodically, hopefully, at first confidently. Role after role after role. Sometimes they get a call. More often they get silence. Occasionally they get to an interview and then hear nothing. Weeks pass. Months pass. The applications keep going out. The confidence starts to erode.

And here’s the thing that makes it genuinely maddening: the roles keep getting filled. Just not by them. By people whose names came up in conversations that happened before the brief was ever written.

Applying for role after role on SEEK and expecting a different result. At senior level, that’s the definition of insanity.

Based on our experience placing senior technology leaders, only around ~35% of roles paying $250,000 or more are ever formally advertised. To be clear, that’s drawn from what we see in our own market, not a published study. But it matches what anyone who recruits at this level will tell you. The most senior roles are rarely won in the open market. They’re won in the network.

Which means if the job boards are your main strategy, you’re competing, visibly, for a third of what’s actually available. The other ~65% is somewhere else entirely.

Where the ~65% actually lives

It lives inside three pools that most senior leaders have but very few work deliberately.

1. The senior leaders you’ve reported to.

The CIOs, CTOs and executives you’ve worked under across your career. They already know your calibre, and they’ve seen you perform under pressure. A coffee with a former sponsor, not to ask for a job but simply to reconnect and understand what’s happening in their world, is worth fifty cold applications. They move in circles where roles are shaped before they’re defined. Being present in that conversation changes everything.

2. The vendors and implementation partners you’ve worked alongside.

The most underestimated network you have. Vendors and consulting partners operate across dozens of organisations simultaneously. They know which businesses are transforming, which leadership teams are in flux, which functions are about to grow. If you were a good client, they have every reason to put your name in a conversation, they want you somewhere you can be influential again. You could be a potential SOW Buyer = $$ in their pocket.

3. The people who used to report to you.

The analysts, project managers and team leads you developed 5 or 10 years ago are now senior themselves. These are the easiest meetings to get, genuine warmth, real history, no awkwardness. They’re also sitting inside organisations you’d want to reach, with real-time intelligence on what’s moving and often enough influence to get your name in front of the right person before a role even exists.

How it actually works. Be patient, this is important.

Here is the part most people miss. This is not a faster way to find a job. It is a fundamentally different kind of activity with a fundamentally different outcome.

When you have a genuine coffee with someone influential; a former boss who’s now CTO somewhere, a vendor contact who’s become a GM, and you plant a seed cleanly, something specific happens. That person carries you mentally. You are now present in their peripheral awareness in a way you were not before.

Three months later. Six months later. Perhaps longer. A role comes up, maybe it was never going to be advertised, maybe it gets a quiet internal conversation first… and that person doesn’t stay quiet. They walk into their CEO’s office or send a message to their talent team and say:

“Actually, I know someone. I had coffee with them recently. You should speak with them before you go to market.”

And suddenly you are not applicant number 247 on a SEEK posting. You are not disappearing into a black hole of an ATS system that filters you out before a human being ever reads your name.

You are the person their internal champion walked in and personally vouched for. That champion now has skin in the game. They want you to succeed in the process because your success reflects on their judgement. They will advocate for you to the talent acquisition team. They will make sure you get the interview. They will brief you on the culture, the politics, the things that matter to the decision maker.

That is a categorically different starting position. Not a better resume. A different conversation.

The role you want most will probably not be advertised when you want it. Your job is to be already known by the person who will fill it when it is.

This is why the timeline matters, and why most people give up too soon. The coffee you have today may not produce anything visible for four months. That does not mean it failed. It means it’s working. The seed is planted. When the moment comes, when the budget gets approved, when the incumbent announces they’re leaving, when the organisation finally decides to move, you are not starting from zero….you are already at the front of the conversation.

The people applying on SEEK that day are starting from zero. They are hoping a stranger reads their CV and decides to take a chance. You are being advocated for by someone the hiring manager already trusts.

The mechanics of planting the seed

The goal of every coffee conversation is not to ask for anything. It is simply to reconnect authentically, show genuine interest in what they’re doing, and, when it feels natural, say something like this:

“That all sounds really aligned to what I value in an organisation. If something were to come up there, I’d be very interested.”

Then move on. No ask. No pressure. You have planted the seed.

That’s it. No pitch. No CV. No “do you know of anything going?” Just a signal, delivered genuinely, that you’re open. And now they know. And they will remember.

The honest bit about advertised roles

Keep applying. The ~35% that comes to market is real. But treat it as a parallel track, not your main strategy. And when you do apply, make sure you’ve already done the network work, because if you know someone inside that organisation who can send a note saying “I know this person, they’re excellent,” you have just moved from the pile to the shortlist.

The network and the advertised market are not alternatives. They work together. The network gives you advocacy. The CV gives you credibility. You need both. But most senior leaders invest heavily in one and barely at all in the other.

But the network strategy is only one piece

What I’ve described above is where most senior searches are won or lost. But it’s one component of a process that has several moving parts, and weakness in any of them costs you.

Can you articulate, in a single clear line, what makes you genuinely distinct from every other capable leader at your level? Does your CV position you for the roles you want next, or the roles you’ve already done? If an executive looks you up on LinkedIn after your name comes up in a conversation, does your profile do you justice? Do you know your real market value before the compensation conversation begins? And when you’re in the room, in front of a CEO, a CFO, a board… can you tell your career story in a way that lands with someone who doesn’t understand technology?

Most senior technology leaders are exceptional operators and surprisingly underprepared candidates. Not because they lack the ability, but because they’ve spent their careers hiring other people, not positioning themselves. These are the parts that almost nobody works through properly. And they are the parts that, once right, make everything else ; the network, the advocacy, the interview, land the way it should.

I work through all of this; positioning, CV, LinkedIn, market value, interview narrative, network strategy and the advocacy mechanics, with a small number of senior technology leaders at any given time. If you’re navigating a move, or think you might be in the next six to twelve months, reach out. No pitch, no obligation. Just a proper conversation about how to do this well, and a genuine look at what the market actually looks like for someone at your level right now.

One final thought

I’ll say something most recruiters won’t: I can’t promise I’ll find your next role. I genuinely don’t know what’s going to come across my desk.

But I can give you something I think is worth more than a speculative brief; the approach, the structure, and the framework that puts you in the right conversations before a role exists. The preparation that means when the moment comes, you’re ready for it and already known by the person who matters.

The leaders who land the best roles at this level are not the ones who sent the most applications.

They’re the ones who were already in the room when the decision was made.

I recruit senior technology leaders across Melbourne and nationally, and spend a significant part of my time helping them navigate their next move properly. If you’re thinking about what’s next, feel free to connect or message me directly.