The opportunity you’ve been waiting for

Smart companies hire people who are passionate about what they do and determined to work there.

These people might not come along on the company’s timeline. They may not have an open position or a defined role on the team. But when that person comes along, they know better than to pass them up. They make the space. They create a role.

And so, the best question when job searching is not “are you hiring?”

The question is: “Do you want to hire me?”

Mikael Cho, co-founder and CEO of Unsplash, put it nicely: “I love people who apply when we aren’t hiring. It signals conviction and people who don’t need permission to get started,” he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t wait for permission to apply to places you want to work. Every company I know will make room for someone great, even if they aren’t hiring.”

This couldn’t be more true for the creative industry. It’s like falling in love. You may say you’re not looking for it. You may turn down countless suitors, saying you don’t want anything serious. But when the right person comes along, it just happens. You weren’t looking for it. But you found it.

The majority of people I currently work with came through my internal network or random encounters. Hiring these people was as much an opportunity for me as it was for them.

If you want to work with a specific company, don’t wait for the door to open. Open it yourself. Make yourself the best person for the job, then go after it.