A CMO I will call Peter was six months into his search when we spoke. He had sent out seventy-six applications and had two interviews, both of which stalled halfway through. Every day looked the same. He opened the portals, applied, refreshed the inbox, and applied again.
On our first call he said: "I just don't understand why nobody replies."
Here was a man whose whole job was figuring out where the right people are and how to get in front of them. And yet, he had never used that knowledge in his own job search.
So I asked him. Where would someone who needs a CMO actually look?
You see, the people who hire CMOs do not post those roles publicly. They run confidential searches and scout LinkedIn quietly, and Peter had not posted or engaged with anything since the day he left. The search firms that fill most CMO roles in his sector were searching their databases for a profile that did not match his, because his still described the job he had four years ago. What was even sadder, four of his former colleagues, now sitting in CEO seats, had no idea he was available.
He had spent six months applying through the only door that was closed to him, and to every other C-level candidate doing the same thing.
When Peter finally asked himself the right question, he had his answer in ten minutes.
Here is the part that matters
"Why is nobody replying?" has only two possible answers. The system is broken, or something is wrong with you. Both are dead ends. Neither one tells you what to do on Monday.
That is how you spot a question that is costing you. You can answer it as honestly as you like. But I can assure you, you will not be closer to your next step than before you asked.
I have found that the better version of this question would be: "where would someone who needs what I do actually look for it?", and "am I visible there?"
It takes you the same mental effort to ask it, but it will dramatically change the things you do next Monday.
I spent most of my adult life hiring senior executives in financial services and fintech. I have spent the last six years on the other side, rebuilding the profiles of senior people who stopped being found.
What I kept seeing was this: some clients landed a role about two weeks after a full profile rebuild. Others were stuck for months on end.
Imagine you swap your beaten Honda for a brand new Porsche.
Having a brand new profile but staying inactive is like keeping that Porsche covered, in the driveway, with no petrol in it.
It is beautiful but it goes nowhere.
The people with delayed results had to do the work too. Fill the tank, wash the car, polish it, and drive it round the block where people could see it. In other words, they needed to post and keep showing their expertise, message people, follow up, prompt an introduction to the right decision maker. So they tried once or twice, and when the result did not come immediately, they stopped doing and started thinking the old way.
Which is why I no longer just hand over the keys.
The hard reality
What those stuck clients were asking themselves did not let me sleep. What else do people ask themselves, when nobody is looking, that keeps them stuck?
So I went to my files. I pulled my notes, my meeting transcripts and my coaching calls. The result was striking, and sadder than I expected.
Nearly everyone who stayed stuck was asking themselves the same handful of questions. Night questions. The ones that sound reasonable and lead nowhere, just like Peter's. Why is nobody replying? Am I too old for this market? What if I am no longer worth my last salary?
How can a simple internal dialogue be the deciding factor? Well, it is. And it has been tested.
The list
So I decided to make that list available to all the ambitious people out there who may feel stuck, and accessible to every shy reader I will probably never get on a call with. I wrote the questions all down, catalogued them, and ranked them from the most damaging to the easiest to change.
But the part that matters most: next to each one I show you the better version of that question, and what changes in your results when you start asking it.
I promise you, it is better than staying up all night not knowing where your next interview is coming from.
Apply what is in this guide and you are thirty days from taking that Porsche out for a ride.
Get the guide: The Questions That Are Keeping You Stuck
It is free. It takes thirty days if you do the work, ten minutes if you just want to find out which question is yours.
See you next Saturday.
Anca
600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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