[groby_b]

There might be. I don't know. I've been approached by recruiters, told them point blank "not what I'm looking for, here's what I want", and they just pointed me to those opportunities instead.

So I think part of the answer is clearly saying what you want. I don't know if that holds for positions like Director /VP at large tech companies - these are always somewhat political - but it seems to hold up to pretty much right before that.

YMMV, of course. For all I know, I accidentally have the right magic keywords in my LinkedIn or something. (I don't know. I only update it every few years, so I certainly am not paying enough attention to tell :)