Two weeks ago we went inside Position. Last week we went inside Signal. This week we go inside the third move.
Target is the filter you apply to every opportunity that lands in front of you. Roles. Conversations. Introductions. Coffee meetings. Board approaches. Advisory pitches.
Target is not a wishlist. That is the most common trap.
A wishlist says "I would love a CMO role at a growth-stage consumer brand." Aspirational. Vague. Impossible to say no with.
A target says "I am pursuing CMO or VP Marketing at Series C to pre-IPO consumer brands with $50M to $500M in revenue, headquartered in [insert your region], where the CEO has never led a marketing function before."
Specific. Testable. Immediately allows you to say no to eight of the ten things you get offered this month, so you have space for the two that fit.
The wishlist creates optionality on paper. Target creates it in practice.
Here is how to build yours.
What Target is not.
▸ Not a job alert. Setting alerts for "CMO" shows you every hiring notice with that title. It does not filter for fit. It just adds volume to your inbox.
▸ Not a network dump. Reaching out to every person you know saying "let me know if you hear of anything" tells your network you are undifferentiated. They will not remember you when the right role appears.
▸ Not the same as your last role. "I did X, so I want more X" is how executives repeat a career without progressing it. Target is about the next move, not the last one.
▸ Not permanent. Your target should refresh every six months as the market moves and your own thinking sharpens. A static target 18 months old is not filtering anything.
The three axes of Target.
Every target has three axes. Get all three right and the filter works. Miss one and it doesn't.
Layer or level. The rung. Head of, Director, VP, C-suite, board. Specific. "Senior leadership" is not a rung.
Sector. The industry or category. Not "tech." Fintech, health-tech, climate-tech, B2B SaaS, consumer subscription, enterprise infrastructure. If you can name three companies that would be a fit and three that wouldn't, your sector is specific enough.
Stage. The maturity of the business. Seed, Series A, Series C, pre-IPO, post-IPO, PE-backed mid-market, [insert your local exchange if listed matters to you], family-owned. Stage determines the leadership problems on the table. A Series B CMO role is a different job to a Fortune 100 CMO role, even with the same title.
Layer, sector, stage. Three axes. Named specifically. That’s a target.
The 100-hour question.
Here is a diagnostic worth running once a quarter.
Look at your calendar for the past 90 days. Count the coffee meetings, phone calls, LinkedIn DMs, casual introductions and quick chats you had that were career-adjacent. If you are actively looking or open, the number is usually higher than you think. Twenty to thirty is common. Some months, fifty.
Now ask, of those conversations, how many led to something that fits your actual target?
For most senior leaders, the honest answer is under ten percent. Which means 90 hours of conversation produced 9 hours of forward motion, and 81 hours of polite dead ends.
That is not a target problem. That is a filter problem. Every conversation felt reasonable in the moment, and the sum of reasonable conversations is a career on hold.
Target is what closes the gap. If a conversation does not move you closer to your named layer, sector and stage, it is a no, or a "later, when I have more space." Not a yes with a smile.
This is not about being rude. It is about being clear. Clarity is what your network actually needs from you. They cannot introduce you to the right people until they know what "right" means.
The target list.
Once your three axes are set, build a list.
Twenty to fifty companies that fit. Named. Written down. Reviewed weekly. Not a mental note.
For each company, name the two or three people who matter — usually the Chair, the CEO, and the peer you would work alongside if you took the role.
That list is now the frame for your Signal (what you post is designed to reinforce your position to those people), your Relationships (who you reach out to and stay in touch with), and your filter (any opportunity that comes from outside the list gets held against the list before you say yes).
Executives who do this consistently stop chasing roles. Roles start finding them, because their signal is being read by the exact people who hire for their target, and their network knows exactly who to introduce them to.
How to practice this.
Block one hour this week.
Write your three axes. Layer, sector, stage. Specific.
Build your list of twenty companies that fit all three.
Name the two or three people at each company who would matter to your next role.
Save it somewhere you will actually open weekly, not a note you write once and lose.
Members inside the Approached Career Practice share and iterate their target lists with each other. It is faster with peers because someone else can see gaps in your list that you cannot, and they often know one of the people on it and can make the introduction. If you want that kind of practice, then join The Career Practice.
Otherwise, do it on your own. The exercise still works. It just compounds slower.
Next week we go inside Relationships. The fourth move. The compound that turns positioning, signal and target into actual calls.
See you Thursday!
Cheraine
Stop Applying. Get Approached.