Nearly anyone looking for a job today can tell you that sifting through online job postings is a nightmare. Companies have admitted to posting ghost listings with no immediate intention to hire, and job scams have surged in the last year, aided by AI.

When Natasha Badger, 25, was last on the job market, she tried a different strategy on LinkedIn and landed final-round interviews with three companies in the span of weeks. Today, it could help job-seekers bypass ghost jobs and actually reach a real hiring manager.

Badger, a digital marketer and career-content creator, quit her job with LinkedIn in September 2022 and went the typical route of applying to new ones on online job boards.

A month in, she tried a fresh approach: She began searching for posts on LinkedIn where people used the words "I'm hiring" along with other keywords and job titles related to her field.

In a video she posted to TikTok, Badger explains how she filtered the LinkedIn posts to ones made within the previous week, which led her to hiring managers and other professionals announcing new openings on their teams.

Prioritizing posts from the last seven days helped her jump on fresh vacancies as soon as they were live; it could also alert you to people urgently hiring for a role that has gone unfilled for a while.

It might take some time to sift through relevant openings in your desired location, Badger tells CNBC Make It. Beware of job scams, too.

Once she found a good hiring announcement that aligned with what she was looking for, Badger sent the person a message that said: "I found your post on LinkedIn and I'm interested in the role you're hiring for. Could we set up a 10- to 15-minute coffee chat so I can ask you some questions about the job?"

(Save your resume for a later message, she says — sending it too early could come across as forward, and your LinkedIn profile should be up-to-date with your experience.)

Sometimes, the person would arrange a chat and then put her in touch with the recruiter afterwards; other times, the person responded with the direct application link and got her into the hiring pipeline right away.

For each coffee chat, Badger said she came prepared with a solid understanding of why the company was filling the role and what problems she'd be expected to solve.

"It's a really big skill to be able to read a job description and understand why are you being hired, where you're fitting into this business, and the impact that you're going to have to make," Badger says. Doing this research will help you show up confidently, she adds.

She also made sure to prepare questions about things she was genuinely curious about with each role and company.

Badger tried this with three companies — a big financial institution, an agency and a startup — and made it into the hiring process every time. She ended up accepting an offer with Akkio, a New York-based startup, in December 2022 and is now their digital marketing manager.

Badger acknowledges the job market has since gotten tougher for many workers since then, but things might be improving. The U.S. economy added more jobs than expected in September, and some jobs experts predict more hiring activity than usual in the last stretch of 2024.

"It really was so effective," Badger says of the LinkedIn strategy, "and I was like, 'How is this not something people are doing?'"

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC's new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Register now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through Nov. 26, 2024.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.