A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of weeks. Maybe it wouldn't all have been correct from the start, but I had so much knowledge that I could have done this by heart.

I spent a lot of time on targeted applications for these places, re-doing my CV and spending weeks iterating on my cover letter. I never heard back from any of those places.

Instead I've been hired into industries I knew nothing about. Sure, I was a decent candidate, but I was just another candidate. This has worked out fine.

Why did these places hire me and not the others? Because they were growing so they had a need to hire. The former places did not.

So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing. When places are growing and really need to hire to expand, all the bullshit in the process is eliminated. Decisions are made fast. It's easier and more pleasant.

> So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing.

Or sometimes when people are leaving and they need a replacement ASAP. That's how I was hired, but it was also quite lucky that there were not many applicants.

1 sell everything.

2 turn 18.

3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in.

4 make list of growing companies.

5 apply to growing companies.

Simple, yet so few will actually do this.