By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
If you are a senior-level professional or an executive, you’ve probably spent months trying to get on the radar of the “Big Five” search firms. You send your resume to Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, or Heidrick & Struggles, hoping they’ll slot you into their next major corporate assignment.
You may be hunting in the wrong woods.
Those search firms don’t work for you; they work for their corporate clients. Your resume sits in their database until an exact, identical match pops up–which rarely happens. Meanwhile, you’re missing out on the fastest-growing hiring market for elite talent: Private Equity portfolio companies (PortCos).
When a Private Equity (PE) firm acquires a mid-market company, they don’t have time to wait six months for a traditional search firm to find a leader. They need a proven operator inside that business immediately to protect their investment, streamline operations, and scale EBITDA.
To land these unlisted, high-stakes roles, you need to bypass the headhunters entirely and go straight to the source: the Operating Partner.
The Mid-Market Crisis: A Story of Urgent Demand
A year ago, I was working with a VP of Supply Chain named Mark. Mark had a brilliant track record of fixing broken distribution networks, but he was stuck in an endless loop of screening interviews with traditional recruiters who kept telling him he “didn’t fit the exact industry vertical” of their current openings.
I told him, “Mark, stop trying to please recruiters who are checking boxes. You need to find a PE firm that is bleeding cash because of a bad supply chain.”
He did research. We bypassed the standard job boards and looked at mid-market PE firms that had recently acquired three manufacturing companies over the previous six months. He didn’t look for HR leads. He found the specific Operating Partner managing that portfolio.
Mark sent a direct, no BS note to the Operating Partner. He didn’t ask for a job. He flagged an operational reality:
“I’ve been tracking your recent acquisition of [Company A] and [Company B]. Having navigated post-merger supply chain integration during market contractions, I’ve noticed that combining regional distribution hubs usually leak about 12% in margin drag during the first 90 days if the inventory logic isn’t decoupled early. I put together a brief framework on how we insulated our margins against this specific drag at my last firm. Let me know if you want me to drop the notes over to your team.”
The Operating Partner called Mark the next morning. Three weeks later, Mark was brought on as the interim COO of one of their portfolio companies. No job posting. No search firm. No ATS.
Why the Operating Partner is Your Ultimate Target
Operating Partners are not investment bankers. They are former CEOs, COOs, and senior operators hired by the PE firm to oversee their acquisitions. They speak your language, they feel the operational pain acutely, and they have the absolute authority to install talent without consulting a hiring committee.
When you approach an Operating Partner using this playbook, you trigger three massive advantages:
The Urgency Vector: PE firms operate on a strict 3-to-5-year timeline to scale and flip a company. Every week a portfolio company spends underperforming is lost capital. If you present a solution to their portfolio drag, they will create a role for you.
The Portfolio Multiplier: A traditional recruiter has one opening. An Operating Partner oversees five, ten, or twenty companies. If you don’t fit the immediate need at Company A, they will frequently slide you into Company B or hold you on deck for their next acquisition.
The Authority Lane: Operating Partners do not care about bureaucratic box-checking. They care about capabilities. They care about the results you can deliver NOW. They can bypass standard HR compliance protocols and drop you directly into the executive suite because their primary metric is portfolio velocity, not headcount compliance.
The Bottom Line
The traditional executive search model is slow, passive, and built to manage risk for giant corporations. If you are a high-value operator, you cannot afford to wait for a headhunter to discover your value.
Stop pitching your past biography to people who don’t understand your work. Identify the PE firms investing heavily in your space, locate the Operating Partners holding the operational mandates, and show them exactly how you will protect their equity. That is how you take control of the market and secure the room.
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2026
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the producer and former host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 3000 episodes.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? Schedule a free Discovery call.
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Jeff’s Kindle book, “You Can Fix Stupid: No BS Hiring Advice,” is available on Amazon.
