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100 Job Strategies · 28 of 100

Write the Job Ad

Do not wait for the role to exist. Send them the job description and the business case for it.

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In short

Small and mid-size companies create roles far more often than people assume, usually because someone made a convincing argument that the role would pay for itself. Writing that argument for them — a job description plus the business case, for a role that does not yet exist — is how you get hired for a job nobody advertised.

The situation

A 90-person company has no open marketing roles. Their careers page lists two engineering jobs and nothing else.

They also have no one running lifecycle email, a customer base that hears from them twice a year, and a founder who knows both of those facts and has not had time to think about them.

Nobody is going to write that job description, because the person who would write it is the person who does not exist yet.

So you write it. One page: what the role does, what it costs, what it returns in the first year, and why now.

Why this works

Job postings are the final output of a process most candidates never see. Someone identified a gap, estimated what filling it would produce, argued for the budget, and wrote the description. By the time you read the posting, all the actual decisions have been made.

Writing the ad yourself enters that process at the beginning instead of the end. You are not asking to be selected from a pool; you are proposing that a pool should exist, with a fairly specific person in mind.

This works disproportionately at small and mid-size companies for structural reasons. There is no headcount planning committee, the decision-maker is one or two people you can actually reach, and they are acutely aware of the things nobody is doing. What stops them is not reluctance but bandwidth — nobody has done the thinking.

The business case is what separates this from a speculative application. A job description alone asks them to spend money. A job description with a credible argument about what it returns gives them something to say yes to, and something to show a co-founder or a board.

Being the author also makes you the obvious candidate. You defined the role, which means the requirements describe you — not dishonestly, but because you wrote them from your own understanding of what the work requires.

How to run it

  1. 1

    Find companies with a visible unstaffed function

    No one running content, no one on customer success, no analytics capability, a product with no designer. Team pages and job-posting history make these gaps obvious.

  2. 2

    Verify the gap is real, not just invisible to you

    Check whether an agency, a contractor or a founder is already covering it. Proposing to solve a solved problem wastes the one shot you get.

  3. 3

    Write the job description as they would

    Title, responsibilities, first-90-days outcomes, requirements. Written in their register, not as a pitch about yourself.

  4. 4

    Attach the numbers

    Cost of the role against a defensible estimate of what it returns — revenue influenced, cost avoided, hours recovered. Conservative figures are more persuasive than optimistic ones.

  5. 5

    Offer a smaller version as a fallback

    Many will not create a permanent role but will fund three months of part-time work. Naming that option yourself makes saying yes easier.

  6. 6

    Send it to someone who can decide

    A founder, a department head, a general manager. HR cannot create roles, and at this size the decision-maker is usually reachable.

What to say

Copy, then make it yours
Hi Tomás, Halcyon doesn't have anyone running lifecycle marketing, as far as I can tell from the outside. I've written the job description for that role, plus the case for why it pays for itself — it's a page, attached. Short version: you have roughly 14,000 registered users and email them about twice a year. A basic lifecycle programme at your conversion rates should return meaningfully more than the salary in year one, and most of the build is front-loaded. I wrote it because I'd like to do it. But the document is useful to you whether or not I'm the person — if you'd rather hire someone else off the back of it, that's a fine outcome too. If a full role is too big a step, I'd also do the first three months as a contract to prove the numbers. — Astrid

When it does not work

  • Inventing a gap that is already covered. An agency or a quiet contractor may already own the work. Check before proposing, or the whole document reads as uninformed.
  • Numbers that are obviously optimistic. Inflated projections destroy credibility instantly. Conservative, clearly-reasoned estimates persuade far more effectively.
  • Writing a job description that is transparently you. Requirements listing your exact unusual combination of skills looks self-serving. Write the role honestly; you will still be the obvious candidate.
  • Sending it to a large corporate. Headcount at big companies is governed by planning cycles and finance approval that no external document can shortcut. This is a small-and-mid-size strategy.
  • No fallback option. Without a smaller alternative, the only answers available are yes to a permanent hire or no. Most companies will take the middle path if you offer one.
The takeaway

Every job posting began as someone's argument that the role should exist. Make the argument yourself and you enter the process before there is any competition.

Questions

What size of company does this actually work for?

Roughly ten to three hundred people is the sweet spot. Below that there is often no budget for a new role at all, and above it headcount is typically governed by annual planning cycles and finance approval that an external document cannot shortcut. In the middle range the decision-maker is one or two reachable people, they are conscious of the functions nobody is covering, and what prevents them acting is usually bandwidth rather than unwillingness.

How do I estimate the business case without internal data?

Use publicly observable figures and be conservative and explicit about your assumptions. User counts, pricing, publishing frequency, headcount and market benchmarks are frequently visible from outside, and reasoning transparently from those is more persuasive than a confident number with no working shown. Framing it as a range, and stating plainly which inputs you have estimated, signals rigour. An obviously optimistic projection destroys the credibility of the entire document.

Will they just take my job description and hire someone else?

Occasionally, and it is worth accepting that risk up front rather than trying to prevent it. In practice the author of a well-argued proposal is the natural candidate, because you have demonstrated understanding of the problem that no interviewee can match. Acknowledging openly that the document is useful to them regardless of who fills the role tends to increase your chances rather than reduce them, because it removes any sense that you are manipulating them.

What if they say there is no budget for a permanent role?

That is why offering a smaller version matters. Many companies that cannot approve a salary can approve three months of part-time or project work from discretionary spend, and that engagement then produces the evidence that justifies the permanent role later. Naming the fallback yourself makes it easy for them to choose the middle path instead of declining outright, which is otherwise the only alternative to a full yes.

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