Small Market Job Search: A Strategic Shift for Success
2 min readJul 1, 2024
You can’t approach a small market job search like a large market one.
In the large market job search, your opportunities are plentiful:
- You live in NYC or Bangalore
- You’re qualified for several types of roles
- There are plenty of companies hiring for those
But there are a lot of cases where you have a small market:
- If you’re not in a big city (now that RTO is here to stay)
- If you’re going after a specific function
- If you’re targeting 1 industry
In these cases, you need to employ the small market approach.
The small market approach isn’t a bad one. It’s just different. In fact, it’s worth more people adopting.
It’s perfect for aspiring PMs, career switchers, those with a career break… even if they live in a large market.
So how do you go about executing on this small market job search?
I go deep on the top misconceptions, tactics, and first principles in my latest newsletter issue.
Your process just needs to completely change:
- You have to go from starting with jobs to starting with companies
- Instead of applying and then studying, you study first
- Instead of referrals, work products, and customized resumes, you get intros and create demand
- Then you keep doing the process even if you fail at first
It’s a complete 180. But it works.
Why listen to me?
- I got my job at Epic Games in North Carolina using a small market approach.
- I’ve coached several laid off PMs on this approach (even some who lived in big cities) to get interviews in the past few weeks.
- I’ve helped several PMs get jobs using these techniques over the past few years.