100 Job Strategies
100 Job Strategies · 68 of 100
The Reverse Job Posting
Publish what you do, what it costs and what you deliver in 90 days. Become something to buy, not screen.
In short
A reverse job posting is a public spec sheet describing your capability as a product: the problem you solve, what you deliver, in what timeframe, at what price. It moves you out of the candidate pool and into a category companies evaluate very differently — and act on much faster.
The situation
A resume says: senior operations manager, twelve years' experience, skilled in process improvement and team leadership.
A reverse job posting says: I reduce order-to-delivery time in mid-size distribution businesses. In 90 days you get a mapped process, three implemented changes and a measured before-and-after. Fixed price. Two slots available this quarter.
The first document asks to be evaluated against other candidates. The second describes a purchase.
They can be written by the same person about the same experience. They are read completely differently.
Why this works
Candidates and vendors are assessed through entirely different mental processes.
A candidate is screened: compared against a specification, ranked against others, filtered on proxies like years of experience and previous employers. The process is defensive and slow because the decision is hard to reverse.
A vendor is evaluated on a different question — does this solve a problem we have, at a price that makes sense? That question can be answered quickly, by one person, without a hiring process. It also sidesteps the proxies entirely, because nobody asks a supplier which university they attended.
Publishing a spec sheet forces the useful discipline of specificity. Most candidates describe capability in abstractions; a reverse posting requires naming the problem you solve, the deliverable, the timeframe and the price. That clarity is persuasive on its own, because it demonstrates that you know exactly what you do.
It also inverts discovery. A resume goes out to companies you have identified. A published spec sheet is found by companies with the problem, which produces inbound conversations with people who are already looking for what you offer.
The route frequently leads back to employment. Companies that engage a contractor and find them valuable propose permanent roles regularly, having already validated the decision.
How to run it
- 1
Name the specific problem you solve
Not your job title. The business problem, described as the company would describe it: slow onboarding, rising support costs, unreliable reporting.
- 2
Define a concrete deliverable and timeframe
What exists at the end that did not exist before, and by when. Ninety days is long enough to matter and short enough to approve.
- 3
State a price
This is the part people avoid and it is what makes the document a proposition. A range is acceptable; silence is not.
- 4
Show evidence rather than adjectives
One or two specific outcomes from previous work. Numbers where you have them, described honestly.
- 5
Publish it somewhere stable and linkable
A simple page with its own URL. It should be something you can send in one line and that can be found independently.
- 6
Send it where the problem exists
Identify companies visibly having the problem you named and send them the page rather than a resume.
What to say
When it does not work
- Vagueness. A spec sheet that describes general capability is just a resume in a different format. Specificity is the entire value.
- Refusing to name a price. Omitting cost turns it back into a conversation about you rather than a decision about a purchase.
- Promising outcomes you cannot control. Commit to deliverables and process, not to results that depend on factors outside your remit.
- Tax and employment complications. Working as a supplier has real implications for tax status and employment classification. Understand them.
- Not every role suits it. Some functions are genuinely difficult to package as a defined engagement.
A resume asks to be compared with other resumes. A spec sheet asks a much easier question: is this worth buying?
Questions
Why do companies respond to this differently than to a resume?
Because vendors and candidates are assessed through different processes. A candidate is screened defensively, compared against others and filtered on proxies like previous employers and years of experience, all of which takes weeks. A vendor is evaluated on whether the offer solves a problem at a sensible price, which one person can decide quickly without a hiring process. The same underlying experience presented as a purchase is simply a faster decision.
Do I really have to state a price?
Yes, and it is the part most people want to omit. Without a price the document reverts to being a description of you, which returns you to being evaluated as a candidate. A stated price, even as a range, is what makes it a proposition someone can act on. It also filters productively: companies for whom the number is impossible do not waste your time, and those for whom it is reasonable arrive already past the main objection.
What if I want a permanent job rather than contract work?
This route leads there frequently, and often faster than applying does. Companies that engage someone on a defined project and find them valuable propose permanent roles regularly, having already validated the decision in a way no interview process achieves. The spec sheet is a way into the building rather than a commitment to freelancing permanently, and you can say openly that you are open to either arrangement.
Does this work for every kind of role?
No. It suits work that can be packaged as a defined engagement with a clear deliverable — process improvement, systems work, audits, content, analysis, implementation. It suits poorly any role whose value is continuous presence rather than discrete output, or where the work cannot meaningfully be separated from long-term employment. Attempting to force an ill-fitting role into this format produces a vague document, which is worse than a straightforward resume.
More from 100 Job Strategies
- Backfill Sniping
- The Funding Lag
- The Unsolicited Audit
- The Vendor Side Door
- Repost Archaeology
- Ex-Employee Networks
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