This week’s episode is about the seven career questions my clients ask me most often. I'm talking about questions people bring to coaching when they are trying to work out what comes next.
Questions like: What roles should I apply for? How do I explain a career change? How do I avoid looking too senior or too expensive? How do I talk about achievements instead of responsibilities? How do I become more visible to recruiters and decision-makers?
They sound like separate questions, but I often find they come back to the same thing: The person is trying to translate a complex career into a clear next move.
And that is not easy.
By the time someone has worked for 20, 30, or 40 years, their career is rarely simple. They have collected roles, relationships, achievements, disappointments, pivots, restructures, titles, industries, and sometimes a few professional identities along the way.
That richness is valuable. But it can also become hard to explain.
I often see clients trying to solve this by adding more information: More detail in the CV, more examples in the job interview, more job titles in the search, more explanations in networking conversations...
But more is not always better. Sometimes the work is not to add. It is to choose.
What is most relevant now?
What should be brought forward?
What can be left in the background?
What no longer supports the next move?
What does the market need to understand quickly?
That last question is important.
Because the job market does not have time to decode you. Recruiters, hiring managers, and people in your network are busy. They may want to help, but if your message is unclear, it becomes harder for them to know how to help.
One of the things I tell clients is that a career story is not your full career history. It is a guided tour.
You are not opening every drawer and showing every document. You are helping someone understand the main thread.
For one person, that thread may be transformation. For another, it may be governance. For another, commercial growth. For another, stakeholder complexity, policy, operations, risk, education, health, infrastructure, or leadership through uncertainty.
The thread matters because it helps other people remember you.
So here is a small exercise you can do this week.
Take a blank page and write this sentence:
“I am the person organisations call when they need someone to…”
Then finish the sentence ten different ways.
Don’t try to be polished. Don’t try to make it sound like a LinkedIn headline. Just write.
Maybe you are the person organisations call when they need someone to steady a team during change.
Maybe you are the person they call when a project has lost direction.
Maybe you are the person they call when stakeholders are difficult and trust needs to be rebuilt.
Maybe you are the person they call when the strategy is good but execution is poor.
Maybe you are the person they call when a board needs clear advice.
Once you have ten versions, look for the pattern. What keeps appearing? The pattern is often closer to your real value than your job title.
Then ask yourself: Is that pattern visible in my CV, LinkedIn profile, interview examples, and networking conversations?
If the answer is no, that may be why your job search feels harder than it should. Not because you lack experience. Because the right experience is not being made visible enough.
The Job Hunting Podcast Episode 338
This week’s episode, Episode 338, is called The 7 Career Questions My Clients Ask Me Most. I hope it helps you think differently about your next move, especially if you have been trying to explain a career that no longer fits neatly into one job title.
Time Out:
- Back in Melbourne, the routine includes having a coffee on the beach every day if possible. It's cold, but having this routine and getting whatever sunlight is available helps a lot.
- I watched Voicemails for Isabelle and all I could think of was "finally! Finally, a good romcom!" With a great script, acting, and soundtrack.
- Every other time in front of the telly is spent watching the FIFA World Cup. Today's Belgium x Senegal game was possibly the most dramatic ever played. And the reason this newsletter is a bit late!
And if you are in that stage now, where you can do many things but you are not sure what to pursue next, this is exactly the kind of work I do with clients. So reply to this email if you have any questions about my career services and courses, or click on the link below to learn more.
Warm wishes and Go Socceroos!
RB
