Elite Edge | Vol 2 Week 42

Last week, I showed you where the best jobs really come from.

Not job boards. Conversations. The short list a hiring manager writes down before HR writes a single word of the job description.

And I gave you Part 1 of the playbook: follow the money, build your Target 25, read the signals, go through the investors, and find a real name at every company.

If you did your homework, you're sitting on something most job seekers never build: a list of companies that are about to hire, and the name of the person who will make the call.

Now comes the part where most people freeze.

They open a blank email. They write "I hope this finds you well." They attach a résumé. They ask if there are any openings. And then they never hear back, and they decide networking "doesn't work for them."

It works. They just said the wrong thing.

So this week is all about what to say, when to say it, and how to keep it going without feeling like a pest.

And here's the bigger point, the one that ties this whole season together. Two weeks ago I told you your name is on a spreadsheet you'll never see. Your company controls that spreadsheet. Your relationships are the one career asset no company can put on a spreadsheet, score, or take away from you. They go wherever you go. Every message you send this week is an investment in something that's 100% yours.

Let's go.

⏪ Missed Last Week? The 60-Second Recap

Part 1 of the playbook, in five lines:

1. Define your lane: industry, function, level, location, and company stage. (Series B hires its first department heads. Series C and D hires the "done it before" leaders.)

2. Follow the money: use Crunchbase (or free sources like Crunchbase News and Google Alerts) to find companies in your industry that raised a Series B, C, or D in the last 90 days. Pick your Target 25.

3. Read the tea leaves: check the funding announcement, the careers page, and the LinkedIn "People" tab to figure out the role they'll need but haven't posted. Write one sentence: "I think they need ___ because ___."

4. Go through the investors: check the VC firm's portfolio job board and find its talent partner.

5. Find the right human: the founder at small companies, the leader you'd report to at bigger ones.

Read Part 1 here ➡️ Elite Edge Week 41

🔍 The Breakdown: Why Most Outreach Gets Ignored

I get a lot of messages from people who want to be considered for searches. I read them. And I can tell you within about five seconds which ones will get a reply.

Here's why most of them don't:

1. It's about you, not them. "I'm looking for my next opportunity" is about your problem. The leader reading it has their own problem: they just raised money and have a board expecting them to grow. Talk about that.

2. It asks for a job. "Are you hiring?" forces a yes or no. The answer is almost always "no" or silence. Asking for a conversation about their priorities gets a yes.

3. It's too long. If it doesn't fit on a phone screen without scrolling, it won't get read. Senior leaders read email between meetings.

4. There's no proof. "Results-driven leader" means nothing. "Took the sales team from 4 to 40 reps" means everything. One number does more than one paragraph.

5. It's one and done. Most replies come from the follow-up, not the first message. People send once, hear nothing, and give up right before it would have worked.

Fix those five things and you'll be ahead of almost everyone else in their inbox.

📕 The Unwritten Rules of Outreach

Rule 1: Silence isn't a no. It's "I'm busy." Treat it that way.

Rule 2: Timing beats talent. The same email lands completely differently the week after a funding announcement than six months later. That's why last week's funding scan matters so much.

Rule 3: Give before you ask. An article, an intro, a congratulations, a useful idea. The people who give first get remembered.

Rule 4: Make it easy to say yes. A specific ask ("20 minutes in the next two weeks") gets a yes. A vague one ("let me know if you ever want to chat") gets ignored.

🛠️ The Elite Edge Playbook, Part 2: Exactly What to Say (and When)

Step 1: Write Your Forwardable Blurb

Remember the rule from last week: nobody refers a résumé. They refer a story. Write the two or three sentences you want someone to paste into an email or Slack message about you. Make it so easy to forward that it takes them 10 seconds.

Formula: Who you are + the problem you solve + one proof point + what you're exploring.

Example: "Priya leads revenue operations for B2B software companies. She rebuilt the forecasting process at her last company and cut forecast misses by half. She's exploring VP RevOps roles at Series B to D SaaS companies."

Keep it in your notes. Every outreach message ends with this blurb.

Step 2: Reach Out Directly (The Scripts)

The rule: never ask for a job. Asking "Are you hiring?" ends the conversation. Congratulating them, showing you understand their next problem, and offering a conversation starts one.

Script 1: The "you just raised" email (to the hiring leader or founder)

Short. Specific. About their problem. That's the whole formula.

Script 2: The VC talent partner

Script 3: The reconnect (someone you haven't talked to in a while)

Script 4: The warm intro ask (to a mutual connection)

Script 5: The peer on the team

Step 3: Follow Up Like a Professional (Not a Pest)

Most people send one message, hear nothing, and decide it didn't work. Senior leaders are busy, not uninterested. Here's the cadence:

• Day 1: Send the email.

• Day 4: Send a LinkedIn connection request with a short note: "Sent you a note about [topic] last week, would love to connect here too."

• Day 10: Follow up by email with something useful: an article about their market, a quick idea, or a congrats on a new customer or product launch.

• Day 21: One last short note: "I know this is a busy stretch after the raise. I'll keep following what you're building, and I'd still love to connect whenever the timing works."

Then stop. Set a reminder for 90 days, and check back in when they post their next news.

Step 4: Track Everything

Build one simple spreadsheet. These columns:

Company | Stage & date of last raise | Lead investor | What I think they need | Contact name | How I found them | Date of 1st touch | Follow-ups | Status | Next step

Every Friday, look at it. If you're not getting replies, change your message. If you're getting calls but no next steps, change your pitch. This is a numbers game you can actually measure.

Step 5: The Weekly Rhythm

This only works if you do it every week, not in a panic burst after a layoff. Here's the schedule:

• Monday (30 min): Funding scan. Check your Crunchbase alerts or Google Alerts. Add any new fits to your Target 25.

• Tuesday (30 min): Research 3 to 5 companies and find the right human (Steps 3 and 5 from last week).

• Wednesday (30 min): Send 3 to 5 direct outreach emails (Script 1) and 1 VC talent partner note (Script 2).

• Thursday (30 min): Network: 5 reconnects, 5 thoughtful comments on posts from people at your target companies, and 1 introduction you make for someone else.

• Friday (30 min): Follow-ups, update your tracker, and read Crunchbase News' "10 Biggest Funding Rounds."

And cap online applications at a handful a week, only for roles where you've also found a human.

Then change what you measure. Stop counting applications. Count conversations. If you're having two or three real conversations a week, the opportunities will follow. They always do.

Bonus: What to Do When You Do See the Perfect Posting

Don't just apply. Within 24 hours:

1. Apply on the company's own careers page.

2. Find the hiring manager or a peer on that team (last week's Step 5).

3. Send a short note: "I just applied for [role] and wanted to reach out directly. [One sentence on why you're a fit, with a number.] Would love to connect."

4. Check whether anyone in your network knows someone on that team, and ask for a referral with your blurb attached.

A posting is the announcement. A human is still the way in.

✨ ELITE TOOLS, HACKS & TIPS (New) ✨

Tool of the Week: Dex

You can't stay top of mind with 500 people from memory. That's why this week's tool is Dex, a personal CRM (think of it as a relationship tracker) built for exactly this kind of networking.

What it does:

• Syncs your LinkedIn connections, email, and calendar into one place, so you can see the last time you actually talked to someone.

• Job change alerts. When a contact gets promoted or moves to a new company, you hear about it. That's your perfect, natural reason to reach out, and new leaders are future hiring managers.

• Keep-in-touch reminders. Tell it you want to talk to someone every 90 days, and it will nudge you when it's time.

• Notes on every contact, so you remember their kids' names, their big project, and what you promised to send them.

How to use it this week:

1. Sync your LinkedIn during the free trial.

2. Tag the people connected to your Target 25 companies from last week.

3. Set 60 or 90 day reminders for your top 25 relationships.

4. Every time Dex flags a job change, send a congratulations note that same day.

Relationships don't fade because people stop liking you. They fade because life gets busy. This is how you stop that.

💵 Premium: $12/month (billed annually), with a 7-day free trial.
🔗 https://getdex.com

📚What I Read This Week…

👀 Your next boss might be younger than you.

Fortune reports 46% of Gen Z/millennial business owners plan to hire, versus 19% of boomer owners or older.

My take: If your job search revolves around household names, widen the list. Smaller businesses deserve a look—and being willing to work for someone younger could open doors you’ve been walking past.

🎙️What I Listened to This Week… (Podcasts)

🎙️ A little self-promotion this week: my Spotlight talk at the Forbes Future of Work Summit, where I tackled how AI is rewriting the org chart—and what that means for hiring, leadership and your career.

I was given 10 minutes. I took 14. Apparently, even AI couldn’t compress me. 😂

It was a thrill to bring this conversation to the Forbes stage. If you’re wondering how AI could change your role—or the team you lead—give it a watch.

▶️ Watch my full talk: Is AI Actually Stealing Jobs?

Until next week,

You’ve got the Edge. Now sharpen it.

Until next week,

💎 SPECIAL INVITATION 💎

📩 A Special Invitation: Elite Edge+ Is Here

You’ve been reading The Elite Edge. Now, I’m inviting you into the room.

I’ve just launched Elite Edge+, a private community where we take the career strategies I share here and work through how to apply them to your next move.

Whether you’re going for a promotion, negotiating your compensation, navigating a job search, or figuring out your next chapter, you deserve people you can compare notes with—and guidance you can actually use.

Here’s what’s inside:

🤝 A private professional community. Connect with peers navigating similar challenges and people who’ve already made the move you’re planning.

🎙️ Live webinars and monthly group office hours with me. Bring your real questions, get into the hot seat, and leave with a clearer next step.

🛠️ The full template and playbook library with Founding membership. Interview frameworks, outreach scripts, promotion tools, brag books, visibility trackers, and more—with new resources added every month.

💳 A $99 credit every month toward coaching or service products to support your next move.

Plus, Founding membership includes full Elite Academy access and early access to Elite Agent when they launch.

As an Elite Edge reader, this is your personal invitation to become a Founding Member at $79/month, billed quarterly. The founding offer closes November 1 at 10 a.m. ET.

You don’t have to wait until you’re laid off, burned out, or passed over to start investing in your next chapter.

👉 Join Elite Edge Plus and become a Founding Member

Let’s play chess, not checkers. ♟️

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