So many people I work with as an executive and career coach worry that they’ll be “bothering people” when they’re networking for their careers.

Have you ever worried about the same thing?

Before I started working with people on their careers, I was a recruiter at a top executive search firm. A professional networker, you could say. And at first, I also felt guilty about reaching out to busy, important people who weren’t necessarily planning their days around hearing from me.

But I got over it. And it was because of something I noticed happening again and again that completely changed how I thought about networking.

If you do it right, when you reach out to people in your network, you’re ultimately going to prompt them to reach out to people in their networks. These people are typically friends and former colleagues that your networking contacts might not have been in touch with for months or even years.

I realized that when I was networking as an executive recruiter, I was serving as a catalyst to strengthen connections among people in the industry I served.

I started thinking about my networking as a public service. And you can too.

Here’s what actually happens when networking is done right, and why you’ll never need to feel guilty again.

Start your networking with someone you know well and are comfortable talking with. And remember, it only takes one person to get started. At the end of your conversation, ask that person:

Now that you know all this, who else do you think I should speak with?

Keep your referral request light and general so the person you’re engaging with doesn’t get anxious or feel like you’re relying on them and them alone to find your next gig. Once they come up with a name or two, either in that conversation or when you follow up with them, be sure to ask them one more critical question:

Would you mind letting them know I’m going to be in touch? Or if you’re comfortable with it, you could introduce us via email or LinkedIn, and I can take it from there.

More often than not, the person you’re speaking with will want to reach out to their contacts first. They’ll want to give them a heads-up as a courtesy. You go from being someone who is asking for a favor to the person who is prompting them to reconnect with old friends and former colleagues.

So your networking contact reaches out to their contact, and you get the all clear to move ahead. You follow up. And once you do, this is what you’re likely going to hear:

Oh yeah — she said you might be in touch. You know, it was so nice to hear from her. We hadn’t talked in over a year, maybe two. I didn’t realize she had gotten a new job and that her oldest son had started college. I told her about my new job and my kids. My oldest just started college, too. It was so great to catch up with her.

And that’s usually followed by a warm and glowing:

Now, how can I help you?

And they really do want to help you. Because you’ve already helped them, just by asking for an introduction. Without you, it might have been another year or two before your two networking contacts were in touch again. Or maybe never.

You were the person who reconnected friends who had fallen out of touch. That’s not something to feel guilty about. That’s something to feel good about.

I know the job market can be discouraging. If you’ve been at it for a while, it’s easy to lose momentum and start second-guessing yourself. But here’s what I’d encourage you to think about: every time you reach out to someone and then ask for a referral, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re strengthening the connections between the people in your community and industry.

Everyone benefits, including you.

So the next time you’re hesitating over a networking request, wondering if you’ll be bothering someone, remember that you’re probably doing them a favor. And by doing them that favor, you’re absolved of all (well, most of) your guilt.

Subscribe now

Here’s a link to the podcast.

Subscribe now

I guess I’m in a reflective mode after an incredible hiking trip in the Peruvian Andes.

I’m usually an indoor cat, but the views were worth the trip and effort. Here’s one of my favorite shots.

And in so many profiles, people have willingly handed that prime real estate over to their company.

My first concern is that titles are often inadequate when it comes to describing what you actually do in your job and conveying the impact of your work. And many company names are similarly challenged. The average person, or even a recruiter, might be clueless when it comes to the industry a company is in or the product or service it provides. So even if your job title makes your skills and responsibilities clear, your company name may offer few clues as to the context in which you do it.

Second, what happens if you lose your job to a change in corporate strategy, a budget cut or an inevitable change in leadership? What will you use as your LinkedIn headline then? Based on my experience working one-on-one with well over a thousand MBA alumni, the absolute worst time to think about removing your title and company name from your LinkedIn headline is immediately after losing your job. Once you've been notified that you’re terminated and have gone through the indignity of clearing out your office (real or virtual) and saying goodbye to many of your colleagues, removing your title and company name from your LinkedIn headline is the final (and very public) insult. It's tough to do, even with the hard feelings you might have, especially if you're unsure about what comes next and are feeling adrift.

And not to put too fine a point on it (but I will), let's say your company's reputation takes a big hit, for whatever reason. If that happens, do you really want your company name immediately under the photo of your face on your LinkedIn profile and when you show up in LinkedIn's search results? Probably not. But if and when that happens, it will be too late. You'll look (or feel) like a turncoat if you make the change after the bad news comes out.

So have I convinced you that including your current title and company name in your LinkedIn headline, or worse, relying on it to the exclusion of all else, is too big a risk to take? And that it might not be an effective way to advance your personal narrative?

If I have convinced you, here's an alternative approach.

As an executive recruiter, I realized that I needed to know just three things about someone to determine if it made sense to be in touch with them for a role I was working to fill. And those three things are:

1. What you do

2. The context you do it in

3. The impact of your work

If I knew these three things, I could, at a minimum, determine which roles I might place you in, the types of clients I could potentially present you to, and the challenges you could potentially help a client overcome.

It's not especially complicated.

So what could that look like in real life? Here are a few examples of imaginary LinkedIn headlines to get you thinking.

• Brand Transformation Leader | Revitalizing Legacy Products for Gen Z | $100M+ P&L Leadership

• Healthcare Tech Innovator | Connecting Providers with Patients | 15+ Years Scaling Digital Health Solutions

• Product Leader Solving Enterprise-Level Problems | Intuitive UX For Financial Services | Driving Business Outcomes

Again, each example might give a recruiter an idea of what a person does, the context they do it in, and the impact of their work, not necessarily in that exact order.

What could your LinkedIn headline look like if you took this approach? Give it a try. You might just feel more risk-adjusted (and calmer) once you do.

If you'd like to dive deeper into how you might communicate your positioning and personal narrative through your LinkedIn profile, I invite you to listen to Episodes 8, 9 and 10 of The Career Narratives Podcast. In those episodes, I share my philosophy for writing a compelling LinkedIn Headline, About section and Experience entries, informed by my experience as an executive recruiter. I also suggest a few other things you could incorporate into your LinkedIn headline to clarify your positioning and be more visible and potentially relevant to recruiters.

If you'd like to work on your LinkedIn profile together, consider signing up for a Career Strategy Session with me. We can put our heads together and figure out the most effective way to communicate your personal narrative.

See you soon.

Subscribe now

What if I told you that one of the best ways to get noticed by recruiters is to network with your competitors and let them be your advocates? And by your competitors, I mean the other people in your profession who are 1) approximately at your level and 2) doing a job similar to your own.

I know. It seems like bad advice.

How will cozying up to your competitors actually help you? Aren't they trying to get noticed by the very same corporate and executive recruiters that you are?

Why you don’t need to worry about ‘the competition’

You don’t need to worry about your competitors, because they don’t want the job.

Let me repeat.

They. Don’t. Want. The. Job.

I worked for several years as a senior recruiter at a top executive search firm, filling quite a few attractive roles in my industry of focus. And the funny thing about it was that the vast majority of the potential candidates I reached out to just weren’t interested.

They just weren’t.

You don’t need the most expansive imagination to figure out why. Here are some of the most common reasons the people I reached out to gave for saying “no thanks.”

• I have a great job now, and I’m not ready to leave it

• I think I’ll be up for a promotion soon, and I’d like to get that title on my resume first

• My spouse (or partner) has a job they really like, and they wouldn’t want to move right now

• My teenage kids have good friends and are doing well in school, and I don’t want to upset the apple cart

• I wouldn’t want to move so far away from my parents, who are getting older and may need my help

• That sounds like a great opportunity, but it just doesn’t feel like the right one for me (for whatever reason)

You get the idea. For one or more of potentially countless reasons, the competition won’t be interested in what a recruiter has to offer.

Why your competitors will gladly be your advocates

So what happens when the competition isn’t interested?

The recruiter then pushes for referrals. And your competitors want to provide those referrals to be helpful. After all, they want the recruiter to call back again at some point. Things may, and probably will, change at some point down the road. And all those reasons your competitors currently have for turning down the recruiter’s opportunities may evaporate.

Your competition may want or need a new job at some point in the future, and they value the relationship with the recruiter. So they naturally see the benefit of building some goodwill now when they’re in a position of strength. The best way to build goodwill with a recruiter is to provide a solid referral or two, or maybe even three.

And when your competitors are making those referrals, you want to be one of the first people that comes to mind. And the only way you will be is if they 1) remember you and 2) know that the recruiter’s opportunity is one you might be interested in.

So your assignment is a simple one.

Develop a simple and manageable networking strategy that’s focused on ‘the competition’

Cultivate a list of colleagues who are likely to be on a recruiter’s contact list when the recruiter is filling roles you’d potentially be interested in. These colleagues should be in similar roles to yours and in the same or similar industries.

Shoot for both reach and frequency — just like an advertising campaign. And make sure you get the messaging right.

In terms of reach and frequency, how many people do you think you’d be able to stay in touch with on at least an annual basis? “Staying in touch” can mean grabbing a meal, a coffee or drink, a 10-to-15-minute phone or Zoom chat, a substantive email or text exchange, you name it. The frequency and mode of communication will vary by person and the nature of your relationship with them.

Find a secure place to maintain that list of people and, at a minimum, set a regular reminder to be in touch with each of them on a cadence you think makes sense and is practical, given your work and life obligations. Your system doesn’t need to be overly complicated.

In terms of messaging, be sure to weave three key points into your conversations: role, context and impact. This is what your competitors will need to know about you in order to refer recruiters your way.

1. What kind of role would you consider next? If you don’t know the exact titles, what are the key activities you’d want to be engaged in on a daily or weekly basis?

2. What context is the right one for you? What kind of product or service do you want to be working on? What is the company’s ideal size or stage? Where is it located physically? Or is it distributed or entirely virtual? What kinds of people do you work best with? Don’t worry about having a target list of actual companies (a lot of people get hung up on this), just provide enough context so that your competitors will be able to make the connection to you when opportunities are presented to them by recruiters.

3. And finally, what impact do you want to have in your work? As a recruiter, I was usually looking for someone who could have a specific kind of impact or help a client organization overcome a particular challenge. What kind of impact do you hope to have in your next role? Do you want to push the boundaries with a new technology? Do you want to help an organization be more effective and efficient? There aren’t any limits here. Just make sure whatever you communicate is authentic and reflects the work you’d actually like to do and the life you’d like to live.

Of course, you don’t want to arrive at a networking conversation with an obvious list to present. That could be more than a little tedious. Instead, incorporate these ideas into your vision when you’re talking or musing about your future.

And don’t forget reciprocity. Make sure you have an understanding of these same three points about your competitors — or let’s start calling them your colleagues. Ask your colleagues where they see themselves in the future and the kind of work they might be doing.

Take a few notes during or after the conversation. After all, the next time a recruiter calls, you might not want the job. And you’ll want the goodwill earned by offering up a few solid referrals.

Subscribe now

If you’re not entirely sure what your ideal role, context and impact might be, consider signing up for a Career Strategy Session with me. In addition to my work at Harvard Business School and as a corporate executive coach, I work one-on-one with a limited number of ambitious professionals, helping them craft their narratives and advance their careers.

The latest sign I’ve seen was in an August 26 Wall Street Journal article (there’s a link to the article below). It describes how AI is replacing younger software developers whose roles are primarily skills-based. It suggests that older software developers who “have learned how to work collaboratively with non-coders and deliver the product [a] company needs” are at less risk of losing their jobs.

While I don’t work with software developers, I’ve often worked with product managers and others who are at the interface of “the business” and technical experts. These clients have relationship-building skills and a diverse range of exposure and experience, and they almost always seem to be in demand. The still early evidence presented in the WSJ article suggests that they will continue to be, at least for the foreseeable future.

Even if you aren’t working in tech or a tech-enabled business, you probably need to consider whether you’re getting too focused on a technical or hard skill that can be automated away. Instead, focus on enhancing your relationship-building skills and other soft skills, and look for opportunities to collect a diverse set of lived experiences.

👉 Here’s the link to the WSJ article I’m referencing. It will likely be behind a paywall if you don’t have a subscription.

And when I’m not reading about AI and its impact on careers, I’ve been thinking about the end of the “slow” summer season (that never ends up being so slow). Soon, we’ll be in the fall season, with its jam-packed schedules and endless to-do lists. I’ll be in touch later this week about that equally anxiety-producing topic.

In the meantime, if the impact of AI on career planning and advancement is stressing you out (even a little), here’s a calming view from my early morning dog walk.

A perfect view for the end of the slow season.

Subscribe now

Moving up in your career can feel like a game of musical chairs. Promotions, departures and reorgs open chairs up, and the music starts playing. When it stops, if you're talented, somewhat politically aware, and a little bit lucky, you'll probably find a good chair to land in. That seat will, ideally, help you get the experience and advanced responsibility you'll need to join the ranks of senior leadership.

And if you can't find a good place to land where you are now, you might just choose to move on to another company. Or, in the worst-case scenario, or sometimes the best-case, you might be forced to do it.

Either way, there have generally been enough open chairs to get the experience you need. Of course, as you move up the corporate ladder, fewer and fewer chairs are available, and the game of gathering experience and responsibility becomes increasingly competitive.

The pyramid shape of most org charts makes facing increasing competition on your way up unavoidable. Despite the competition, you've still generally been able to get the experience you need, especially if you’re in your early and mid-career. The fiercest competition hasn’t really kicked in until you’ve reached the VP level or its equivalent in your company or industry.

But that's changing.

Org Charts Will Have a Different Shape

Over the past year, we've all read or heard the stories about senior leaders at companies considering how their adoption of AI might allow them to eliminate positions and, more importantly, cut costs. And if senior leadership teams follow through, which they probably will, because they all want their bonuses, there will be fewer places to land when the music stops in the game of career musical chairs.

And it's not the most senior levels of the game that will become more competitive. After all, C-level leaders aren't likely to cut their own jobs. And they'll still need direct reports at the VP level to manage the business on a day-to-day basis, especially in larger companies.

So the chairs lost to AI will be further down in the organization. The disappearance of entry-level task-based jobs is easy to imagine, and it's already happening. Reductions at the manager and director levels can't be far behind. In just a few years, that pyramid-shaped org chart we’ve all grown accustomed to may look more like a skyscraper.

Pyramids are easier to scale. Skyscrapers, less so.

It’s Already Happening

According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report for 2025, "40% [of employers] anticipate reducing their workforce where AI can automate tasks." And that number is likely to grow as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated and capable.

Applying AI to replace entry-level roles is a foregone conclusion, and as AI’s capabilities continue to advance and senior leaders become more comfortable integrating it into their businesses, positions at the manager and director levels, those critical stepping stones to senior leadership, may very well become increasingly vulnerable. Mid-level engineers are already on the chopping block.

So if you’re an ambitious MBA or a rising professional targeting a role in senior leadership, how will you stay competitive? How will you get the experience you need to be a credible candidate at the VP and C-Suite levels?

I can't say I have all the answers. I don't think anyone does. Things are just evolving too quickly. But beyond learning to work with AI, here are three ways I can think of to stay in the game and be more competitive when you're competing against AI, at least for the time being.

Build Relationships Based on Trust

AI might excel at analysis and speed, but one thing it definitely hasn't earned yet is our trust. It goes without saying that AI still has a tendency to hallucinate. In other words, it makes things up. And if it's not managed carefully, it's also a terrible sycophant. At some point, I should write a whole post about my frustrating experience trying to get ChatGPT to be less of a brown-noser. A few weeks ago, I instructed ChatGPT to be more direct. So instead of telling me my ideas were all fantastic(!), it preceded every answer with, "Now I'm not going to sugar-coat this, Doug, so let's cut to the chase." It drove me nuts, and I instructed it to stop using those particular phrases. It did not comply.

Not ideal.

Trust and relationships still matter — a lot. Senior leaders and hiring managers tend to promote and hire individuals they know, like and trust. And if they don't know someone themselves, they rely heavily on candidates who are referred to them by people they do know, like and trust. Based on my experience as a recruiter, they don't want someone who will tell them that every idea they've ever had is insightful, or butter them up with an endless string of platitudes before sharing information or expressing an opinion.

Okay. There are a few senior leaders I've worked for who wanted that, and there are a few in circulation now who thrive on it, but those are the exceptions. And you probably wouldn't want to work for them anyway. Focus on becoming the person others can count on to be smart, informed, straightforward, and generally good to be around.

You can't go out for drinks after work with Claude or ChatGPT. Well, you could, but it would be awkward.

Forging strong human connections based on trust will be among your best competitive advantages in an increasingly automated and inhuman world.

Craft a Unique Positioning for Yourself

AI is a fantastic generalist. It can gather and process vast amounts of information, delivering reasonably competent work in most areas. But what AI lacks is the depth and nuance of understanding that comes from actual lived experience.

Consider how your lived experience — the unique combination of the work you've done, the places you've been, the people you've met, and whatever else you can think of — sets you apart from other people and from an increasingly competent and growing army of AI competitors.

I've thought about this a lot for my own executive and career coaching business. In my last post, I shared an article about the threat (or opportunity?) of AI coaches. After considering what it had to say, I think I've identified what sets me apart from a competent AI Coach. It's where I've actually been and the perspective that lived experience provides. I have an MBA from Wharton, a physical school I attended in Philadelphia with professors and fellow students; I worked my way up as a marketer and hiring manager in Fortune 100 companies, with living employees and varied corporate cultures; and I was an executive recruiter at an executive search firm, with skeptical clients and anxious candidate pools that challenged me every step of the way.

While AI can easily scrape everything I've written or said in public forums about my work and the perspective it provides, AI hasn't actually lived through that combination of experiences. I've been a student, a job candidate, a hiring manager, an executive recruiter and now a personal coach to thousands of people, including at Harvard Business School. Not many people can say that, and AI definitely can't.

Based on my fairly unique combination of experiences, I'm better able to understand, at a deep and instinctive level, what the people making hiring decisions value. I also appreciate the challenges candidates face when they're trying to communicate their personal narrative and their value. I'm the connector between those two groups of people. And that's how I might stand apart from (or serve as a complement to) an AI coach.

So what's your unique combination of experiences? How can you combine them in a way that creates a compelling personal narrative and offers a distinct point of value?

Be More Visible, Be Discoverable

Even if you have a compelling personal narrative and a value proposition based on your unique combination of lived experiences, it won't matter if no one knows about it.

In an era of influencers and thought leaders, visibility and discoverability are more important than ever. Many ambitious professionals, including the people I work with as an executive and career coach, shy away from even the most subtle self-promotion, mistakenly believing their work will speak for itself. I often criticize myself for making the same mistake.

But when AI can deliver increasingly competent work and serviceable insights, you need to give people a compelling reason to look beyond AI. You need to ensure that the people choosing between AI and a real human being are aware of you and your value proposition, and that they can easily find you.

Communicate your unique positioning through a well-crafted LinkedIn profile, produce content on LinkedIn or on other platforms that decision-makers in your industry pay attention to, and do it consistently enough that they'll remember you when they need a resource or are called upon by a colleague to make a referral.

Lean Into Human Connections for the Steeper Climb to the Top

As increasingly capable AI tools pull the chairs away at the entry, manager and director levels, reshaping org charts and steepening the angle of ascent to the top, your ability to stay competitive for positions of increasing responsibility will be dependent on your ability to connect with people at a very human level.

Cultivate working relationships based on a level of trust that AI just hasn't earned yet. Craft a narrative and positioning that emphasize your unique combination of lived experiences that AI just can't claim to have had. And remain visible across platforms where the decision-makers in your industry choose to spend their time.

The climb to the C-Suite might soon be like a steep ascent up a skyscraper instead of a more moderate climb up a pyramid. But if you focus on what's uniquely human, you'll achieve a more secure footing and have a better chance of reaching the top.

Subscribe now

Does this article in the Wall Street Journal signal the end for human career coaches? Probably not, but it does make those of us in the profession think long and hard about what we offer that can't be simulated (or copied) by ChatGPT and other tools.

The headline of the article is a little misleading. The author seems to be using her AI coach primarily as a *business* coach. That, however, doesn't mean it couldn't easily be used as a career coach. I've designed my own custom GPT to help me think through issues related to my business and career.

In my experience, an AI coach needs its own coaching from the user, especially when it comes to being less supportive and more critical. It can get a little tiresome (and dangerous) to be told that all of your ideas are good ones. The author points this out. But how many people will remember, or want, to push back against the constant reinforcement? I'm aware of the issue and don't remember to do it 100% of the time. And sometimes I, or you, may want to talk to someone who has actually experienced something and not just read about it (or ingested it).

And when things get really tough and you desperately need an empathetic listener, will the AI version be a satisfying alternative? While it's not my norm, I've been known to shed a tear or two in coaching sessions.

Will AI tears be comforting or just creepy?

Subscribe now

You might as well hang things up until the fall and focus on refining that packing list for your upcoming escape to the beach.

Not so fast.

As a recruiter, summer was the ideal time to catch up on networking

When I was an executive recruiter at a top firm, my colleagues and I all took a collective breath when the summer rolled around. The obvious reason being that the pace of work directly involving our clients and candidates slowed to half speed. Given staggered vacation schedules, meetings and interviews were just harder to schedule.

But that didn't mean we weren't making progress on our searches. And it doesn't mean you can't make meaningful progress when it comes to your own career advancement, especially if you're in the early stages of networking. My fellow recruiters and I actually considered summer to be the ideal time to catch up on networking.

So here are three reasons why you should also consider summer the ideal time to start or follow through on your networking strategy.

1. You have more time, and so do they

You probably have fewer meetings and other demands on your time when the summer rolls around. If you're spending two or three fewer hours a week in conference rooms or on Zoom or Teams, those are two or three additional hours each week you can devote to reaching out to and connecting with people in your extended network.

And here's the thing — if you have more discretionary time because of a reduced meeting load, your potential networking contacts are probably also enjoying the same, refreshing level of freedom. Instead of sitting in yet another status meeting, they can actually spend some time talking with you.

As a recruiter, I found it much easier to get on people's schedules for networking calls during the summer, simply because I had more bandwidth and so did the people I was reaching out to.

2. People are more relaxed, open and helpful

In summer, when business slows down and people are feeling more relaxed, they're more open to listening, brainstorming and generally being helpful. As a recruiter, I had some of my best (and longest) networking conversations during the summer months when the people I reached out to had fewer meetings to attend, fewer presentations to polish, and they just felt less rushed.

Catching people when they're in the right mindset is crucial when you're networking for your career. Some of my most productive networking conversations as a recruiter were with people who were on vacation (it was their idea, I promise). They'd often wake up early before their families did, and they were surprisingly open to donating a bit of their quiet time to my cause. They wanted to contribute, and they were in the right headspace to do it thoughtfully — and often with a nice view.

3. You're setting yourself up for success in the fall

After summer comes fall, when recruiting kicks into high gear. If you've had an engaging and memorable networking conversation with someone in June, July or August, they're going to remember you when recruiters start calling in earnest for referrals in September and October.

I'm a big believer in priming your network to refer you into searches rather than resorting to contacting recruiters directly. Recruiters tend to be risk-averse and will feel more comfortable when you're recommended to them as "a good catch" as opposed to you reaching out to them because you think you need a new job.

Summer is the ideal time to engage people in your network in a meaningful way, so they can feel comfortable referring recruiters to you when those recruiters are seeking potential candidates in the fall.

Your summer networking challenge

It's true, summer can be a slow time for actual hiring. You're probably not going to have a calendar overflowing with interviews.

Instead, you can have a calendar moderately filled with unhurried, high-quality conversations with people who can be instrumental in helping you advance your career.

Your summer networking strategy should focus on quality over quantity.

Reach out to a couple of people you know each week for genuine catch-up conversations. Try to schedule your calls or meetings at times when you and your networking contacts are less likely to be time-pressed and more likely to be relaxed, engaged, and thoughtful.

When you do connect, ask about their lives and current work, share the latest about yours and your vision of what you think might come next — even if that vision isn't fully formed. Be genuinely curious about their perspective. If, on their own, they don't suggest people you might reach out, ask them if there's anyone else they think you should speak with. Keep it open-ended and low-key — it's summer, after all, and you want them to think creatively.

When they do come up with a name or two (or three), ask for introductions. The new people you'll be reaching out to will be primed and much more open to sharing a slice of their summer with you. As an added plus, the person introducing you to them will likely be reconnecting with someone they haven't spoken with in a while. So you'll be doing them both a favor by strengthening their connection to each other.

And while everyone else is mentally checked out until September, you'll be building the relationships and connections that can help advance your career.

Subscribe now

If you'd like help working on your networking strategy, consider booking a Career Strategy Session. We can develop a focused, achievable networking strategy and work on strengthening your narrative.

It’s in the air, and it’s been in the headlines. People looking for a job, especially at the mid and senior levels, stay on the market for longer stretches. And it’s showing up in my coaching sessions with MBAs targeting mid and senior-level leadership roles.

The frustration level is high.

The reasons for the slowdown aren’t surprising. Whether it’s AI replacing higher-paid knowledge workers or economic uncertainty leading to hiring freezes, switching jobs, or finding one when you're out of work, can be a longer, more anxiety-filled proposition than it used to be.

So, if you’re hoping to land a new role and you’re at the end of your rope or feel you might be there soon, how do you accelerate your job search? How can you stand out and be more attractive to recruiters?

Here’s how not to do it.

Don't broaden your positioning in the marketplace. Don't make it less specific or less specialized. If your gut tells you to do that, then it's leading you in the wrong direction.

If you’re like many of the people I coach who are facing an extended job search, your instinct might be to broaden your appeal. You start thinking that your resume and LinkedIn profile position you too narrowly. Recruiters and hiring managers are passing you by as a result. You assume they must be looking for candidates with broader, more general profiles.

That has to be why recruiters aren't calling, right?

So you listen to your gut and make your positioning in the marketplace more general and, ultimately, more generic. But if you do that, you're unintentionally prolonging your job search.

I'll tell you why.

I’ve seen this from an insider's perspective. Before becoming a full-time executive and career coach, I was a recruiter at a top executive search firm. And whenever we started a new search, I’d hear some version of the same micro-monologue from our lead client.

I could practically count the minutes (or seconds) before they said it.

“Our organization is at a unique point in its history, facing a unique set of challenges, and we need a leader who has already overcome those challenges in an organization like ours — preferably several times.”

Simple, direct, and it had a huge influence on how we searched for and evaluated candidates.

As recruiters, we weren’t looking for someone with experience as a general manager who could 'do anything.' We were looking for someone with credible, focused leadership experience who had already overcome the specific challenge or challenges our client was facing. And they needed to have done it in a similar role (not always exactly the same) and in a business or organization like our client's (again, not always exactly the same).

That’s what made someone stand out when we were researching potential candidates. That’s what earned them a spot in our candidate pool.

That pool wasn't populated by a bunch of 'quick learners' who could 'do anything.' Now, the people we ultimately recruited might actually have been quick learners. They probably were. They might have been able to do anything. They were almost always adaptable. But that's not what they led with, and that’s not what we were looking for.

When you take a minute to think about it, it's not highly experienced, senior-level leaders who describe themselves as quick learners who are able to do anything. It's the junior people looking for a break or a leg up. When you're in the early stages of your career, this kind of I-can-do-anything positioning works. You aren't expected to have deep experience in any particular area. So being a quick learner gives you an edge. And being adaptable is essential as you test out new roles and situations or you’re called upon to bend and flex by your boss or company.

But now, as a senior leader (or an aspiring senior leader), you'll need depth and credibility.

You need meaningful experience in a particular type of role, in a particular industry, overcoming a particular set of challenges. That's your depth and credibility.

You need to be more focused to be competitive in a tough market. And that’s what recruiters are looking for — someone with credibility and depth in the type of role they’re trying to fill. Someone who has already overcome the challenge or challenges their client is currently facing. And someone who knows they can do it again, with confidence and clarity of purpose.

So what might a more focused positioning look like? Here are some examples:

• A startup operations leader who can establish the structure, systems and processes that position a high-potential new business for growth

• A visionary CEO who can transform a legacy consumer brand that’s struggling to stay up-to-date and relevant

• A data-driven CMO who can leverage customer analytics to revitalize a stagnant SaaS product in an increasingly crowded marketplace

You may have noticed that while these positioning statements are fairly specific, none of them is especially limiting. In fact, each one points to a fairly common business problem that many companies face. And by putting the emphasis on a relatively common challenge, you can earn trust with executive recruiters and the other gatekeepers to your career advancement, without pigeon-holing yourself.

If you look back at the examples I’ve suggested, none of them are especially pigeon-hole-y. Every new business needs structure, systems and processes to grow without spiraling out of control. Most legacy brands, at some point, find themselves struggling to stay relevant. And is there a SaaS product in existence that couldn't benefit from a little customer analytics to be more competitive?

It's just like when I was working in consumer products marketing (a prior line of work I often draw on in my coaching practice), a product needs to communicate a positioning that gets a target thinking: this product is for someone like me. To do that, you need a little specificity. In this case, the product is you, and the target is hiring managers and recruiters. And they need to be able to identify fairly quickly that your positioning is the right match for their or their client’s current challenges.

So fight your gut instincts, at least when it comes to your positioning in a tight job market. It’s a bit like investing in an economic downturn. When your emotions and your gut tell you to "sell,” it might just be the time to double down and buy more of what you already have.

Thinking about your own positioning in the market, what challenges have you already overcome in a leadership setting? And do you want to overcome them again?

If the answer to that last question is yes, then double down on those challenges as you draft your positioning and craft your personal narrative. Because if you do, you've just found your competitive advantage — and your personal accelerator — in a tight job market.

Subscribe now

The truth is, you don’t have to work at a non-profit to be mission-driven. You can still support a mission, even a personal one, working in a for-profit business.

I’ve coached more than a thousand people since I founded Career Narratives. Some of those people are pursuing careers in non-profits, but the vast majority of people I coach are trying to advance careers in for-profit companies. And the majority of those people are working in support of some sort of mission. It’s often the case that it’s a personal mission that comes to light through the coaching process if it’s not already apparent. Here are a few examples that come to mind.

• Ensuring the world is a healthier, greener place by working at a for-profit startup that processes hard-to-recycle materials (from a working mom who is thinking about her kids’ futures)

• Making housing for disadvantaged populations more affordable and accessible through community investing at an investment bank (from an MBA who wants to give back to a community like the one she grew up in)

• Helping small business owners compete by making online retail affordable and accessible at an online marketplace (from the daughter of immigrant parents who were successful because they were able to start their own business)

My own business Career Narratives is obviously for profit, but I still consider my coaching work to be mission-driven. I created Career Narratives to help MBAs and other career-minded professionals find meaning and satisfaction at work. Some of my motivation to become a coach came from seeing quite a few colleagues — many of them fellow MBAs — struggle to find meaning and satisfaction in work in settings where decision-making and business practices might not have aligned with their values.

When it comes to understanding a personal sense of mission, perhaps the most enlightening experience I’ve had was working as an executive recruiter for Isaacson, Miller. This top 20 executive search firm specializes in placing senior leaders in mission-driven organizations. As a recruiter there, I was sometimes approached by mid-career and senior professionals in the for-profit world who had developed a nagging sense that their work, regardless of industry or role, wasn’t fulfilling a need to be doing something that was helping people. And they would make a case that their particular skills and experience could be put to better use at one of the firm’s non-profit clients.

The truth is, you don’t have to work at a non-profit to be mission-driven. You can still support a mission, even a personal one, working in a for-profit business.

In short, the people who were contacting me wanted to do mission-driven work, and they thought that the only possible way to do that would be at a non-profit organization.

After quite a few of these conversations, I came to the conclusion that their concept of mission-driven work was too limited, and I also noticed that their relationships to mission varied.

Four types of relationship to mission at work

As I pointed out in the examples above, you can find people doing some form of mission-driven work in all kinds of for-profit settings, from startup recycling businesses to financial institutions to online retail service providers.

Regardless of industry and role, I’ve found that people’s relationship to mission generally falls into four categories.

Mission-First

I would describe people working in the non-profit world as being primarily Mission-First. They typically prioritize mission over money and may also prioritize it over other things like prestige and career progression. They still need to make a living, and it may be important to them that their work is recognized, but their overriding concern is that their work advances a mission that's deeply meaningful to them. And that focus on mission tends to be quite specific. Examples could be fighting the causes of malaria in lesser developed countries, enabling symphony orchestras to survive and flourish in contemporary society, raising funds to cure a rare disease, or facilitating the care and support of cancer patients and their families. The causes are quite specific, and it’s often the case that the person who supports the cause has a personal connection to the mission, either through direct personal experience or the experience of friends and family.

Mission-Driven

People I would classify as Mission-Driven prioritize work in support of a mission, but they may have a broader view of what that mission could be. They might be willing to make trade-offs to achieve specific financial goals or career advancement. As an example, I’ve worked with a few MBAs who are committed to a broader mission of “access to education” or “improving the healthcare system.” While those missions definitely have a degree focus and are more specific than simply ‘helping people,’ they are less precise than the missions of those who might fall into the Mission-First category. I’ve found that the people I would classify as Mission-Driven will typically entertain a relatively wide range of career options in support of their mission, or even adjacent missions, which I would consider to be ones that benefit a similar population of people.

Mission-Preferred

I would categorize a portion of the people I’ve coached as Mission-Preferred if they are conscious of mission in their work and generally prefer work that benefits people and society — or is at least neutral in terms of its effect on people and society. However, they prioritize personal and professional goals like career advancement, financial gain, and prestige. A classic example would be a marketer who works on a relatively unhealthy snack food that genuinely brings people joy. The marketer is comfortable with the trade-off between health and joy because the career path at the snack food company provides excellent training, prestige, and competitive compensation.

Mission-Last

People who are either not conscious of mission at work or actively disregard it in favor of financial gain, status, or security might be classified as Mission-Last. For some, they may have consciously chosen to consider mission last because of some necessity, whether that be paying off large amounts of debt or supporting an extended family. It could also be due to the personal preferences and values of the individual. One clear example of the latter comes to mind. I once met with a first-year MBA student who, when asked about his goals in life, promptly responded, “I have one. I’m going to make $100 million.” He was going to pursue whatever career path offered the greatest chance of achieving that goal regardless of whether it supported a mission he believed in or not.

Can your relationship to mission at work change over time?

I think the answer is yes. Your relationship to mission at work may change over the course of your life. I’ve often seen that people I might classify as Mission-First or Mission-Driven transition to Mission-Preferred for a portion of their career as they encounter pressing life commitments, like raising a family with all of the expense that involves. Practical considerations like needing to refashion a career after making a geographic move as a trailing spouse may also prompt the change.

Related to that, younger people who are highly conscious of mission and not yet weighed down by life’s practical and financial necessities may feel free to pursue jobs and careers that would fit the Mission-First model. And at the other end of a career, people in well-paying industries who are approaching retirement with ample savings may also feel it’s possible to pursue jobs and volunteer work that is entirely driven by a commitment to mission.

What is your relationship to mission?

Which category do you think best describes your relationship to mission? Are you Mission-First, Mission-Last, or somewhere in between?

If you’re currently working in a for-profit business, have you ever thought of making a transition to the non-profit sector or founding a non-profit yourself? Or are you just looking for more meaning in your work?

If you’re currently working in the non-profit world, have you ever felt that you’re not as engaged as you used to be? Do you think you could potentially be transitioning to a Mission-Driven or Mission-Preferred mode? Or perhaps you need an entirely new mission to support?

If you think you might be at a transition point related to mission at work and you’re seeking more clarity, then let’s talk. The approach to self-assessment that I offer to Career Narratives clients emphasizes the role of mission at work and its relationship to identifying and pursuing a career path that is meaningful and fulfilling over the long term.

That’s an awful lot of pressure. And you don’t.

Still, it’s the kind of pressure many of the people I coach impose upon themselves. Most are achievement-oriented MBAs and professionals, so anything less than an ideal outcome can seem like a failure. They may have a list of half a dozen to a dozen criteria they simply must have in their next role.

And they’re rarely ever able to get all of them, at least in the earlier parts of their careers.

Sure, there are times when people do find the perfect job, but even the ‘perfect job’ can turn into the ‘not-so-perfect job’ after you’ve been in it for a few weeks, or even days, and begin to realize the imperfections of your new company, boss and assignment that were just below the surface during the recruiting process.

Instead of promoting a pressure-filled approach that can often lead to disappointment (don’t compromise on your dreams!), I advocate for what I think is a more sensible and ultimately more motivating approach that’s focused on continuous improvement and a trajectory that leads towards your aspirations and dreams.

Recognize that you might not meet every one of your criteria for the perfect job in your next move and instead focus on moving steadily towards meeting more and more of those criteria.

If you follow this approach, you’ll ultimately get to your perfect job or very close to having your perfect job.

Document your criteria

Before you can hope to be moving in the right direction — towards your perfect or ideal job — you need to know what the right direction is. That is, what are the criteria you would actually use to qualify a job as being perfect or ideal?

Do you have a sense of what those criteria are?

I prefer a holistic approach to develop your criteria, one that incorporates considerations about both work and life. It’s getting harder and harder to separate the two, so why not consider them as a whole and make sure they’re compatible?

To get started on your criteria for the perfect or ideal job, think about the following:

Role — What do you actually do every day? What types of activities make up your minutes, hours, and days?

Context — What industry or industries do you work in, who compensates you, and who are the people you interact with on a regular basis?

Mission — Who or what does your work ultimately benefit?

Finances — What are your financial requirements, now and in the future?

Geography — Where do you want to live, and if you have a commute, where are you commuting to?

Personal — How much time and flexibility do you need for personal interests and commitments to family, friends, and community?

Health and Wellness — What do you need in your life to feel at your physical and mental best?

Try writing a sentence for each of the points above. Consider if there’s anything else you want or need to have. You could have criteria that fall into categories that aren’t listed above. Include them.

Let it sit a while. See how your ideas develop. Challenge yourself. Ask if the criteria you’ve listed are truly important to you or if they’re the internalized expectations of other people in your life. If they are, consider if they really belong on the list or whether you feel ready to part with them.

Prioritize your criteria

Recognizing that your next job may not satisfy all of your criteria, you’ll need to prioritize them. Ask yourself:

• What are your must-have criteria?

• What are your nice-to-have criteria?

If one or more of your criteria include a number (like a salary), is meeting that number absolutely necessary, or would you consider a range of outcomes?

Document your results and make sure you keep them somewhere where they’re easily accessible. When you’re under pressure to make a decision about whether to pursue or accept a job, you’ll want to be able to refer back to this list. Apple Notes, Google Keep, a starred Google Doc, a note in Evernote with a shortcut, a piece of paper. Use whatever is your favorite and most readily accessible and retrievable method of storing important notes and information.

Rather than promoting a lazy attitude towards career management, the recognition that you typically move towards the perfect job over time is motivating and fosters resilience.

With each move, get a little more of what you want and a little less of what you don’t

In the approach I’m proposing, you would typically start a career with a few essential criteria in the must-have category and the remainder would be in the nice-to-have category. As you gain experience and learn more about yourself, you might adapt your criteria. You’ll also end up moving nice-to-have criteria to the must-have category. And with more experience, self-knowledge and credibility, you’ll have the leverage and confidence to insist on a longer list of must-haves.

By the time you get to the latter part of your career, assuming you’ve achieved a degree of success and credibility, most if not all of your criteria will have moved to the must-have category.

A few words about mission…

As an executive recruiter working to fill roles that would likely be the last or second-to-last role of a candidate’s career, I noticed that criteria related to mission take on greater importance. Often, the people I worked with had achieved enough success in terms of title, prestige, and compensation that they felt free to focus their attention on legacy and the impact of their work.

That’s not to say that impact and mission aren’t important at the earlier stages of a career, it’s just that they seem to become even more meaningful as people advance and achieve success. They want to give back.

…and motivation

The evolution I’ve just described is a gradual process that happens over many years and possibly several roles and phases of a career. I’ve noticed that rather than promoting a lazy attitude towards career management (I know some of you were wondering), the recognition that you typically move towards the perfect job over time is motivating and fosters resilience. It helps the people I’ve coached weather storms and see past the inevitable bumps in the road they’re likely to face as they pursue career advancement.

Conclusion

Take some of the pressure off yourself, and don’t expect your next job to be the perfect one, one that satisfies all of your criteria when it comes to work and life.

First, get clear on what your criteria actually are. Write them down.

Prioritize them and understand at this point in your life and career, which criteria are must-haves and which are nice-to-haves.

Pursue your must-haves with intent, and with each new job and opportunity increase the number of your must-haves until you one day realize that you’re in exactly the right job for you.