How to Land $200,000+ Roles in Today's Market

Hello and welcome. We are live. I am Madeline Mann. Go ahead and say hi in the chat. Today we are talking about how to land $200,000+ jobs in this job market. And as always, if you've been to these Tuesday sessions before, thank you so much for coming back. It's so good to see you. There's constantly— I'm constantly seeing the same faces, the same names. It's So good to have you back. But also, if you're new, welcome. This is really a place where it is my time to connect with you. It is your time to get the answers. So these sessions are extremely interactive. Add your questions in the chat. I've had so many people follow up with me after and say, wow, like, you really understood my question. I felt like I finally got some answers, felt like I finally got to interact with you. And that's really why I do it. So go ahead and say where you're joining us from. I'm seeing David. Hey, David from Maryland. I'm seeing Mare from New Jersey. Wi-Fi high five in the chat. Oh my gosh. So good to be here. So when we're talking about landing $200,000 roles, $300,000, $400,000+ roles, it really is a different ball game. Than the roles you've landed previously in your career. There's just, there's different stakes. There's also fewer roles. So it's kind of this wild challenge that you're in as you go up in your career. As you know, the roles get more specialized, uh, there's fewer of these opportunities, and so the stakes are so much higher as well as when companies are evaluating you. You have to be really incredible in the interviews because any small thing will spook them. The reason being is if they're putting you as in like a VP role, you are going to have such a big impact on their strategy, on their culture, on their team members. You are going to— your impact is going to ricochet so much more greatly throughout the organization compared to people who are more at lower levels have smaller amount of influence. So this is absolutely huge. And it's really what I specialize in is having especially that, of course, landing the job, landing the interview, which I think is a little bit easier than actually acing the interview. I think acing the interview is really the part where I love to go deep with clients and making it so that they are finally breaking through and not getting that silver medal but getting the gold. Barry's here. Devin's here from Connecticut. Yes. Oh my gosh, do we, do we have a— we have a second Maryland here. David and Melissa are both here from Maryland, repping Maryland. Um, and yeah, okay, amazing. So let's dive in, and like I said, you can add your questions in the chat as we go along, as well as we've got Saudi Arabia in the house. Love to see it. So in the interview, and just in, in, okay, let's actually start with landing the interview first. So when you're trying to land these jobs, I would say the number one way my clients land interviews for like high-level senior roles, like even if it's like a high-level individual contributor, individual contributor, director, VP, or C-level, what I find is the majority, or at least usually like 50% or more of their interviews come from being sourced. Okay. So when we're talking about being sourced, that really is the idea of someone who is hired to find people to interview. And And so it's really about being found. It's about almost like creating the SEO of your career, where it's like if you need a plumber, right? Are you just kind of like, are you sending, are you putting, posting out a job application and asking a bunch of, you know, a bunch of people to apply to be your plumber that day? No. What are you doing? You're searching. And then whoever you find who looks good, who looks competent, who looks like they're in the right place, who looks like the right price, all those things, that's who you choose. Well, that's the way a lot of senior-level hiring works, is they don't want to wait and hope that top performers apply to their jobs. They want to be a lot more competitive. Because once you get to the senior level, if you just wait for top performers to apply, you aren't as likely to get the best possible talent. Because you don't want to just, you know, They'd rather like take, take talent from their competition, or they'd rather make sure that, you know, if someone's successful, that that person might not be necessarily looking for a job or thinking of your company, especially if you're a less known company. You want to go out there and hunt for that great talent. And so it really comes down to you being findable. And when they find you, them saying, this person looks impressive. And what's wonderful about doing that is you don't have to change your skill set. You don't have to, you know, change your experience. You just need to reframe it. All right, we have more people coming in. I see London, Massachusetts, Denver. I'm seeing Shy City. Yes, Massachusetts, Diana, welcome. Dubai, oh my gosh. Diane from Oregon, South Oregon, it sounds— looks like. Okay, so yeah, so I would say a main— that is like a major thing is just my clients getting sourced, right? And the main place they get sourced on is LinkedIn. Okay, I remember writing my book Reverse the Search, and I did— I do a whole chapter on getting sourced, and I was struggling because I didn't want to put LinkedIn in the book. Why? Because tools change, right? Twitter isn't even called X— isn't called Twitter anymore, it's called X. Facebook is called Meta, right? Like, there's all these things where things, things go out of style, you know, you know, so there's so many companies, Vine, MySpace, like, that are, that have, that are just relics of the past. So I didn't want to put something in there that would age. But LinkedIn, I really sat with it for a long time, and LinkedIn appears to be here to stay. And it is such a deeply entrenched part of hiring, especially when it comes to $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 roles, that it is super important to be on that platform and optimize your profile properly. I know I yesterday for some of you may have come to my launch and as part of the launch bonus for, for some of you who, who joined my program, they got a LinkedIn VIP session, which meant I sat down with those, it was a very exclusive group. We sat down and it was a workshop where I went part by part through the LinkedIn profile and gave every single person on the call feedback on the specific parts of their LinkedIn profile. And it, it was amazing just to see the transformation in that session. People like, oh my gosh, this was the most useful hour and a half I've spent in my job search yet. And we've already— we, we had a couple people had already given them feedback and they're like, yeah, you gave me feedback and I literally within a couple of days I started getting tons of interviewer, of interviews inbound and tons of recruiters. And so it's, it's, I just, I feel like a lot of people kind of underestimate how important this is. And it's a, it's a huge element that I teach. And, you know, my entire book is called Reverse the Search. This is part of reversing the search, like get opportunities to come to you. So another piece is sourcing does not only exist on LinkedIn, especially because it depends on what job you are going for. So I would say that definitely also get on specialty job boards, such as when I was, when I, you know, was actually job interviewing, like as, as a candidate, right? I would get on job boards such as, uh, Built In. So I, I did— I lived in LA, so I did Built In LA. Um, I, I did AngelList, which I believe now is called Wellfound. Um, but that, that was for my industry. I was in the— I was in the growth stage startup tech industry. And so your mileage may vary, but companies pay good money to source off of those websites. So creating profiles on there is super, super important. Now, a lot of people think that the best possible thing you need to do is build relationships with recruiters. And I have to say, I don't think that that's a bad thing to do, but it's not really worth as much energy as a lot of you put into it of like, hey, can you get me introductions to executive recruiters? You— one thing you have to realize about the executive recruiter market is that they work for the company. That they are sourcing for. So unless they have like that specific opportunity that's open for you in the right location, all that kind of stuff, it's, it's not always the best. Now, of course, if that recruiter works 100%, like let's say you're going for finance roles, right? Like a VP of Finance, CFO roles or whatnot. And, and this firm works 100% on that function, all that. Yes, I think, I think being in their orbit, meeting them and all that is worth your time for sure. But it's just like if they're a little bit more generalist, it's better to instead be findable by these companies because they are much more likely to then find you at the right moment. And I've just seen incredible, incredible success through that way. And we've actually seen a lot of statistics are pointing to that companies are using more sourcing now than in previous job markets. Because they're so overrun with a lot of job applications and a lot of job applications that are not very good. So it's not that they have, oh my gosh, I have so many great job applications. It's like, no, we just got completely bombarded. So why don't we go out and search for the person who has the exact right profile we're looking for versus sifting through this applicant tracking system? All right. So, I'm seeing, um, Mehul says, I went through 3 interviews in the last 15 days and rejection all places. Not sure what went wrong or was the magic formula to win the interview. Um, so it depends on which interview you lost out on. Was it the— are you saying it's all at one company, went through first, second, third round interviews at one company? If that's the case, um, then it sounds like it's a silver medal issue. I deal with a lot of clients who are silver medal, where they're actually quite good at the first and second interview. They check the boxes, they have all the right experience, but they can't get over the finish line of the third interview, where they, they are not proving themselves as being that person who, first of all, is likable. Second is influential. Third is strategic. Fourth is an excellent communicator. So we— they often lose this because they're rambling, okay? They're not concise and crisp in the way they communicate. They don't have structured way of talking. Um, second, they are not just demonstrating things in like very vivid examples that show their thought process. So many people who are lower level will give examples, but they'll just say, I did this and I did this and I did this, and you don't really get to know that person. You don't really get to know their character traits, how they think about things. You just know that they did something. You kind of think All right. Sounds like they were just following orders. As well as like really being good at expressing like what, what makes you great and more than just what makes you great. You really taking an interest in the company, doing really solid research and asking amazing questions. Okay. So what would you advise someone to take a job out of necessity and continue searching until they find a better fit? I would absolutely advise that. Well, I mean, okay, so here's the thing. That is, jobs are for money. And if you find that you are, you know, pinching your pennies, you're really stressed, that's going to bleed into your interviews. Okay. I coach a lot of people to kind of get out of that mindset. And if you seem desperate in the interview, they're not going to go with you. They're looking for someone who is excellent at what they do, who brings great energy into the company, um, who is going to make really sound decisions. And if you're bringing this kind of desperation, or also this kind of feeling of, I'll take anything— they don't want someone who'll take anything. They want someone who really wants this specific job. Um, so if that will help you to get out of that mindset of, okay, I'm gonna land a job for now get some money coming in the door, then that can, that can be really great. Would you recommend Indeed? So here's the thing. Or what site would you use to get a job? I would say focus on target, your target companies. So, yes, I mean, use, use any job board. Right. And I think it depends on what industry you're targeting, frankly. Just know that companies have to pay quite a lot of money to put jobs on those websites. Okay, so not all the jobs are on, on Indeed and LinkedIn, all these job boards. A lot of them are not on there. A lot of them are only on the individual company websites. That's why it's so important to have a target role, a target industry, and target companies. People think that narrowing down their focus leads to worse results. It actually tremendously multiplies your results. When you get focused like that, it will help you a lot more. So that, that is, that's a really helpful thing to do. All right. I've had a few interviews in the last past weeks. Great job, Shima. That's great to hear. Being sourced. So I think my LinkedIn is working. Not had any offers or sometimes progressing to the next stage. Yes. That is, yes, getting sourced is step one, and that's wonderful. I would say the number one challenge my clients come to me with is, I'm landing interviews but not offers, because that is the hardest part, right? Getting, you know, 20 people will get an interview, but one person gets an offer. That's when it gets harder. Uh, so absolutely, it's really about, you know, uh, I'm so glad to hear that you're getting those interviews, and now it's all about sharpening your skill set. I love to hear it. Oh, Laura. Hello, Los Angeles. Shout out. I know I need to improve my interview technique as I've been recording them. What tools, methods do you recommend to prepare for second stage interviews? Improving recall, articulating myself. So second stage interviews are typically with the hiring manager or someone who actually understands how this role operates. What I mean by that is often the first round interview is with someone who is usually like HR or recruiter. So they know the company, but they can't really get into the nitty gritty of what does this role do day to day? How does the team operate? All that kind of stuff as well. It would be not really, be really hard for them to know every single thing. So you get to the second interview and this is where skills are most emphasized. First interview is more of like communication and qualifications. Next is really getting into the skills. So depending on the role you're going for and the level you're going for, this is typically— they typically want to evaluate you on, on two things. So the first is, uh, kind of like understanding your skills from a behavioral way. So getting really good at behavioral interviewing where they're asking you for examples, tell me about a time when, give me an example of, how do you do this? And then the second way they do it is kind of more of like a skills assessment. So they might say, here's a scenario, how would you handle that? Or here, like, let me show you this, like, solve this, right? So they're actually trying to measure your skills in the interview. Let me look, let me show you this. Give me your feedback on this on the spot. And then there's a separate piece, which is, of course, and the thing that kind of goes as a, as a common thread throughout all the interviews, which is the piece of you being someone who is an excellent communicator, especially as we're ascending manager, director, high-level individual contributor, all those types of things. As long as when you're ascending, your ability to communicate is so important. I have a lot of strategies of that in my coaching program. A lot of things about cushioning, consultative approach, structured Speaking, speaking in frameworks, like all these different things that are super, super core. How to kind of come across, like how to work your way up the interview ladder so you get to the top and you've hit on every rung. And once you hit on all 7 rungs of the interview ladder, they go, oh my gosh, this person is amazing. So really, like iterating on those elements, I think will really help you to improve for interview number 2. Um, so David, do you still have the cold you mentioned a couple weeks ago? Yes, David, I do. Can you hear it in my voice? And I might cough during this. I have my water here, y'all. I have been really sick for a while, um, and it's been rough. And I'm also traveling right now, which is why my background and all that is a little bit different, um, but not bad for a travel setup, right? It's not as ritzy as my normal one, but definitely not, not too bad. I'll take what I can get. But thank you. Thank you for noticing. Shima says, I'm deaf, a silver medal. I think my communication is getting me down due to my nerves, mind blanks, and not using the right lingo frameworks. Yes. So this is a really important thing when it comes to— exactly. I like that you brought up like using the right lingo. Too many of us, have autobiography syndrome, where we are so caught up in telling our own story and focusing on the things that make us interesting and make us kind of like this amazing amalgamation of skills and experiences. Because a lot of us are not like this straight— like, say me in the chat, if your career was not just like this straight direct line, right? You have so many different experiences, and that can actually make it more difficult, even though in a lot of ways it makes you more appealing because you have so many life experience to call on. It actually, it makes it because you're sitting in the bottle and you can't read the label. You don't know what to talk about, about yourself. So you say too much. You say too many things that are not actually relevant to the company. And that right now is killing you. I, in the LinkedIn VIP session I had yesterday with clients, I had one client. She had her LinkedIn headline. I was editing her LinkedIn headline live for her. And, and I was like, what, what, what are these skills you have in your LinkedIn headline? This goes completely against what I teach you. She said, well, I put all the skills I have that I think are unique to me and like probably other candidates don't have. And I said, honey, that is not the way you do it because they're not looking for someone with this unique skill set that's different than what they're looking for. No, no, they're saying, can you make us money? Can you fit into this box? Can you do these things we're asking you to do? And that is what's super important. Sometimes we're actually saying too much. Okay, super important. Um, all right, uh, my second interview is today in a few minutes. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, good luck. Okay, you got this. I'm glad you're watching my videos. This is going to be great. Um, yes, David, thought I was hearing it. Sorry, you still have a cold. Hope it goes away soon. Thank you so much. Okay, I have this LinkedIn user where if you're, if your thing is coming up as LinkedIn user, that means you have privacy settings on your LinkedIn. Just a piece of feedback, unsolicited, but remember, if you— LinkedIn should be like a web page, like a sales page, like a landing page, right? So I gave you an example earlier of how, how, you know, if you were to hire a plumber, you typically Google it. You wouldn't open job applications. Well, if I'm like, you know, if I'm looking for someone for a certain job and imagine I'm looking for a bunch of plumbers and I go and all of their websites, I have to like add them and I have to like type in their email address and then I can see that they're a plumber and all those things. No, right? The LinkedIn profile should be your landing page to the world of like, y'all have to realize like you are just a service provider. I know we're employees and all that, but employee is someone who, who, where the company rents your time. They rent 40 hours a week for you to provide a service. Okay, you are a service provider. So just know that like your profile should be accessed. Okay, so how much is Agent Obstaculical? I'm 46. Okay, so of my clients, I keep a lot of data on them. And one of the things they report is that over 40% of them report that ageism is a concern for them in the job search. So it is super common to kind of have this fear. That being said, there are, there are certain ways that we're shooting ourselves in the foot when we are, when we, when we think that ageism is a big issue. Now, ageism exists. Like, I want to be clear about that. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, but there's a lot of ways to overcome it in a way that I think sometimes we actually are harming ourselves. I'll give you an example. So I've shared this before, how I had this client the other week where she said, yeah, I get ageism all the time. The other day I was on a call and this woman says, you know, this team, the average age is 25. And she said that was a microaggression. That was, you know, kind of basically her calling me old and saying I don't belong in this team. That's not what happened. Okay. What happened was the interviewer was nervous that this person who was in her 50s was going to feel uncomfortable being on a team with 20, 25-year-olds. So it was an invitation to say like, hey, I'll be honest, the team is really young. How do you feel about that? And had my client— and now she, now she does this after I coached her through it— but had my client just gone in saying, Oh, I actually prefer it sometimes with a younger team or different ages because we all learn from each other. I've learned so much from my younger coworkers and I'm excited to work with them. I think that would be perfect. I love that dynamic. It's a dynamic I'm really used to. Had she brought in that energy, completely would have changed the vibe of the interview. Instead, she took offense, said she got weird. And you know what's crazy is that that then led to her age hurting her in the interview, but it didn't hurt her in the way that she thought it was hurting her. Okay, so just stuff like that is super important. All right, I'm seeing a ton of me's in the chat, which are folks who are like, I have an eclectic career background. And yes. Oh my gosh, so many. Yes. Diane says me, gloriously circuitous. Yes, exactly. David says my career is only a straight line if you use the 12-dimensional spherical geometry. Y'all are really testing my reading skills today with all these big words. That is so funny. Okay, so I'm struggling currently with any recruiters finding me on LinkedIn. I don't know what to change. I don't know what changes in 2024. When I wasn't looking, I was flooded. Now I need them. And, and nothing. I tried tweaking, but— so yes, exactly. So it's, I would say, the number one, the number one part of your LinkedIn profile that leads to getting sourced more often, which a lot of people don't know. What do you get? Yeah, I'll put it in the chat. What do you guys think is the number one part of LinkedIn profile that leads you to get sourced the most? And this I had, like I said, I did a coaching session on this with my private clients yesterday, and I edited this for every single one of their profiles, and it has already helped them to land more interviews. And so that, that's huge. So let me know in the chat what you think is the number one thing that you need to change. And someone asked earlier, Is there a delay? Uh, there's at least a 10-second delay from when I say things to when the, uh, when the chat happens. Or I guess just that's just the way, uh, streaming works. So just know that there is, uh, there is always a delay, just, just the way it is. Um, so, uh, Diane says tagline, which I'm guessing you mean headline. Um, that is super important, but that is not The most important part of the, of the profile headline. Again, super important. Not the most important keywords. I'm guessing maybe you mean skills. That one's really important, but not the most important headline. Okay. Banner? No. Header? No. Uh-oh. We got it, guys. Your current job. There is nothing, nothing more important than your current job on your LinkedIn profile. Nothing more important. And what I did in my session yesterday with my private clients is I helped them to adjust that. And there's a lot of creative ways, like even if you don't have a current job, even if your current job has like a really weird title, all that, there's a lot of ways that you can still be authentic and true and adjust that. And so, so, so that's super important. So I would say that's the first place you need to look. If you— if your current— the worst— you guys know what the worst thing you could possibly put in your current job in order to just like never get sourced? You will never get sourced if it says this. Do you know what it is? I'm going to see if you guys want to guess. And while I'm waiting for you to guess, I also want to tell you that the second most important thing is location. Okay, so it goes your most— your current job title, and everyone should have a current job title. Okay, like I said, I have tons of strategies, like even if you're unemployed, all that kind of stuff, like of how to do that. Um, but you should have a current job title as well as your location, right? Because those are the things they're searching for. Like, of course, location is important. Um, and you can even rotate your location if there's several places you want to live. If you're not getting any hits in, say, San Francisco, okay, Let's try, um, you'd also want to live in Portland. Okay, great. Like, let's try that. Um, okay, so the, the, uh, the self-employed, kind of, is— that's, that's, that's, that's maybe not the worst thing, but, um, I don't know that you would put right that as your title, right? But I've never seen someone write that as their title. I have unemployed. That one's not good either. You're right. I haven't seen anyone write unemployed as their current title. But you're right. Yes. Okay. So really what, what it is is founder, founder and/or CEO. Okay. Now, unless you're going for CEO roles, which I know some of you are, there's plenty of people in my, in my audience who are going for C-level roles. Or CEO roles. But if you are not going for CEO roles and your, your title says CEO or your title says founder, you're not getting sourced. Okay. I was getting sourced constantly for HR leadership roles, week in, week out, even when I was very happy at my company, even when I just started a new role. The day I put CEO and founder of my own business on there, it was all over. And I see the same thing for my clients as well. Um, yes, I see it here. Jacqueline put it there. Founder— that is the, the evil, evil word. Don't do it, guys. Um, okay. Um, so, um, let's see. So me and my previous employer were not a good fit, so in order to— for me to collect unemployment, I forced her to let me go. I think it might be causing problem with getting a final offer. Any suggestions? So I just want to be real with you, Donna. I think that that was the right move. Okay, um, I think y'all, and I, I, I think if you are given the option to be fired or to resign, be fired. There's companies want you to resign, like they are so glad because guess what? It saves them from any lawsuit. It saves them from paying unemployment insurance. It saves them from paying severance. So get your bag, get your money. Okay, get fired if it's between you resigning or getting fired. So yes, I think you did the right move there so you can get your unemployment insurance. When you think it's getting— it's causing a problem with getting a final offer, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Like, are you thinking that they're in cahoots with your previous employer. And even if that's, that's the case, whether or not you got fired or you resigned, your employer would probably, you know, probably say similar or the same things. Plus, like, employers typically do not, uh, if you— if they are doing a background check, they do not disclose if you were fired or not, whatnot. Uh, they might disclose, is this person eligible for rehire? They could disclose that. So they could say no. But otherwise, I would say in the end, you are the owner of your story. When you are interviewing, you are the one constructing the entire narrative. So own that. Be confident in it. Now, the only other thing is like, definitely we should all Google ourselves, okay? Especially as we're getting to higher level leadership roles. You should be Googling yourself. You should be understanding what's showing up. You should be privating um, social profiles that you don't think would be helpful. Especially, y'all, especially if you're posting anything political, private that stuff, okay? Change your last name on those platforms. You— politics are so polarizing these days that even if you are, you know, even if everyone in your neighborhood feels the same way as you and you feel like everything you say is obvious and inevitable and only good people feel that way, just know, like, there's— the world is very big and people feel the exact same way about the opposite views. So just make sure that I would say let's not— let's take politics off the table and not talk about it. I also would be careful about talking about mental health as well, just, just from personal experience of working with hiring teams. Okay. So, is freelance instructional designer okay? So, um, I'm guessing like as a current title, yeah, that totally works, especially if you are going for instructional designer roles. That's, that's totally, um, great. Um, company employee said he would contact HR, but I haven't heard back. How should I follow up? Um, So are you saying that you've already interviewed there, um, or, or that you sent in an application and you haven't heard back? So one thing you want to do— it, first of all, it sounds like you got a referral to a role, which is fabulous. Um, and what I would say there is, um, you would follow up with that contact and say, hey, I want to give you an update. I haven't heard back about the opportunity yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I hear something. Notice what happens there. You're not telling them, hey, can you follow up again? Hey, help me more. You're just giving them a quick update and then they can choose to then, you know, go, go help you and go, you know, follow up themselves. So that, that's a really good way to, to go in that way. Is the owner-operator problematic title for individual contributor positions or titles with assistant when searching for manager specialist roles? Problematic for— yes, I mean, it's problematic for if you are trying to land a full-time job at a company. So I would say owner-operator is just— is, is never helpful. Maybe, maybe, maybe unless you were going for a CEO role or titles of assistant when searching for managers and specialist role, I think. So the only issue with having the title of assistant when going for a manager or specialist role. So I think for if you're going for, if you're going for specialist roles, that's probably fine as long as your qualifications match. If you're going for a manager role, typically they're looking to see leadership skills, both strategic and people management. So it could be a challenge. I would say that the, the, the jump from, you know, that associate, assistant, specialist role to manager is often best made inside a company versus externally. Though a lot of my client, a ton of my clients actually have made the leap outside of a company. I've personally made the leap to manager. Outside of a company. It's just really about the way you position your skills. So, so can you clarify what you mean by your current recent job title being the most important? Do you adjust it to get sourced? Yes. So exactly. So you do need to adjust it to get sourced and so that they are understanding you're translating, you know, sometimes your internal role title is like not super helpful. Sometimes you need to kind of be filling out the skill gap and kind of putting, putting out a title that is reflective of the skills you're building currently and the people you're helping currently. So yes, exactly. You do want to adapt that. And, you know, I, I go like for each of my clients, I'll go, I'll understand, okay, what is your target role? Okay, now we work backwards from there. Now, okay, how can we adjust your titles so that we're translating them or we're, we're positioning you in different ways and kind of giving that specific feedback? Exactly. So for each person, it will be a bit different, but it completely transforms how often you are sourced. Exactly. I'm the owner of my own advocacy consultancy, so I have to change the title something else. My LinkedIn profile, based on what you're saying earlier. Correct. Yes. I think one thing that maybe we're missing here is that if you own a business, you can give yourself any title. So like, as long as you're doing that work, right? Like if I'm going for product, you know, director of product roles, and I'm doing a lot of product work as a leader of my own company, but I also am doing a lot of other stuff, but like, let me focus on like the more of that, the product-oriented stuff, like make your, make your title around that. I've heard some people struggle with the role listed as freelance, figuring similar to founder, but do you have any suggestions? I don't think that freelance is too bad, especially, especially just because of this job market. And there's a lot more contract roles and all that. But here's the thing about freelance is that you need to convince them in the interview that you don't prefer the freelance life. That's a question they're going to have is like, why do you want to give up being a freelancer? Like, do you like it? Is that what you prefer? You need to really be very clear that that is not what you want next and why you want this different path. Um, I've heard of people asking for recommendations, so I, I wonder how people ask their current bosses since they keep working for them. Um, so I, you know, you could ask your current boss for recommendation. I mean, typically you're right. I feel like my past bosses have typically given me a recommendation on the way out. Um, now, uh, you can also, you can also ask for recommendations. You know, basically I don't even really ask for recommendations. I just give people recommendations and they'll usually just return the favor. So if you're kind of going around giving people recommendations, that's great. Also, you know, if, if it is kind of like a better practice, like I do agree, like typically recommendations come when you're kind of parting from people like, oh yeah, our time together working together was so great. Let me write something. That is very common, but it doesn't have to be your manager. I mean, it could be, it could be your coworkers leaving the business and you give them a recommendation on the way out and then they give you a recommendation. So don't, don't think that has to be your manager. Um, let's see. So, um, I've taken 3 years out to— I've taken 3 years out, started a small health and wellness business, but I don't talk about it in interviews or put on my CV, LinkedIn, but now worried that the 3-year gap looks worse. What would you advise? So I would say I probably wouldn't just keep a 3-year gap there because they're probably thinking, what have you been doing in that time? Now, I do agree that if the work you did is not as relevant as maybe your previous work before that for the roles you're going for, then I, I would agree that you don't necessarily talk about it. But I would still maybe like include it there so they understand what happened. But what's also great is you said, but I don't talk about it in interviews or put it on my CV, LinkedIn. You know what that says to me? You're getting interviews. So even though I'm saying, you know, maybe I put it there, the bottom line is you're getting interviews. So it's working. It's working. Your resume is working. Your LinkedIn's working. So don't let me persuade you if, you know, the data speaks. So I think what's the issue now is I just don't want you to be lacking confidence because you feel like you're keeping some sort of secret or that, you know, something about your past is, is, is not— is non-disclosed. That's really the only issue I see. But it sounds like you're actually You're, you're doing great. So when, when we are looking to switch roles to a different department, how do you suggest doing this subtly so the current employer doesn't feel suspicious? Yes. Yes. So I would say for this, I would start, first of all, trying to take on projects within your current employer. Start expressing some things that you're interested in of, hey, you know, I'm, I know I work in more of the customer success field, but I'm kind of been interested in maybe hopping on a few sales calls or kind of taking a couple of stretch projects of helping to build out some sales trainings or something like that. Right. It's interesting when you kind of start to show that interest and you'd be surprised at how often they are open to you taking on some additional tasks and learning some new things because they're not going to offer it to you. They don't, they don't know what you want. Now, besides that, if you're kind of like, hey, Madeleine, that sounds really nice, but it's a dead end where I work. Like, that's, that's not, that's not even an option. Like, maybe that, that function doesn't even really exist in my company or whatever it is. You can kind of— I've worked with a lot of clients and it's very specific to their experience. Um, is I kind of— I have them straddle both worlds in ways where you can kind of pivot your experience to show that you're kind of moving in this other direction while still acknowledging the other stuff. Now, that's very like kind of towards your own individual situation, um, but also at a certain point you kind of have to just like go for it, um, and in the end, like, you have to look out for number one. You have to really be, um, someone who is bringing these opportunities inbound. All right, so let's see. What about consultants? Says Laura. I was recently laid off as the director of HR, and I've noticed a shift in the HR industry. What's your take on the HR market? Several of my HR friends got laid off too. I will say, Laura, first of all, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry that happened. I— and this is, this is— hopefully this will give you excitement and hope. Um, I, like, my HR clients right now are getting so many interviews. Like, there's a lot of opportunities right now. I'm seeing, and we're actually seeing the numbers of HR opportunities, they're rising year over year despite the introduction of AI. So I've been like, holy I think one of my clients, she actually, she's targeting HR roles in the Los Angeles area. She's been having about 8 or 9 interviews a week for the past month. It's kept me very busy because I have, I'm reviewing all of them. I'm listening to the recordings. I'm giving her feedback. So I am, I am very busy. And so there's a lot happening and it's not like 8 or 9 different companies always. It's like sometimes, you know, it's It's her interviewing at multiple companies in the same week. But yeah, it's— it's— so I've been seeing a lot of good stuff as far as, as HR. Now, is it still very competitive? Yes. But the number of opportunities out there are— is healthy. But we're also seeing, right, like this yo-yo of like layoffs, hire, fire, hire, fire. So it is, it is really, it is really tough. And you have to be extremely competitive. Madeline's site is showing up with a weird non-English language. Is anyone else having the same issue? I don't know. A non-English language. I don't know, guys. I've been— yeah, maybe, maybe y'all can visit it. Thank you. Thank you for calling that out. Anytime I have technical difficulties, it's always helpful to hear from you all. So thank you for calling that out. I have a huge career gap due to personal issues. It's Is it hard for me to get hired? How will I go about it? So here's the thing, gaps are not— gaps are not the biggest issue you'll face. A lot of companies don't care that much about gaps, especially as long as you can kind of explain it. And also, okay, so here's the thing, companies want to make money, okay? First and foremost, the only reason they're concerned about gaps is have you lost your sparkle? Have you lost your edge? Are you still competitive? Do you have the right skills? That's what they're worried about. If you can overcome that hesitation, then they're not going to worry about your gap. So how are you proving that? And don't just say, give me a chance. Giving jobs or not is not charity. No one's going to do you a favor by hiring you. You have to say— you have to basically prove that you are the best person for the job, even if you're not the best person necessarily on paper. Companies hire people who are worse on paper all the time, sometimes almost most of the time, the best, like, the best, like, you know, written-up person is not always the one who is hired. Unless typically if we're looking at really, really big companies, they're very much— oh, they're a lot more like check the boxes. Like, okay, Ivy League, check. Okay, worked at a top competitor, check. Okay, you know, have this exact list of skills, check. Okay. So if you are someone who is noticing you are a very kind of unusual candidate, I would go for smaller and mid-sized companies. Because your research you do on the company, your effort you put into the application process, your ability to, um, influence the culture in a positive way— they care about that so much more. Because when you work at a company that is smaller, your impact on the culture is outsized. So they actually focus more on attitude and personality, more than a massive company would. Because, you know, let's say it's a company of 50 people, like, you know, your, your impact on 50 people, like, every single person in the company definitely knows you, right? Whereas if you're in a company of 50,000, no, like, you're, you're a speck, you're a speck, um, on, on the grass. So exactly, um, that's so weird. Shannon says it was Turkish. Uh, that is so funny. I have no idea what happened there. That I'll look into it. Of course, I did not write my website in Turkish unless— I mean, maybe I shouldn't say of course, but as you can see, I'm very clearly American, so I don't know what's happening. But thank you for checking on that. Donna says my LinkedIn profile is not complete. Do you recommend taking it down until I finish it? No, leave it up. Oh yes, Diane says, thank you, Madeline, valuable info generously given, off to change my LinkedIn titles. Love to hear it. Oh my gosh, wait, that's so weird. Okay, it's all— another person says it's Turkish. Okay, that's super weird, guys. Thank you so much. I'm gonna definitely look into that. Way to speak up. Isaac, what's your opinion on AI? I will say, uh, Isaac, uh, that question is like asking someone like, what's your opinion on the internet, right? It's like such a— it's just, that's just, it's just a technology. Like, I don't, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. Um, I will say, um, one thing that I've been heavily disappointed in is a lot of people will use just like ChatGPT or something to like edit their resume, whatnot. And I think if you're really good, if you already know what you want your resume bullets to sound like, but you just need help refining it, it could be a great tool. But if you don't really know what's effective and what the company's looking for, AI just makes it sound decent without actually making it be effective. And so I've built my own, my own proprietary AI tools. It took me so many hours because I had to train these tools to actually know, uh, how to say things correctly because the, the, the generic outputs were really ineffective. I've built an AI clone of myself that has over 1 million, uh, words and inputs from across every single video I ever put out, every single private training I've ever created, which Y'all, you don't even know. You don't even know the amount of private trainings and very strategic stuff that I don't put out online. And it's not even to just gatekeep per se, it's that it doesn't get clicks. So it gets insane. It gets insane results for my clients. They go, oh my God, wait, this is what you're teaching? Oh my God, this is so helpful. It's just a lot of it. If you notice my YouTube channel, it's a lot of like, here's how you answer this job interview. Question. Here's how you answer this job interview question. If you scroll back all the way to the beginning of my YouTube channel, my topics were a lot more varied, um, and I— it didn't get views. And so I have had to keep my external videos to be very narrow, to be very clickable. And it's because you— unfortunately, the way social media marketing works is you don't give people what they need, you give people what they want. And it's literally because it's like, I spend dozens of hours per video. Every single YouTube video you see cost me thousands of dollars, okay? Um, and I'm not gonna spend thousands of dollars putting out things that only 300 people is gonna watch, okay? So anyways, that is such an important thing. Um, and yeah, uh, it really is, uh, just kind of getting people the right information. But that's, that's why a lot of that is not out there. It's just really no one would watch it except for maybe those specific people. And then once they get into my program, they're the people who are like, oh my gosh, give this to me. I, I recently received feedback that my answers were too— oops, this is— oh, there we go. They're too high level when I was rejected for a job offer, but I thought my answers were detailed in the story I took. Should I focus on the results more? So here's the thing. It depends on what details you're sharing. In when you answer interview questions, the typical thing is like the STAR formula, or I call it the CAR formula because I think 2 steps to describe the context doesn't make any sense. So CAR formula: context, action, result. What too many people do is they add all their details in the first part, context. That is literally the least important part to explain. So yes, I would say stop focusing so much on the context and start focusing more on the actions and the results. Now I have, I do this training and I also just give it and I also have like a, an AI tool that evaluates basically CAR stories deeper and better. And it has very specific criteria. It has things like, you know, Are you adding kind of the drama to it? Are you adding your thought process throughout it? Right? Like all these things that it analyzes and it's like, okay, here are the things that would— sure, you have the components, context, action, result, but you're missing these really important things. So yes, that's super, super important. So Um, so Jacqueline says, I'm reading your book. Great to hear you're reading Reverse the Search. Um, and I'm curious how I can get better ideas of what to do next. My job is consuming, so I don't have much time to stretch for stretch projects. I've been doing some informational interviews. That's great to hear you've been doing informational interviews. So it really depends, um, Jacqueline, on where you're getting stuck, right? The— when I'm coaching clients, Every single situation is different, right? If they're— if they don't know what to do next, it's like, okay, well, let's see, what's— what is it? Is it that you're, you're not landing interviews? If you're landing interviews but offers, or you're getting, you're getting to the first round but not moving to the second? If you're not moving from the second but not to the next? It sounds to me right now like you don't know what you want. If you're kind of doing informational interviews, you're feeling exhausted. If you're kind of thinking like, I don't actually know what role I want next, I do need you to slow down and do give it the time and effort because if you just start applying to jobs, you're like, I don't— I'm not sure exactly I know what I want next, but you just start applying to jobs, that is wasted effort. Your LinkedIn profile is also going to look a mess because you're kind of going to be broad and trying to target a lot of things. It's really about getting focused. And I'm glad you have the book because then you can follow the wealth formula. Follow that, follow that process. So that you get extremely clear about what next, and you'll be able to start flying after that. Okay, so I'm also seeing questions. So yes, if you are looking for coaching, I put it in the description of this video. And it looks like a lot of people are visiting the website right now. So that's www.selfmade— www.madelynnmann.com/coaching. There you can, you can just book a call so you don't even have to commit to getting coaching. You can talk to our team, talk to one of our executive members, see if it's the right fit. We do have levels of coaching for all different things. So if you're someone who's like a little bit more self-serve and wants like more of an affordable option, you can get access to my entire suite of, of coaching tools and all of that and kind of be a little bit more self-driven if you want, like the custom feedback from myself, my other coaches, and all of that. We have a fabulous offering, which is our flagship that gets people insane results. And that's what you see, all the hundreds of video testimonials I have is based on that. As well as we have a very high-touch, executive-oriented program where me and my other coaches, we meet one-on-one with you. We're like, it's very hands-on. It's like very holding your hand through everything. So then we also have, that's like the top tier if you really want that. Like we call it like the white glove experience. So we have all different tiers of, of whatever is best for you. But essentially it's the goal is let's get you, let's reverse the search. Let's get, um, roles coming in to you. Let's get you acing these interviews. Let's get it really compelling where these companies are competing for you. Because that's the thing is, is in this job market, companies are desperately competing for a few number of candidates. Why? Because they're not hiring a ton of people. If they had a lot of money and a lot of like open roles, they'd be like, yeah, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But if they're like, oh, we only can hire like 2 more people in this department and they find someone who they really like, they're going to go above and beyond because they're like, we only have 2 spots. We can't just like— we have to make sure this is the right person. And so you should be the person they are competing for. Okay. Super important. All right, y'all. So this has been, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. I'm seeing a lot of people are telling me my website has been hacked. Yikes. Okay, guys, if you are trying to book a call with us, and it's about websites being weird or whatever, do email us at hi@selfmadeway.com. We will then, you know, get— I'll even type it here, like, hi, and we will make sure you get what you need. This is never— this has never happened to me before. I have no idea what's happening. But here I put it on the screen. Hi@selfmadeway.com. We can help you out if you're having issues with the website. It sounds like some people have gotten it to work. I haven't updated my website recently or anything like that. So I don't know what's going on. But I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on. I'm gonna be here again next Tuesday. Keep asking your questions. This is always a blast for me to come on and talk to you. So if you could throw me a Wi-Fi high five in the chat, it would be absolutely a blast to be back and I'll see you next time. So thank you so much for coming. I'm going to give you a Wi-Fi high five. Woo! Thanks, y'all.