The "Three Shifts" Mid-Career Professionals Are Using To Leave Mediocre Jobs
You’re smart. You’re educated. You’re experienced. You’re talented, and you have years of results to prove it.
So it makes perfect sense that you would be surprised when landing a senior leadership role in today’s job market proves harder than you expected.
If you’re reading this, I bet you have sent out tons of applications for jobs you’re qualified for only to get…crickets. Being the diligent type A personality that you are, you tweak your resume to make it a more tailored to the job description, you change a few keywords to make it through the ATS system, and make yourself sound more unique. But still, nothing. Maybe you have even tried applying to jobs you’re OVER qualified for. SURELY you’d have to hear back from at least one of them, right?
I’m familiar with this cycle - it’s the exact same thing I found myself doing when I was stuck working at a steel factory back in 2008. It’s the same misery I felt when I was selling data to pharmaceutical companies in a role that that left me grinding day in and day out in the middle of a recession, feeling unmotivated and unfulfilled, as I watched my friends and colleagues move up the ranks, taking on leadership positions and roles with influence, while my once-promising career became stagnant and left me wondering: Is this all there is? This is what life after my MBA promised me? Surely I must be doing something wrong.
You’re not alone.
Many mid-career professionals have taken the advice of the “experts”, purchased online courses, invested in leadership development, paid a pro to update their LinkedIn profile and resume and get basically no traction. It leaves them feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and STUCK.
When I talk to them, they tell me that it feels like there’s an invisible barrier in their life.
The good news is that this predicament has LITTLE to do with their qualifications, and absolutely everything to do with their strategy.
The simple fact is this: The same methods that got you your current job, will NOT land you the next one. I have found that mid-career professionals (ie: 35 years old and over) cannot use the same job search strategies they did a decade ago and get the same results. Nor can you use the same strategies as Gen Z - you have to play a different game entirely.
Whatever reason you are in the job market - you were laid off, have hit a glass ceiling, want a better title or more money, or if you put your career on hold to prioritize a family or entrepreneurial endeavors, or want to finally pursue your dreams, the problem is the same and the solution is the same as well.
What Most People Are Doing Wrong
The issue is that all the things you’re trying to do to fix the problem - resume tweaks, updating LinkedIn, reaching out to friends and colleagues, going to events - they are just treating the symptoms of the real issue.
And solving the real problem is quite easy - but it requires looking at your job search through an ENTIRELY different lens.
Most people use what I call “me” thinking. They ask themselves questions like:
“How does my experience line up with this role? Do I have enough experience? Am I overqualified? What words can I use to make myself stand out? What are my best skills and abilities?”
Not that there is anything wrong with these questions, cause there’s totally not! However, the reality is that asking these questions is looking at your job search through the wrong lens.
How do I know this?
Having spent a half a decade developing new devices as a Senior Product Manager at a multi-billion dollar global medical company, I learned how to develop items that people WANT to buy. I learned the importance of knowing your customer inside and out, and I’ve seen firsthand how products flourish when they uniquely address the customer’s specific need, and I’ve seen how they flop when they do not solve your customers problem - no matter how “cool” or “good” they are.
And here’s the thing. Your career is no different, only now - YOU are the product being developed and marketed.
So let me show you how it’s done.
The Three Shifts Needed For Employers To Just Give You A Chance
It’s actually simple.
Shift #1 is that you have to uniquely position yourself as the only solution to the hiring manager’s specific problem.
Okay so a few words here are critical.
UNIQUELY. ONLY. SPECIFIC.
In marketing terms this is called differentiation. And in order for somebody to give you a chance, they have to have a really compelling reason why they would want to do that - otherwise, you’re just a commodity in a pile with all the other commodities.
The best tool you can use to do this is what I call “you” thinking. Typically, people naturally use “me” thinking.
This means putting on a different hat and instead asking one critical question:
How can I position myself as the unique solution to the hiring manager’s specific problem?
Yep. It means you stop looking through the lens of “what do I have to offer?” (aka: how cool can I make my product!) and instead you look through the lens of “what problem is the hiring manager desperately looking to solve and how can I demonstrate that I can do it more quickly and easily than any other candidate.”
You can start with the posted job description and do some research on the company and their overall goals, but in order to really, truly understand their problem, you’re have to dig much deeper. You’re going to have to talk to people inside the organization to find out what’s really going on, what the real day-to-day problems are, what the hiring manager’s goals are. What’s important to them? How does their success in this role impact them personally? Senior level roles are filled by relationship, so getting to know people inside the organization and building a relationship where they trust that you’re the solution to their problem, is critical to landing you the role you truly want.
Remember, the more UNIQUELY you can solve a SPECIFIC problem in a way that other people can’t, the better.
Shift #2 is that you have to reduce the risk to the hiring manager of making a wrong hiring decision.
Anybody who has ever hired anyone knows that hiring the wrong person can be a catastrophe. It costs the company a ton of money to onboard somebody new, but it’s even worse when you are stuck with somebody who isn’t a cultural fit for a significant period of time. Not to mention how stressful it can be on the hiring manager personally - remember, they now have a relationship with a human being whose livelihood depends on this job, and they might have to let them go. That sucks.
So how can you reduce that risk? The easiest way is, as I mentioned in Shift #1, to build internal relationships with people that are based on trust. This can take TIME, which is why it’s important to start early. Be yourself, look for and connect with people you GENUINELY like - those with common interests, similar backgrounds, common outlooks and perspectives - in short, the kind of people you’d like to have a beer with, or go to yoga with on Sunday morning. Your authenticity is critical here - people can tell if you’re faking it. And sometimes, yes, they will still be willing to meet with you for the purpose of networking, but those real heartfelt connections really matter when you’re trying to find the right career not just for your wallet, but your heart.
And Shift #3 is that demonstrate value ahead of time.
Once you have some contacts inside the organization, now it’s time to show they what you can do. Once you have truly discovered the hiring manager’s specific problem (Shift #2) and positioned yourself as the solution to it (Shift #1), now you have to SHOW them how much you know and what you can do BEFORE they choose to hire you. How would you propose they solve their specific problems? What have you seen work before? Who have you talked to that can help you understand their problems BETTER than they do? Here is not the time to hold back. The best candidates will put themselves out there and go above and beyond to find out this information and demonstrate it.
For example, I still remember when we were hiring for a medical device sales role and one of the candidates, who had no medical device experience, went out and talked to three physicians at hospitals in her territory and got feedback rom them on the company. This girl landed the job, and was one of the most successful reps at the company. She didn’t have to tell us that she would go to any length to get the sale, she showed us. She demonstrated what she was made of ahead of time, and got the job. Of course, this will look different in every role, but ultimately the premise remains true.
Get The Advantage Of An Internal Candidate (Even Without The Required Experience)
When you start shifting implementing these three shifts, you will see that you start to get ahead in a more meaningful way - and fast. These steps get you what I call the “Internal Candidate Advantage” - ie: you get all the benefits of being an internal candidate, without actually being one. Cause really, you’re just looking for somebody to give you a chance.
Combine this with getting your message in front of the right people – that’s the people who can say YES (ie: that’s not HR, Recruiters, or even the hiring manager at first), and you will have set yourself apart in an important way.
And once you implement these shifts, that’s when you will:
Expedite the hiring process and start getting callbacks from the real decision makers - the people who can say YES (ie: not HR!)
Skip the resume pile completely and stop endlessly making tweaks and sending applications into an endless black hole
Be uniquely positioned as the ONLY solution to the hiring manager's needs, making you the obvious choice with very little work on your part!
Land multiple lucrative job offers and easily negotiate the 20%+ increase in pay that you deserve.
Finally step into the role, lifestyle, and personal fulfillment you are SO ready to have.
It’s the same three steps I used to get promoted every two years and get an $80K increase in compensation while transitioning into a position where I didn’t have the “Required Experience”. The same steps I used to land two cross-continent relocations, a schedule with autonomy, President’s club trips and awards, a company expense account and car. The same steps I get to have my LinkedIn inbox full of $300K+ job opportunities each week.
There’s no reason this can’t work for you, too.
If you want to learn more about the strategy I talked about in this blog, sign up below to watch my Free Career Transition Masterclass. Towards the end, I’ll make you an offer to enroll in my self-paced career transition online course - if you’re not interested in that, you can sign off the video at that point. Either way, it’s a jam packed 60 minutes and I’m sure you will get a ton of value out of it.
