How do you find technology opportunities today?

I was thinking about this the other day.

Not because I’m looking. Although anyone with an interesting opportunity and a price tag I don’t immediately understand is always welcome to buy me a coffee.

No, it made me wonder how the technology recruitment market has changed.

For years, my first stop was JobServe. Those who’ve been around the industry for a while will remember just how influential it became. It was where technology recruiters lived. Upload your CV, search the latest contracts, click Apply and wait for the phone to ring. It felt revolutionary at the time.

Today, the landscape is very different.

LinkedIn has become the obvious destination for many. Every day we’re presented with hundreds of opportunities, many offering the convenience of a single-click application. Recruiters search for candidates just as often as candidates search for jobs.

But does that really produce the best opportunities?

As I’ve been developing Lomond Logic, one area I explored was whether a careers platform should become part of the ecosystem. After all, finding your next opportunity remains one of the most important decisions any technology professional makes.

It also made me reflect on my own career.

I spent many years as a contractor, working across much of the UK’s banking sector before eventually finding a long-term home at HSBC. Contracting wasn’t simply about technical ability. It was about reputation, relationships and timing.

Long before LinkedIn, my Filofax was probably my most valuable business asset. Every recruiter. Every programme manager. Every former client. Every colleague who’d moved on to another organisation. Those relationships generated introductions, recommendations and repeat engagements. Networking wasn’t an event. It was simply how business worked.

Perhaps it still is.

The technology market has certainly become more sophisticated. Specialist recruiters continue to thrive. Executive search firms remain active for senior appointments. Large consultancies offer the variety of multiple clients and programmes, while independent contracting still appeals to those who enjoy solving different problems every couple of years.

Yet I can’t help wondering whether the fundamentals have changed at all.

Do the best opportunities still come through people rather than platforms?

Is building a trusted network still more valuable than sending hundreds of applications into an algorithm?

Does maintaining relationships with specialist recruiters pay dividends over the course of a career?

Or has artificial intelligence fundamentally changed how talent is discovered?

Technology has transformed almost every aspect of recruitment, but I’m not convinced it has replaced the one thing that has always mattered most.

Trust.

The most interesting opportunities I’ve encountered rarely arrived because I applied for them. They arrived because someone remembered me.

Perhaps that’s still the most valuable career strategy of all.