100 Job Strategies
100 Job Strategies · 15 of 100
Broken Thing Repair
Find something visibly broken. Fix it. Send the fixed version.
In short
Every company has small visible defects: dead links, a broken form, an ugly PDF, an untranslated page, a confusing onboarding email. Fixing one and sending the finished version — not a report of the problem — produces response rates that look implausible until you try it, because you have done work rather than requested attention.
The situation
You find a company's product brochure. It is a PDF that looks like it was assembled in 2011, with stretched logos and text that runs off the page on a phone.
The ordinary move is to mention it in a cover letter as evidence of your attention to detail.
The better move takes an afternoon: rebuild it properly, then send both versions side by side with a note saying it is theirs to use.
One of those is a claim about your ability. The other is a finished artefact with their name on it.
Why this works
This works for a reason that goes beyond demonstrating skill. It exploits a gap between how much something bothers a company and how much it costs them to fix.
Small defects persist not because nobody noticed but because nobody owns them. The broken link is somebody's job in theory and nobody's priority in practice. It sits there for years, faintly embarrassing, below the threshold where anyone allocates time.
Arriving with it already fixed removes the only thing standing between the company and a better version: the effort. There is no decision to make, no budget to request, no ticket to prioritise. Accepting costs them nothing.
The psychological effect is equally strong. Reporting a problem creates work for the recipient and can read as criticism. Handing over the solution creates nothing but a small pleasant surprise, and the reciprocity it triggers is real — people feel they owe something to someone who gave them something unprompted.
And unlike most job-search tactics, this one has a floor. Even if nobody hires you, you now have a portfolio piece featuring a real company's real problem, which is worth more than any invented exercise.
How to run it
- 1
Look where nobody maintains
Help pages, PDFs, footer links, old landing pages, automated emails, non-English versions. The neglected surfaces are where fixable defects accumulate.
- 2
Pick something small enough to actually finish
A single email, one page, one document. Redesigning their entire site is neither finishable nor credible as a gift.
- 3
Fix it completely
Not a mockup, not a suggestion, not a list of recommendations. A finished thing they could use tomorrow without touching it.
- 4
Show before and after together
The contrast is the argument. Two images side by side communicate more than several paragraphs describing what you improved.
- 5
Give it away explicitly and without conditions
Say plainly that it is theirs to use whether or not they reply. Attaching conditions converts a gift into a pitch and loses the effect entirely.
- 6
Send it to whoever owns that surface
Marketing for brochures and copy, product or engineering for broken flows, support for help content. A general inbox is where this goes to die.
What to say
When it does not work
- Fixing something that is deliberate. What looks broken is occasionally a constraint you cannot see — a legal requirement, an accessibility decision, a brand rule. Ask yourself why a competent person might have done it that way.
- Touching anything security-related. Probing for vulnerabilities is not the same as fixing a broken link and can be illegal. Stay entirely on the surface of things any user can see.
- Using assets you have no right to. Rebuilding something with their logo is normally fine as a gift; publishing it publicly as your own work may not be. Keep it private between you and them.
- Making the gift conditional. "I'll finish it if you'd like to talk about a role" converts generosity into a transaction and kills the reciprocity that makes this work.
- Choosing something nobody cares about. Fixing a typo on a page with no traffic demonstrates diligence but solves nothing. Aim at surfaces customers actually encounter.
Reporting a problem asks for someone's time. Handing over the fix asks for nothing — which is exactly why it gets answered.
Questions
Is it presumptuous to fix something without being asked?
Not if you frame it as a gift rather than a correction. The distinction is entirely in the tone: a message that says "this was broken and I fixed it for you, use it or don't" is received as generosity, while one that implies incompetence on their part is received as an insult. It also helps to assume the defect persisted because nobody owned it rather than because nobody noticed, which is usually the truth and produces a naturally respectful framing.
What if the thing I fixed was deliberate?
It happens, and it is survivable if you have written the message respectfully. Constraints invisible from outside — legal requirements, accessibility standards, brand guidelines, technical limitations — occasionally make an apparently poor choice the correct one. Before you send anything, spend a moment asking why a competent person might have done it that way. If you cannot think of a reason, proceed; if you can, either address it in your note or pick something else.
Does this work for non-technical, non-design roles?
Yes, though the artefact changes. Writers can rewrite a confusing help page or onboarding email. Multilingual candidates can translate a page the company does not publish in their language. Operations people can redraw a process that is visibly inefficient from the customer side. Finance and analysis candidates can rebuild a poorly presented public report. The requirement is a visible defect on a surface you can legitimately access, not a specific technical skill.
Should I publish the fix publicly as a portfolio piece?
Be careful, and default to sending it privately first. Rebuilding something using a company's branding and publishing it as your own work can create trademark and reputational problems, particularly if it could be mistaken for official material. Sending it directly to the company avoids all of that and preserves the gift framing. If you later want to use it publicly, ask them — companies that liked the work often agree, and the permission itself becomes part of the story.
More from 100 Job Strategies
- Backfill Sniping
- The Funding Lag
- The Unsolicited Audit
- The Vendor Side Door
- Repost Archaeology
- Ex-Employee Networks