"I think once you pass 40, it gets hard in marketing," she said, looking at me a little sadly. She was an attractive slim woman, well dressed, internationally experienced, fluent in English, French and Italian. "It doesn't have to be age," I replied, "there are so many factors. And we still have avenues open." After extensive and intensive coaching we had gone to the market well prepared, there had been many interesting first and second interviews, but there hadn't yet been the right fit. I said that of course it could be the time and the market. "We uncover job opportunities, especially in the hidden job market. Of course, that's no guarantee that there will be any at that exact moment." I watched her reaction, and of course she didn't like it much. "Look, I said, we're still at the very beginning of our process, we've scanned the market and found that it doesn't offer what you're hoping for at the moment". It was a Monday morning, and we had met as usual at my office in the city. The morning sun was shining through the windows, and it looked like a bright spring day. I poured her coffee and we each took a sip. Then I went to the flip chart. She knew it, knew we were moving to the next step now, and looked at me expectantly. "If we find that the market doesn't seem to have a suitable job on offer, we have two options. We search the many job boards that are out there. That's tedious, and whether we find the right thing is up in the air. If we do find something, you are in competition with everyone else applying for that job. 'Last year I heard from a recruiter that he got over 100 applications for a commercial manager position,' I said. Then I took the pen and wrote big and clear on the sheet: speculative application! "Do you really think that can lead to success in my case?" I nodded and replied, " in your management role and salary bracket, this route is usually more successful than applying to a job posting." She looked at me in amazement. "And why is that?" I told her how I had placed a high-level manager this way. That made her sit up and take notice. Then I used the flip chart to explain to her the strategy and process required. As a marketer, she quickly saw the point and, after I finished, said, "This could work. It's some work for me too, but I'm happy to invest that." Four intense weeks followed, looking at how to prepare her profile in a way that would be interesting to the companies she approached, how to word the cover letters in a way that would increase her chances of being invited. All of this involved deep research. And I had prepared them for the fact that there would of course be rejections or that a company might not respond at all. It took a while for the first interviews to happen. And then came the day when she called me: "The managing director was very impressed with me and they are considering creating a new position especially for me. But that still depends on whether the group agrees". I replied, "That sounds good. I'll keep my fingers crossed." It went on for quite a while, with options emerging in other conversations as well. However, the most interesting remained this newly created position. Three weeks later, the appointment came up again, and after that it was just a matter of how and when. When we met, she was beaming and said: "I was already sceptical, I never thought it would work out so well".