Map, then move.

The first half was prep. The next four months are the move.

The market gave you the map. July gives you the move.

But the move is not one leap you take this month. It is a four-month campaign, and the clock is already running.

Here is the thing about the second half that most designers never clock. Hiring in H2 completes, or is targeted to complete, no later than October 31. After that, Q4 planning freezes headcount, and everyone waits for January. So the window is not six months. It is four. July, August, September, October. That is the whole game.

EACH ROLE GETS ONE GO

Inside that window, every open role basically runs once. The shortlist forms, the calls happen, the offer goes out, the door closes. There is no second pass in November. Which means being open to opportunities is not a strategy. If you are not in the loop when the shortlist forms, and not prepped when the call comes, you are not going to be in a great position. You are not going to be in the conversation at all.

YOU SPENT H1 GETTING READY. THAT WAS THE POINT.

For two months I wrote about the terrain. What founders actually look for. How to read a hiring team in twenty minutes. Where a senior designer has leverage, and where they only think they do. That was not commentary. It was prep. You have the tools now. The second half is when you use them: pick the companies you actually want, then put every tool and every relationship in your network to work getting traction in those rooms.

STUCK, OR COMFORTABLE

Before you commit the four months, run one honest check. These two feel identical from the inside in June. They are not the same thing, and the window is when the difference matters.

Stuck: the work stopped teaching you something a while ago, and you know it.

Comfortable: the work is fine, the people are fine, and leaving is mostly effort.

If you are comfortable, stay, and stay on purpose. That is a real choice and a good one. If you are stuck, the window is open, and it is the only one this year.

THREE MOVES TO MAKE IN JULY

One. Restart the conversations that fizzled in the spring. The founder who was vague in May often has a budget and a start date by July. A two-line note reopens more doors than you would expect.

Two. Get specific about your own position. You cannot weigh an outside offer until you know what staying is worth. Use your mid-year review to surface the real number, not the polite one.

Three. Name your targets. The roles that clear before October 31 are forming right now, weeks before any public post. The designers who land them are already in conversation. Pick the five companies you want and start those conversations this month.

Over the next few issues I will walk through exactly what getting a new role looks like, step by step, from first conversation to signed offer. Consider this the starting gun.

I made you a worksheet for the audit and the three moves. Fill it in once and the four months get a lot clearer.

In two weeks, Issue #5: two strong offers and how to choose between them, when the spreadsheet ties and the number is the worst input.

One ask. Reply with one line: the company you keep circling but have not approached yet. I read every reply, and the patterns shape what I write next.

Jeremy