I Landed a Job at My Dream Company Without Ever Submitting an Application

It took me 2 years and 21 meetings, and it was worth every single one. Not just because I got the job. Because I learned something about networking and job searching that I now use with my clients every single day.

Back in my media buying days, I knew exactly where I wanted to go next. Viacom (now Paramount). I had spent enough time across the table from their team to know the culture, the people, the energy. I wanted in.

The problem was at the time, they only hired internally. Then came a hiring freeze.

So I stopped looking for openings and started building relationships.

I identified the company. I asked for conversations. Not a job, just a chat. And I left every single meeting with two more names of people I should be talking to. Some of those meetings were 15 minutes. A few turned into 90. One casual introduction ended up mattering a lot later. By the end, I had met with 16 people across 21 meetings. I was in that office so often that my friends joked I already worked there.

Around meeting 12, I wondered if I was wasting my time. No role had opened. No one was promising me anything. I kept going anyway.

One time I even spotted my boss in the lobby on my way to a meeting and had to duck out of sight so he would not see me. I still laugh about it. But it also says something about how committed I was to a process that had no guaranteed outcome.

Eventually, a spot opened and they called me. I was in.

A year later, a role one level above me opened on the original team I had been meeting with from the very beginning. This time I was an internal hire, and because I had planted seeds from day one, I already knew everyone in the room. I got promoted within a year of starting.

Two years to land. And I moved up faster than most of my peers who took the straight path.

The obvious path is not always the fastest one.

Here is the part I want you to sit with. This is the exact strategy I now walk my coaching clients through. Not because it is a clever framework I picked up somewhere, but because I lived it. I know it works when the market says it should not. I know what meeting 12 feels like when nothing has moved. And I know what happens on the other side of staying in the conversation.

If you are job searching right now, ask yourself this. Are you scrolling, or are you building? Both can matter, but only one of them compounds.

Job boards get you in line. Conversations get you in the room.

What is one company you have been quietly eyeing? Start there.

And if you are in the middle of a search that is taking longer than you thought it would, I hope this story finds you at the right moment. The timeline is not proof of anything except that you are still in it. Please do not give up!