What’s the best way for a founder to jobhunt secretly?

In a case where you’re selling or shutting down your startup but that news is not yet public. You need to start jobhunting but you can’t do it publicly for obvious reasons. It’s hard to network for jobs because many groups overlap – eg startup/tech/founder groups on FB contain the same people that may be hiring or funding or buying your co. What’s the best way to proceed? Use a different name for job applications and explain at the interview or when you get an offer?


    • No investors, very small team (who know), time to tell customers has been scheduled for certain date around when sales/acq process is completed and ops are organized (ie no new long term contracts/sales being signed, etc).

  • You might try an executive hiring agency (these do charge up-front fees). They can search for you while being discrete.

  • Been in this situation. I looked on AngelList for job opps and sent the founder a private message, asking for their confidentiality before engaging in a discussion.

    • Thanks, interesting idea. Did you frame it like:

      “Hi A,

      Saw your ad for position B and would like to chat about it. I can I count on you for complete confidentiality on our discussion?”

  • {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

    You may also like

    >