How it works

Start with a conversation, not a form

A job search usually begins with a sentence like “something in project management, maybe healthcare?” That sentence is not searchable — but it is a very good starting point for a conversation. So that's what we do: ask a few questions, the way a sharp friend would. Which part of the work do you actually want in your day? Are you using your expertise or deliberately moving away from it? What would you rule out immediately?

The result is a Direction: one clear, specific slice of the job market that is worth your effort. “Fractional marketing leadership for consumer brands.” “Anything at that one company you love.” Most searches have two or three. Each one is written down where you can read it in six months and still know what it meant.

We do the legwork — and tell you where we can't

For each Direction, we come back with a working list: employers worth following, roles worth pursuing, events worth attending, and organizations and recruiters that specialize in your field.

Then we keep watch. Where an employer's job board can be read automatically, we read it on schedule — what's new, what changed, what closed. Where it can't be read, we say so plainly and remind you to check it yourself, rather than quietly pretending we have it covered. A surprising number of tools choose the pretending.

Two habits from this part of the system tell you most of what you need to know about how we operate:

• Every link is verified before we store it. A dead link makes you doubt the employer or the tool, and both cost more than an honest blank.
• We never call a role closed after one bad read. Job boards hiccup; we check twice before telling you something disappeared, because “that role closed” is only useful if it's true.

Then we show up. Every weekday.

Each weekday morning you get one short email: what's new, what closed, what needs a decision, what's worth showing up to, and the small to-dos that keep a search moving — including the ones nobody schedules, like spending ten minutes on Meetup or sending one note to one recruiter.

Everything in that email works with one tap, no login. “Not for me.” “I'm going.” “Done.” If there's nothing to say, we don't email — a quiet digest is a working digest, and manufactured urgency is for other products.

This is the accountability part. Not the workout — the reason you show up.

Rules: how it learns without going behind your back

This is the part we'd most like you to understand, because it's the part most tools get wrong.

Every time you tap “not for me,” you also tap why: Requirements too high. Too senior. Too far. Pay too low. Wrong field. Each tap does two things — it removes that role from your view immediately, and it teaches the system one small fact about your search.

When a few rejections share the same reason and the same measurable cause, the system doesn't quietly change your results. It writes a proposal, in plain language: “You've rejected three roles that all required a master's degree or above. Add a rule excluding them?” And then it waits.

Nothing happens until you approve it. Approve, and the rule starts filtering before your next digest is built. Every active rule is listed on your Rules page, in words, with the reasoning that created it. Every rule can be switched off. Change your mind about a role you rejected? Undo it, and the evidence behind any related proposal shrinks accordingly.

We hold ourselves to the same standard. The very first search GigDisco ever ran had two requirements — no PhD-gated roles, nothing above three years' experience. Those started life buried in our code, and we moved them out: today they exist as two visible rules on that user's Rules page, with their reasoning attached, revocable like any other. If even the founders' requirements aren't allowed to hide in the machinery, yours never will be.

There's also a line we deliberately don't cross. A reason like “wrong field” has no clean measurable cause — so it removes that one role and is never generalized into a rule. We'd rather a filter be narrow and true than broad and guessed. And a rule that would wipe out most of your board never gets proposed at all; a decision that large should be typed by a person, not suggested by a pattern.

The rooms matter as much as the listings

Most people find work through people, and almost nobody schedules the part where you go meet them. So the system treats showing up as a first-class activity, in three shapes:

• Nearby and career-shaped: the marketing breakfast, the chapter meeting, the meetup within an hour's drive. Small, often free, more frequent than you'd guess.
• Worth travelling for: the association's annual meeting, the national conference. Real money and real distance — but it's where the people who run your field actually are. We surface them with honest costs and let you decide.
• Outside work entirely: the hobby group, the volunteer shift, the bar where your alma mater's fans watch the game. Long shots for the search, and good for you regardless.

Events we suggest come from live web search, and we refuse to store one unless it came from a page we actually retrieved and re-checked — an invented event is worse than none, because it sends you to a room that doesn't exist on an evening you set aside. Where a platform doesn't allow automated reading, we don't sneak: we hand you the search, pre-built, as a to-do.

What all of this adds up to

None of these pieces is magic, and none is meant to be. A clear statement of what you're looking for. Honest legwork with its limits labeled. A short list every weekday. A learning system that asks permission. Rooms worth walking into.

That's a system with a cadence — which is the thing a solo job search never has, and the thing that decides week nine.

And when it works, you fire us. We count it as a five-star review.