You’re obviously not underqualified. I know that’s not what it feels like when you’re applying and not hearing back, but when I actually look at people’s backgrounds, that’s almost never the issue.

You’ve led teams. You’ve owned real work. You’ve delivered things that matter. You can tell your story out loud and it makes sense.

And then I open the resume and...it just doesn’t translate.

Not in a dramatic way. It’s not like it’s bad. It’s more like if I didn’t already know what you did, I wouldn’t quite get what specific value you add compared to the other qualified candidates.

And that’s usually the whole problem.

The issue is almost never the resume itself

People come in thinking they need a better version of what they already have. Stronger bullets. Better wording. More metrics. Maybe a different format.

Which, sure, that can help. But I’ve seen people do all of that and still get nowhere. And then they’re confused, because the resume is objectively “better.”

But it’s not that the resume isn’t objectively good. It’s that it’s not positioned correctly.

What’s actually happening on the other side

When someone looks at your resume, they're not trying to fully understand your career. They’re trying to place you. Quickly.

They’re thinking something like:

• What is this person
• Where do they fit
• Have they done something close enough to what I need

If that’s not obvious within a few seconds, they move on. Not because you’re not capable. Just because you’re not immediately clear. Those are two very different things, but they get treated the same way.

Where this usually breaks down

There are a few patterns I see over and over. None of them are huge on their own, but together they create just enough friction that things stop working.

You’ve done a lot, and you’re trying to include all of it

This makes total sense from your perspective. You’ve had a real career. You’ve taken on different problems, maybe moved across teams or functions, picked up more responsibility over time.  So the resume becomes a complete record. The problem is, that’s not how it gets read.

It ends up feeling like “this person can do a lot of things,” which sounds good, but doesn’t help someone decide where you fit. And if they can’t place you, they won’t.

Your level isn’t obvious by title alone

This one is sneaky. I’ve worked with people who are clearly operating at a Director or VP level, and their resume reads like a strong Senior Manager because the way the work is described doesn’t make the level clear. Scope is implied instead of stated. Impact is there, but kind of buried. Leadership shows up as tasks instead of decisions. So they get interpreted at a lower level, and then everything that follows is off.

Your story makes sense to you, but not to someone skimming

If I talk to you for ten or fifteen minutes, your career usually clicks pretty quickly. Even if it’s not linear, there’s a reason for the moves you’ve made. But on paper, that connection isn’t always there. Each role might be solid on its own, but the throughline isn’t obvious. Where you’ve been doesn’t clearly point to where you’re going. And no one is sitting there trying to piece that together for you.

Why “fixing” the resume doesn’t fix this

This is where people burn a lot of time. They keep improving the same version of the story. Better wording, cleaner structure, more polish. And it still doesn’t land because the underlying issue hasn’t changed. If the positioning is off, you can end up with a really well-written version of something that still doesn’t make sense to the person reading it.

What actually needs to happen

At some point you have to step back and decide what this resume is for. It's not to capture everything you’ve ever done. It is to make it very obvious where you fit and why. That usually means making some decisions that feel a little uncomfortable at first, like leaving some successes out, reframing things that feel “accurate” but aren’t landing the right way, and being more explicit about level and scope than you might naturally be. Once the positioning is clear, the writing part is actually pretty easy.

What I tend to see after that

It’s not instant, and it’s not magic, but things start to line up. People get more relevant inbound outreach, applications start getting responses, and conversations feel more aligned instead of slightly off. Nothing about their experience changed, it just became easier for other people to understand.

If you’re reading this and thinking “yeah, this is me”

You’re probably not that far off. This is usually a translation problem, not a capability problem.

If you want to fix it, that’s exactly what the Executive Market Repositioning work is designed to do. We figure out how you should actually be positioned, rebuild your materials around that, and make sure it holds up in how you talk about your experience, not just how it reads on paper.