Am I targeting the right job level in my search?

Oh, and welcome. Today we are talking about how to target the right job opportunities. Am I targeting the right roles in my job search? Am I aiming too high? Am I aiming too low? Why am I getting rejected for these opportunities? Why is my application not making it through? Or why am I getting through the interview process and they keep saying things like, oh, we think you're overqualified, we think you're underqualified, We don't think this role is right for you. We'll keep an eye open for roles that might be a better fit. And you're thinking, but I can do this role. I would be great at this role. They would be lucky to have me in this role. Why does the leveling not seem to match up? Why is the targeting not seem to match up? It is so interesting because a lot of people don't realize that this is their biggest challenge in the job search. They're just applying and interviewing and not getting the offers. And so today, that's what we're going to talk about. And the magic of these sessions is that we are live and I'm here to answer your questions in the moment. So go ahead and say hi in the chat as well as ask your questions in this session about this topic and things related. And we can dive into these different scenarios. We even have, uh, Joonj. Who says, so looking forward to this. In IT, we have so many positions you can apply for at my level. Analyst, project manager, manager/director, program manager. Looking forward to your advice. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is dizzying, right? Which one do you go for? Why am I not getting any, as many, you know, calls back for certain ones versus others? Which one should I target? That is exactly right. So I think that that is exactly the sentiment today. And definitely include your questions as we go along. So Matthew says, another Madeline gem session. Yes, I am so glad to see you here. And let's dive in. So there is a myth that it is easier to land interviews for companies when you are targeting a lower role. Right. So you're going a little bit lower than what you've done in the past or what your skill set is. And a lot of people will do that when they're saying, I'm not getting many interviews. Why don't I just start aiming a bit lower? How about that? Because I'll be overqualified and then they'll be so excited that I'm applying because I meet every single qualification and that's going to make them want me more. And I will say that that is actually a complete misconception. It's actually harder to land opportunities that are below your level rather than above your level. Okay, so just keep that in mind because the reason this happens is because companies are afraid that if they bring someone on who's overqualified, sure, that person might be— need less training, going to work faster, all those things. The reasons you think that you're going to get the job, But what they're terrified of is that you are going to leave as soon as something better comes along, or you're going to start asking for more money or a promotion very quickly. So you're going to start getting restless very quickly, and that is a huge liability to a company. They are too worried about that. They don't want also any sort of dynamics in the business where you feel like you're actually above the people who you report to. All of this, they say, you know what, let's just get someone less experienced. Let's just train them and they will stay in this role for 3+ years. So we don't have to keep rehiring this role and keep reopening this because that is extremely, that takes a lot of resources. And so stop going low, stop going low. And if you are going to go low because you're telling me, hey, Madeleine, that's what I want. I want to aim lower. I want to be an individual contributor. I don't want to go up to this next level. I would like to be a well-compensated individual contributor, or whatever is your situation, I do have strategies for that. I have plenty of clients who've been in that situation. I've coached them through and they've landed phenomenal individual contributor roles. So I do have those strategies for you as well. But the bottom line is you can't just keep going for those roles the same way as you're going for, say, a director role or VP or a manager role. Um, Yes, yes. And David says, in education there is the teacher and the tutor, which can appear identical depending on the specifics. Exactly. There's so many rules out there that feel identical. They feel like something that would require the same types of requirements, but then there's kind of some nuances that you need to keep in mind. Um, yes. And, and Yoon says, so happy you have strategies for applying for a lower level if that is what you want. Sure. And I think I can dive into this. And, and yeah, okay, wait. And we have Hernandez here. Elia Hernandez. She says, I have a master's degree. However, it has been difficult getting interviews as most roles require work experience over degrees. How do I overcome this? Yes. So, yeah, you're kind of facing the situation where you are overeducated and underexperienced. So you need to build your experience any means necessary. Now, of course, my advice to anyone listening here is if you are planning on getting any sort of higher education degree, you must be working during that time and you must be working in the profession you're going into because we cannot put our life on hold to get a degree and then try to go out to the job market. It's not working right now. So if you're just kind of getting your education and you're saying, okay, I'll get a job after. That, that's going to put you in this situation where you're realizing, oh, I'm overeducated and I'm underqualified. So here's what we need to do here is you need to build this experience, right? So I'm not sure what your degree is in or what your profession is, but I help my clients with coming up with ways that they can creatively build experience, such as I have my client Maria She had her PhD from Harvard University and yet was still struggling to land roles. And what was happening is that she was going for market research roles, and but they were, they were saying, okay, all of your research is more academic. We need research in the real world because she was looking to do these market research roles in entertainment. And so I worked with her and I even matched her up with some entrepreneurs. Who I said, hey, Maria, we came up with kind of like a menu of things that she could offer companies and pro bono, and she'd work on projects for them. And it wasn't that she was going to spend a ton of time on it, but it was work that she would be able to put in her portfolio and speak to in interviews and put also on her resume. And so I matched her up with a couple of different entrepreneurs. She did a few projects for them, and now she has real things to put on her resume that are in, in the industry she's interested in, in the, in the realm of what these companies are looking for. And that was so amazing and it gave her so much more confidence in the interview. So I do this across all different professions, helping folks with this kind of stuff. But you do need to get a bit creative because what I always say is that higher education is a paved path road, right? It's a road with signposts. And then as soon as you break away from it, there are no signs. And so that's what I do is I help people. Okay, all right, you, you know, you're on this dirt path, you don't know where to go. Here's a signpost, here's a signpost, here's what you do. So it, it does require either creating your own, you know, guide of where to go, or obviously coming to these sessions like this, asking for that guide. I love that. Perfect. So Nap— Nocturnal Reflect— Reflection says, what are your thoughts on best strategy for a role you don't have experience in the domain? Perfect. Okay, so let's talk about when we are underqualified here. So if we're trying to— because I said it earlier in the call, I said, hey, it's actually easier to sometimes go for a role that you're a little bit underqualified for than to go for a role that you're overqualified for. So let's take this first scenario and then we can kind of flip it. So if you are underqualified, you need to understand what are the skill gaps, okay? Because in the end, companies do not hire you as a favor. Okay? A lot of— there's like a lot of this, this talk online of why don't they give me a chance? Person. They're not hiring you as a favor. So you need to make sure that it is clear that the advantage to hiring you is, is obvious, right? They're hiring you, is not charity. So you need to understand what are your skill gaps. Now you need to also understand, are those skill gaps overcomeable? Such as, do you actually need to fill them, or can you just kind of learn on the job? Or Or are they truly core skills that you need to fill? Now, I would say a lot of my, a lot of my clients have at least over a decade experience in their just working, right? Maybe not. A lot of them are career changers, but a lot of them have working experience. Now, I definitely have some more junior level clients as well. Just the majority do have more experience. And so for a lot of them, when they are going through the steps of my program and they're kind of doing this skill gap analysis, or I have this calculator that kind of shows you how qualified you are for the roles you're going for. And if they're kind of seeing a gap there, a lot of them can use some of my strategies such as Workplace Dominoes and more of like the transferable skills type approaches where they can then reveal, you know, it kind of show companies, hey, I actually do have this experience. It just kind of is called something different. And so a lot of times it's just like different differential positioning, right? But if you can't, if, if there's the gap is too big, then you would need to do something like I mentioned before, which is filling in those skill gaps first. Sometimes it's with education, but I want you to know that when you're filling in skill gaps with education, education is purely for you. Okay. I want us to stop getting education to impress employers. Of course, if it's baseline, hey, you need this, this certification, you need this degree, of course, get it. But that will now only put you at the baseline with everyone else. Do you understand what I mean? That is not going to make you impressive. It's just going to put you in the running. So only use education to either put you in the running or to help you. So when you get education, it's purely for you to more deeply understand it, not to try because like, oh, you know, if I get this additional thing, suddenly I'm going to stand out. No, the— what the job market is looking for right now is the actual practical skills. So show me how you took that education and put it into practice. So that's going to be super, super important. All right. So if your current role isn't going well, how should one apply in the market if there isn't too much quality or growth in the current role? So I would say that one of the things I always coach my clients on, it's the very first step of my program to build out your one-page career vision, is always analyzing work— is your job's demand. The market demand of that role. You need to choose your jobs or your professions based on the hours you'll work and the amount you'll get paid. That is the whole point of working. So we need to start there of, okay, what's, what's the baseline amount of money you need to make and the type of lifestyle you need to lead? And most people are very practical about it. It's not like everyone's like asking for a million dollar salary. A lot of people are like, okay, like, here's about the salary I need to make for the, for the first job in that, in that career path. It's okay if it's lower, but for the majority of my career, I should be making at least this amount. And this is what I want to go to. Okay, that's the way you need to think about it. So if you're in— a lot of us have jobs right now that are— the market demand is lowering. Because that's the way the world works. Since the beginning of time, there's been cycles of technology. That have made certain roles fall out of importance and other roles emerge. And so you need to be checking this for your own profession and understanding the market demand. And if your market demand has shifted and decreased, you need to start shifting your profession. And so start, start finding roles that are pivoting. Now, I, like I said, in my one-page career vision, in my, my process, I have I have my clients comparing different roles, understanding what's out there in the market, and then picking the thing that is best, and then shaping their entire branding around that to where it is minimal. It's a minimal transition. It's not like you have to go get another degree. It's not like you have to change your entire life. You can make certain pivots into things that are more desirable. But I love this question because it shows that you are really staying abreast of what is market demand and paying attention to that as a key core component of your career and your job search. That is excellent. Perfect. All right. Let's see what Karen has to ask. So I'm running into challenges with my job title, my past job title, programs manager, but some mid-level are specialists. So is there a recommendation of a title to use? Such as lead. So what I would say here is programs manager, mid specialist. I, I think this is a really good specific question. I think that they are all kind of similar, and I don't think that you will get penalized for saying programs manager. And you could put specialist, you could put lead. I think that overall I have seen a lot of those similarly banded together, so I wouldn't worry too much in your particular situation, right? In certain other situations, I tell people, hey, you need to change that title or, or your targeting's off. But I think in your case, you're okay. Good, good question. All right. I've had VP roles and looking for less demanding roles. Silver medalist for a couple of roles, and the feedback I got was that the higher-ups thought I'd be overqualified or wanted their jobs. Okay, Nicole, this is, this is the next piece. We've already talked about being underqualified. Let's talk about being overqualified. Nicole, thank you for kicking this off. Love it. So this is, this is probably one of the top things I coach my clients through. Over 40% of my clients, when I start to work with them, report the fear of overqualified or facing ageism. Okay, so this is extremely common with the people I work with. So, and I like Nicole, this is extremely common. You don't necessarily want to go into your next role being a VP role. You want less demanding roles, but there, there, there's fear that, oh my gosh, Nicole is going to feel that she is overqualified. She might leave, she might want their jobs, all that kind of stuff. Yes. Okay. So how do we deal with this? So first of all, the thing that a lot of people don't say, the quiet part that is typically not said out loud, is that if you are someone who wants to, to kind of go take a step back in your career, you do want to soften a bit about what accomplishments you put on your resume, such as, let's say, you know, you're previously a VP. And now you want to move more towards an individual contributor role or something like that, we're going to stop emphasizing how many people reported to you or certain things like that, that even though it's true and even though it was a great accomplishment, that is actually going to work against you because they're going to say, well, you know, Nicole's already managed, you know, a team of 10 and she's emphasizing on her resume and now she's going to manage no one. Like, does she really want to take a step back like that? And it can kind of be a messy, messy thing. So that's the first thing is sometimes, yes, we are going to suppress a bit of our experience to match the requirements because being more qualified than they're asking is not a favor to them. They don't want it. They don't like it. Okay, so try to meet the qualifications. Try not to exceed it. Now, when it comes to then getting in the process, So here's the thing. This is interesting because Nicole made it to the interview rounds. So that means that they saw her resume. They liked it enough. She's a silver medalist. That means that she got pretty far in it and they were not convinced. They were not convinced that she would take a step down. So this is, this is interview strategy right here. So how do we, how do we improve our interview strategy then? Here's how you do it. So you need to present— you need to be very specific and energetic around why this role that's kind of a step down is so exciting to you. And there's— that there's actually things from it that you can learn. Okay. So I want you, if you're kind of being facing this overqualified energy, I need you to bring this energy almost as if you are a fresh college grad again, like eager for your first job. That's kind of energy that they're looking for. I've coached a lot of clients. I remember one of my clients, I was— we were walking through how she handled this and she said, yeah, you know, they're worried about my age. But, you know, I really talked to that hiring manager and I said, you know, I have a lot of wisdom and I can really help you. I can help you lead this team. I can really help provide a lot of, a lot of background because I've been working in this industry for a long time. Y'all, that is the opposite of what you want to say. I said, no, that is literally— that's, that's the worst thing you could have possibly said if they're worried that you're overqualified. And I said, this is what you need to do instead. Pick out what is interesting and exciting about this opportunity. Like, let's say you, you know, worked more in medical devices before and now you're working more in, in hospitals. Right, in hospital administration or whatever it is, you might say something like, you know, oh, I'm really excited to work on your team because you've been working in, you know, this industry for over 5 years. And I, I'm really excited to learn more about it right now. It's not that you are a fresh new professional, but there is something to learning about a new career. And even if the manager you're talking to is significantly younger than you, but they have been in this industry for 5 years, that's still 5 more years than you've been in this industry. So you want to make them feel like it won't be a power struggle, but that you actually value their, their thoughts and their contributions and that you can learn from them. And so things like that are super, super important. Yes. So Iman says it really depends on the job we intend to pursue without feeling that our time spent studying was wasted. Mm-hmm. Adrienne says, I have a second round interview tomorrow, PhD to industry. It's a corporate communications position, so the writing and editing is relevant to the role. Any tips on how to speak to technical writing? It's a corporate communication position, so the writing and editing is relevant. Any tips on how to speak to technical writing? I'm not sure what you mean by speak to technical writing. How to speak to technical writing. Maybe could you, could you reframe your question like how to talk about the technical writing you've done in the past? I think if that's the case, I would bring samples into the interview or send them a portfolio of your work. I think that's the best way to speak to it. And if you're portfolio right now is fairly weak, I would just build it, like start writing things. Even if someone hasn't hired you to do that technical writing, write about the things like for this role that you're interviewing for, write about them or write about a similar company or similar type of product and put that in your portfolio and share it in the interview. Hernandez says, uh, Elia Hernandez says, what is your take on AI-powered job search platforms like Sprout? I have not used Sprout. Um, there's just about a million different AI-powered platforms. Um, I have very much stayed in my lane. I built my own. Um, my clients use it and they have absolutely loved it. The thing I've learned from building my own AI platform with job search tools is that And I've been keeping a journal of all these things. But to train AI to give adequate advice takes so much time. So AI giving you feedback on your resume, on your interviews, on whatever, it'll always say something that sounds right and sounds good. But because this is my domain, because I know what's good and not, I am not just going to say, oh, that sounds flattering, nice. I've realized, wow, there's so many bad habits that these platforms teach people. Now, I don't know, Sprout might be the exception. I have no idea. So I can't speak to that particular platform, but that's what I'll say is like, be very discerning. You know, someone like me or other people where they have to put their entire livelihood in their brand, behind a product that is giving advice, I would trust that a little bit more than some of these, like, these things that are just like faceless products that pop up. Because yeah, they'll just kind of like put a fancy, you know, UI on the front and say, oh yeah, it'll give you feedback. And it's like, that feedback's not great. All right. Hello. Hello. People are saying hi in the chat. Good to see you. So Eamon says, does job hopping really help us increase our expected salary? There's research that came out this year. Historically, most years, yes. Now there's only about a 2 or 3% salary increase that typically happens from hopping, which is kind of the same as staying at the same company. So it's not happening right now. Job hopping is not is not seen as super advantageous right now. The exceptions are if you are in a high demand role right now in a high demand industry, I would say that you're definitely an exception. All right. Let's see. Delphine says, I— hi, Madeline. I'm the head of product at startup. How do I reassure employers of bigger companies that senior product manager or lead product manager is not below me Or not good enough for me. Yes, without undermining my profile. Yes. Okay. So this is a really good, really good point. So, so being the head of product at a startup is different leveling than being a lead product manager at, say, Amazon, right? Because, you know, it's at smaller companies, you can get bigger titles, And the title does match your amount of responsibility, but it's, it's then it levels out to different things. So, you know, it is interesting because I did, I also have held a head of role before and then I went lower after that because I went to a larger company. Fortunately, I, a lot of, a lot of recruiters were able to read that. They were able to understand the leveling. So that, that was really good. And so I'm curious, Delphine, have you— so you have to reassure. So if you're reassuring them, then that means that I would say that you're probably landing interviews, which is phenomenal. So they're already kind of seeing how the leveling could work out. So that's a really great sign. What I would say from there is when they ask you, what do you want in your next role, you need to be extremely explicit. Explicit. You need to say things like, what I'm looking for is I am looking to move into a company with 500 to like upwards of 10,000 employees where I can have a more narrow scope of a role and I can be contributing very directly to a larger team with, with more resources. I have done the, you know, uh, where I'm the product manager of everything and kind of we have on a small team. And that has been wonderful for me to learn all of the nuts and bolts in every different part of my role. But now I'm looking to, you know, pivot my career towards more of an established product line and learn that new skill set and have a more defined feature set and all that kind of stuff. Right. So you like that. You need to be— you're not just saying things like in general, like, oh, I could, I could go for another head of product. Well, I could do this, that. No, you have to basically describe the exact role you're going for so that they know this is all for you. All right, lots of love in the chat. Oh my goodness, so good to see you all here. So Kim says, what if you're a career shifter from teaching? Have a lot of clients who have shifted from teaching, um, so you are in good company. Um, I have 3 and a half years of experience outside of teaching but 20 years in teaching. If job wants 8 years, how do I adjust the, um, the years of my teaching? So like I said, I have a ton of experience with this. This is one of the most common career pivots I come across, and it really comes down to— yes, teachers do more than Teachers do a lot of different tasks, and so you have to almost eliminate the tasks from your resume that maybe are the ones you did the most but aren't as relevant to the role you're going for next, and then amplify the ones that maybe you did less often but are more relevant. Um, that's phenomenal that you have 3 and a half years outside of teaching, so that already gives you something like that. And then if you were here earlier when I was talking about this idea of being underqualified, I talked a lot about filling in skill gaps, right? So there might be some work you need to do there. Now, besides that, I teach my clients a lot of scrappy strategies when they are teachers, right? So some networking strategies, hitting on the competence triggers, the underdog approach, which is one that especially my client Anderson, who went from being a professor to now he's like an amazing product manager at a tech company. He really used that to his advantage. So just really getting creative with your networking is super, super important. And it's not about knowing people because that's the thing they hear from teachers a lot is like, well, I don't have any corporate contacts. It's not about knowing people. It's about noticing people. So noticing things about them, taking a special interest in people, all of that. All right, um, how do I know if I'm targeting too low, too high, or the right level after a layoff and a period of consulting/self-employment? So I would say what's really important here is understanding what are your skills, right? So like I said, in my program we have, um, a something that kind of like will measure your skills against the role you're going for and seeing, okay, is there a gap here? You do want there to be somewhat of a gap sometimes, right? Like it's okay if you're only meeting 60 to 80% of the qualifications. Sometimes a little bit of a gap can actually be good and a company can see this as a growth experience. And so that, that can be good for you to kind of grow into. Then we— when you— if you're kind of applying to jobs and, you know, I always have— I never have just my clients apply to jobs. There's always additional steps there to make sure their applications are actually seen. And a lot of them see 30 to 50% of their applications responded to. You, you do need to see, okay, if I'm not landing interviews, like, am I aiming too high? Am I aiming too low? Is there something wrong with my resume? So really, like, Sussing that out is super important. It really— that by a case-by-case basis, I'm constantly evaluating that for my individual clients of, okay, show me the job description, show me your resume, show me your past. Okay. We need to either inflate some of this experience, buff it up a little bit because you're aiming, you know, you're kind of aiming pretty high or you're, you're a little bit overqualified. Right. And also, you know, kind of looking at years of experience is somewhat of a proxy of like what they're looking for. Um, cool, cool. Yes. So yeah, if, and if, if y'all are looking for the actual coaching, you want to get, get that feedback, um, you guys can go to madelineman.com/coaching. Okay. And you can talk to one of our team members there. They'll chat with you, they'll tell you about what coaching we offer, and, um, and you can, you can see if it's the right fit. All right, so Um, so de-emphasize qualifications that were in your previous roles. Yes, if you— yeah, if you're, if you're overqualified, definitely do that. All right. Oh my gosh, so many good questions here, but I'm working through, I'm working through them. So I applied for a job face-to-face recently and the manager refused to even take my CV once I told him I previously managed an award-winning London flagship store. Interesting. Wow. Maybe he felt like you were overqualified in that case, right? So it's always about understanding what are they actually looking for? What is the criteria? Um, maybe it kind of comes to that comment where I was like, oh, I had that one client who she was like, oh, I have lots of wisdom. Take my wisdom. I'm going to help you. And the person was like, ooh, this is actually sounds like you're going to try to take my job. Um, all right. So my Camu says my current title, associate director, is inflated for my position, and I don't meet minimum years of experience for similar job title elsewhere, and I'm not hearing back for lesser roles. Any recommendations? Super common. Okay, super common, y'all. Here's the issue. The role titles we get are often, are often just, just not helpful to the external public. Okay, so what you need to do is you can put like associate director or whatever in the parentheses, but maybe translate that title to what it actually would be in other companies. So sometimes the terms we use, sometimes the leveling is very confusing. So it's actually kind to put what is actually the more likely external facing title, like the thing that is actually more understandable versus this other title. And you can always put like the internal title parentheses to be like, hey, this is my, this is my title. But yeah, I would, I would say that that translating it to the, the outward world is going to be really important. All right. Any advice, says Christina, on a phone for phone interview? With who I believe the hiring manager is the hiring manager for a role in an industry I am trying to transition into. So first of all, congratulations on getting the phone interview. Remember, y'all, any time you get an interview, that means you're qualified. That means they see your value. So, you know, we can— we— they'll come up with excuses like, oh, we don't think you have enough experience, or, you know, we don't think it's going to take too long to train you. And that is on you. It's because they gave you the shot. They were optimistic, like maybe this person actually could fit. They're kind of a career changer, but maybe they could fit. And then they give you the interview and they still say, actually, you're underqualified. That is a reflection of your interview performance. Okay. So, and I tell you that because that should get you excited, that should get you empowered, because that means you don't have to change a single thing about your background. Your background's fine. It's getting you interviews. You're not persuasive enough. That is a skill I teach people in a matter of weeks, right? When I'm coaching folks, they can go from being not persuasive at all, constantly kind of getting interviews and offers, to landing every single offer. So it is extremely trainable skill. So that's the good news, Christina, is this is, this is a like, this, this question itself in itself implies some very good things. So I would say, so you are trying to transition into it. You need to really understand what are the core skills, especially the core hard skills, and make sure you can really speak confidently to them. I gave an example the other day where one of my clients, which she just landed 2 job offers last week, and One of the issues she was running into is that she was asked questions like, well, do you have experience in the manufacturing or no, in pharmaceutical industry? And she said no. And I was listening, I was listening to the interview recording of this. And she was wondering, like, in hindsight, why she didn't get moved on to the next round. I said, well, hello, they asked you, they asked her two other, they asked her another question too that was kind of like that, where they were like, hey, it seems like you're mostly research experience, which is not really what we're looking for. And then they asked her, hey, do you have pharmaceutical experience? She said No. And I said, well, you do have pharmaceutical experience, not a lot, but you just saying straight out no, you kind of— they gave you the opportunity to basically make them feel okay about you not being, you know, super deep in the pharmaceutical industry. You, you didn't rise to the occasion. And so those are the types of things I coach people on. And then I coached her through— we actually did, we redid that answer several times so she knew how to respond to it in the future. And then within like a couple of weeks, she landed 2 offers. So that's super, super important. Robert says, I have an MBA, but on the advice of professionals, including HR professionals, I've been advised to drop the degree on my resume. I did that recently, but so far no interviews. What do you think? So I'm guessing that might be because that makes you overeducated and under— like, but still underqualified or whatnot. You know, I think that there's lots of different criteria to help you land a role. I also hope that if you are going for roles, that it's not just applying, but that there's actually additional interactions that you're with each part, each company you're interested in, that there is interactions with someone on the team so that you're getting seen. So there's, there's different criteria that will make sure that you're to, to understand what's going on with your application. Because with my clients, what I typically would do if they brought up this question is, of course, I'd review their resume. I'd review, okay, show me, show me the job descriptions that you got rejected for. And I can usually reverse engineer why were you rejected. Okay. And then I also say, okay, well, what are the actions you did around this? When did that job get posted? Right. Could it be a timing issue? Who at the company did you coordinate with? Did you contact? Did you speak with? And, you know, if there was no interaction, it's like, okay, well, maybe, maybe it was never even seen, right? So there's a lot of different dynamics there that you need to see. But yeah, potentially, potentially removing certain things from your resume could help. I don't know that it's actually hurt you, but yeah, I think with the additional data points, you'd be able to see, okay, what, what do I need to do next? All right. So what would be your strategy, says Shayna, for cold outreach on LinkedIn for jobs which are open if you don't know folks prior? What can, what can one do to possibly be noticeable? So, I would say I wouldn't necessarily focus your outreach on LinkedIn. You could, you definitely could. I don't think it's a bad thing, but a lot of people don't check LinkedIn that often. Email is generally a better bet. I have, in my, my coaching program, I built out this email generator, right, where it's depending on who you're reaching out to, who at the company, What is your relationship? Do they have an open role? Do they not have an open role? And it kind of like creates the email based on that. And so folks gen— typically send that out. But a lot of it is really, you need to make sure the number one check you have to go through, and the reasons why my clients get really high response rates is because the emails they send, yes, there is a formula to them.. And they, if you kind of look across them, yes, they do look quite similar. But if you look at one email at a time, you'll notice that that email could have only gone to that person. The, the email they sent could have only gone to that very specific person in that moment. It does not look like a mass email. And that's the thing that so many of us get wrong. All right. Okay, so Raza says, what is the best app we could use to make a resume stronger and more relevant for roles we might be applying to? So I have been pretty disenchanted by a lot of the apps out there. I will say I have not tried all of them because there are so many. So I built my own. Okay, so that's— I have my whole program, Stand Up Job Search. I also have opened it up to where you can just, just, you know, get access only to the portion Standout Resume. And you can get a preview of that if you go to standoutresume.com/webinar, I think it is standoutresume.com. I bet if you just type in standoutresume.com, you can get a preview where I kind of do a class and you can see a bit more of that. But yeah, I would say it's, it's definitely I based it based off of my Glory Formula. Most of them will kind of just their kind of glorified resume formatters, not necessarily. I would say that what I saw was missing is they looked, they looked really good. And if your content of your resume is already really good, then I would say using a lot of them to format your stuff like don't, don't get my thing, just use their thing. You're just looking for help with formatting, just, just do like the free ones and stuff like that. The one I built was really in-depth of like getting the right content on your resume, like the stuff that really performs, like even if you're a career changer, even if you're an unconventional candidate. So that's, that's what I built. It's and it's, it's more utilitarian. Like it looks, it looks nice, looks put together, but it's not like fancy and pretty and all that kind of stuff. You could definitely make it fancy and pretty, but like that's That's what I haven't seen to convert as well. All right. So let's see here. In job applications, if there's an explicit mention of how much bare minimum salary you are expecting, how do you answer smartly? Usually check, check, check Glassdoor to figure out the bare minimum. Yeah, exactly. And I wouldn't put— I wouldn't put your real bare minimum. I would put maybe like your— the mid— the middle point. Of what you would accept. So like what's kind of like the middle? And then don't, don't ever write your bare minimum because companies will always go to whatever's the lowest number you said. All right. How about a mid-career professional with, with recent multiple short-term roles with a specialist position with, with failure to secure anything long-term? What's the right level to target for roles? Okay, so mid-career specialist positions, um, and struggling right now to find anything long-term. Um, I would say, do you have a specific role in industry you're targeting? If the answer is no, that is hugely holding you back right now. That is really the first step I have all my clients go through. Even a lot of them are pretty sure of what they want, and they'll kind of breeze through that first part, but they'll still say, oh my gosh, Madeline, That first part of getting extremely clear helped me to be more persuasive to companies and they start selling me on the opportunity. So I think you need to get really clear of what you're targeting and then become a little bit obsessive about it, right? So filling in any skill gaps, attending both virtual events and in-person events that are around that industry, around that profession. Be immersed in it, have your own personal projects, start to really geek out on it. Start to build more of a network around it, and also be really focused on adding value to others. Okay. So I think targeting is probably— yeah, zeroing in will be super important. Okay. I see a question. Let's see. Oh my gosh. Hello. He says, I'm loving core program. What is typically required to move up to director to VP role. Yay. Oh my gosh. So good to see you. Thank you so much for the kind words. He's in the, our core program. So he's the one who has access to all of our different tools and Madeline AI and all this stuff. So I'm so excited that you're here and that you've been loving it. And I did hear that you have been like working really hard and you even put in so much reflection that we had to extend our word count. Um, so that's what I love to hear. And I was like, that's what I'm talking about, like, he knows what he's doing. So anyways, kudos to you. So what is typically required to move up from director to VP role, PR communications? Okay, so director to VP is the, like, the most mysterious, biggest leap of anyone's career now. And if anyone here has made the leap, congratulations. But it is tricky, right? It feels like a bigger leap than others. So with this, you really, you really need to start moving. And you actually have access to this because you have the all the access to all my internal things. I would say go to the interview ladder in the Stano interview portal. Okay. And I would say definitely focusing on those top 3 rungs of the ladder. Those are the things that if you can really dial those in, those will be really huge in being extremely persuasive and the person that they all lean forward to want to hire you at that VP level. They'll say, oh my gosh, he's such a visionary. He speaks the language of our business. He understands us., right? So I would say focus on that as well as the Show, Don't Tell access you have as well. That will be really helpful, and we can continue to talk about that, uh, I think, um, come to, come tomorrow for my private call on Thursday, and we can even talk more about this. Great, great question. Okay, um, all right, lots of love in the chat. Good to see you guys. All right, um, Ingrid says, I had a first round interview with a panel of seniors. Now I have my second round with a panel of directors. What should I expect from the second round? So it's interesting that it's panels both times, right? So are you— is director a skip level or is that what you're reporting to? If it's a skip level, typically they will ask you some behavioral-based questions. They might, depending on if they are in your function or not, they may ask questions that are skills-based. So how would you handle this situation? How do you solve this? And it can often be kind of awkward, right? Because they're like, they'll just be firing in for like questions at you. I found in a lot of panel interviews there are very few follow-up questions. But what's really important is make sure you ask for the, the names of the people you're interviewing with and point certain questions, certain comments towards certain people. That usually definitely impresses them. All right. Yes. Good to know. We went with someone with more experience feedback. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What is the timing to apply? Yeah, so I would say try to apply. I know this is going to sound crazy, but try to apply within the first couple of days. Now, especially for those of you out there who— and I know a lot of this is a lot of my audience is y'all are more experienced. So director, VP, C-level, like those roles. The pressure, the time pressure is less on you because the number of people who have your level of skill set is smaller. So even if you are seeing large application amounts, the company is going to slow down and really try to find the right person versus be like, okay, well, any of these 300 people likely have like the, the minimum qualification, so we'll go with one of those. But if it's more of like a VP-level role, they even— a role could be up for 4 months and they still couldn't have found their candidate. So, um, I wouldn't— I wouldn't worry too much about it, um, and I wouldn't— I wouldn't freak out too much about it. But I would say if, if you are someone who finds a role that just came out, applying quickly, I have seen in this job market to be helpful. Okay, um, Andrew says initial interview with the head of HR and was told they were far along with a candidate but would get back to me if they didn't progress. It's been a week. Should I send a 90-day plan to show interest? I would say you're not— you have nothing to lose, Andrew. You have nothing to lose, right? A show, don't tell or something like that. It seems like maybe Andrew has read my book, Reverse the Search. Y'all definitely pick up this book if you have not yet for your job search strategy. You know, it's at many of your local libraries, all that stuff. So yes, I would say there's nothing to lose. Of course, if you do lose in this case, I don't think it's really your fault, right? It's a timing thing. You did— the timing was off, and that's not, that's not your fault at all. All right. If someone has worked too many different jobs, how do you gauge your candidate market fit? Should you create different resumes for different jobs or how to figure out more specifics? This is a common, a very common situation. So your issue is that you have so much experience, which is actually phenomenal, right? You're, you are a chameleon. You could adapt to so many different roles. And so I think that that's fabulous, but it's confusing. It's confusing for someone who's trying to evaluate you, right? But I love working with clients like you because I see it as a very— it's like, first, okay, so here's what I would do if you're my client. First of all, I'd be like, we have to get focused. So yes, you could make several different resumes. And some of my clients, they do have different resumes and it depends on who they are and in their profession, if I kind of, quote, permit that. Of course they can do whatever they want, but if they want my opinion, I will be like, no, you need to have only one. Or for certain people, I could say you can have multiple. I mean, it depends on your profession. It depends on how broad we're going. Okay. And it depends on market demand. There's, there's a lot of things it depends on. Okay. So that was the first thing I would do is I try to understand. We'd probably narrow your focus quite a bit. Maybe you'd still have two different resumes, but it would be a lot more narrow. Next, the wonderful part that I love about your experience is that there's— okay, now that I know what you're targeting, I can help you mold it. So what's great is that when you have all these different experiences, you can mold that in different ways. So when you do that, then we can mold it in ways of like, okay, so we're focused only on this type of position or that position, and you need to really strip a lot of things for your resume. You're going to notice that if you go through the Glory Formula and the types of processes that I do, your resume is going to shrink so much. You're going to go, oh my gosh, Madeline, I have so much amazing experience. You just maybe got rid of so much of it. But then, oh, suddenly you're landing interviews and you stop complaining because you're like, all right, well, even though that hurt to take it off, I'll take the interviews. Thank you. So that is super important. And, and so, yeah, that's what I'd recommend for you. How, how to get noticed? Just applying on LinkedIn would not get noticed. How to get noticed? Just applying on LinkedIn would not get noticed. How to get noticed? Just applying on LinkedIn would not get noticed. Okay, I think that's what it is. So I would say, yeah, applying on LinkedIn is probably one of the worst places to apply just because there is the thing called like you know, what is it called? Easy Apply, right? Where it's like there's nothing about your application that's custom. I would definitely apply on companies' websites. That is the best place to do it, as well as making sure that you are matching any application with an interaction, right? That you're speaking to someone at the company, that you're interacting with someone at the company. Just because, just because if you're an application goes into a database, there's no guarantee that someone is going to read it. Now, if you're applying in, say, government or a lot of like education roles, a lot of them actually do read every application. So that's less important. But for a lot of industries, that's not the case. All right. I've been in the same role for 12 years. What the heck do I do about references? Says Claire. Um, so first of all, yes, different roles, same organization. Totally. I understand. Um, that makes sense. Uh, so I have a ton of clients who have been at the same company for over a decade. And I— Claire, I just want to acknowledge that you're probably now going into the job search and saying, Holy cannoli, this is an entire skill set. Because I'm sure the reason why you've been at the same company for 12 years is because you're damn good at what you do. But then you're going into the job search and realizing, oh my gosh, wait, this is a whole other skill set, which is why you're here. That's why you're on this call. If you, if you felt like the job search was just completely obvious and everything about it was just inevitable, then you wouldn't be here. So anyways, I just want to say that's the biggest thing that so many of my clients who haven't job searched in a while is they go, oh, I'm now learning a completely separate skill set, which is the entire reason I wish I didn't even have a job helping you guys with this stuff. The fact that we have to, like, learn an entirely new skill set for this job search, but it's a skill set that is going to make you so much money. So much money. So thank you for being here. This will help you make a lot of money. So what do you do about references? You know, I would say First of all, you know, has anyone left the company? Because I know you don't want to necessarily give them references at the company because that will kind of blow up your, blow up your spot. But are there people who have left the company who can then be references? Also, you can be honest with companies being like, I've been here for 12 years, no one leaves this company, I love it. But I, you know, I'm leaving now because, you know, because me and my partner are moving or whatever it is. And be like, hey, you know, here's who I can offer. I can offer this person who I did a side consulting for. I can offer this person I worked with before. I can offer this person who left the company 3 years ago and we weren't, they weren't my manager, but they were someone who was my skip level. Right? So you can just, you can just be frank with them of like, hey, I don't have the best references because they're all still here and they all still love me. And they don't want to see me go. Okay, so I'd be honest with it. All right. So, yeah. Okay. So we have another person who's been at the same company for a long time, for 15 years in many roles. They've had many mergers and it's confusing to show I worked for the same company. How do I show on a resume without it seem like I'm job hopping? So It is, it is crucial that you don't seem like you're jaw-popping, okay? So I just want you to know that showing the accurate picture of how, like, how all the mergers and all that kind of stuff is not very important. What's most important is who you are and the roles you've held. And the narrative, the narrative that is the most kind is the one that kind of helps them to like not have questions about silly little details. Right. So, and you've had many roles, they've had many mergers. So I would say probably it depends. Right. I've had quite a few clients bring this up to me and I kind of will edit their resume slightly differently depending on their situation. But as a, as more of just a general piece of feedback, I'll give this to you. I'd probably say just like pick the company name. That's the most recent one. Write all of your roles under that one, date it from the very first day that you started the company that's been acquired, acquired, acquired, um, to now. And, um, make sure that that date is all together so that it's the 15 years together. And I would say you can put little notes throughout of like, if you move to a different role, you can just put a small role of like, you know, moved roles due to you know, company acquisition or whatever, right? Like you can write little notes in between like that to explain some of the things. But I would say that's how you keep it from looking like a job hopper. All right, y'all. So, yes. So it— and so anyone who is looking for kind of this like more hands-on feedback, because I do love giving you this feedback, but it's, it's so tough when I cannot actually see the actual resume, your actual LinkedIn profile, all that kind of stuff. If you want to grab some coaching, go ahead and you can go to www.madelynmann.com/coaching. We can get you on a call with one of our coaches, see if coaching is right for you. My just number one recommendation is if you're thinking that maybe coaching would be good for you, just book a call. Because I would say the number one thing that I hear from clients or almost clients is, shoot, I should have come to you sooner. I shouldn't have waited so long. I shouldn't have gotten rejected from all of those top companies that I was really excited about before coming to you. Like, just skip the nonsense. If you want coaching, skip the nonsense. Just go ahead and book a call, and you guys can, uh, then figure it out from there to see if it's the right thing. Um, I'd like to send you away with a Wi-Fi high five. Thank you so much for coming on This has been an absolute blast. This is— y'all have been— the questions today were so good, so thoughtful. And, and, and yes, and Andrew says, thank you. I just got an insight for a shift in my near-term demand strategy that hadn't occurred to me. Always take away something helpful. I'm so glad that you took away something helpful from today. That makes makes my heart swell. And so love it, love it, love it. It's so good to be here with you guys. I'm seeing some Wi-Fi high fives in the chat. Wi-Fi high five to you, David. And we'll do— I'll be back here again next week, same time, same place, new topic, but same me here for Q&A. So be sure you come back next week, and I'm really looking forward to it. All right, I will see you later. I'm going to send you away with a Wi-Fi high five.