How do I plan/manage a large project?

How can I make a large, multinational corporation hire me to join a specific project, despite there being no opening?

• The local branch of a large, multinational corporation hosts an for-internal-purposes, long-term research project I am very eager to join. A junior manager has interviewed me for a position there, which has since been cancelled. The offer, at the time, was for me to work there as a contractor - legally employed by a third-party.

• Answer:

  Here's what I've done in the past: cold call. Find out who the real stake holders are: the principal investigator, the person with budget signing authority, the customer contracting the multinational.  Put yourself in that person's position.  What extraordinary thing do you bring to the project?  How can you make him/her look good? Pull the package together, demonstration software, previous client referrals, project portfolio, prototypes, whatever.  Wrangle an introduction - mutual acquaintance is preferable, solicit by real paper and phone if it comes down to that.  You get a 30 second figurative, perhaps literal pitch.  Make it count. The worst that can happen is you don't get  traction.  However, you would have already shown more initiative than the other 99.95 of the candidates out there.  If other projects come up, the chances are better that the right person remembers you.