If your job search is taking too long, it’s time to stop trusting your gut
You don't need to broaden your appeal
It’s taking longer to find a new job.
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.