The Job Hunting Podcast

Episode 344 - Career change after 40 does not have to mean abandoning everything you have built. In this conversation with Kate Dillon, we explore portfolio careers, small career experiments, transferable career capital and how to create more professional options without making an unnecessary leap.

There is a particular kind of career dissatisfaction I see frequently among experienced professionals. They are successful by conventional measures. They have seniority, expertise, a respectable salary and two or three decades of professional history behind them. Yet increasingly, they feel uneasy about the idea that the next ten or fifteen years of their...

Episode 243 - Salary is one of the most uncomfortable parts of the job search, especially when employers ask for expectations early in the process. In this episode, compensation consultant Matt McFarlane explains how companies think about pay, salary bands, job titles, negotiation, and what experienced professionals need to understand before naming a number.

Few moments in a job search create as much discomfort as the salary question. It often appears too early, too bluntly, and too impersonally. A candidate is completing an online application, still unsure whether the role is a genuine fit, and suddenly a form...

Episode 342 - What if confidence isn’t the thing holding you back? I’m sharing what I’m seeing in the job market right now, from executive presence and relatability to why being more human may be your biggest advantage in the age of AI.

Confidence has become one of the most common explanations experienced professionals give me when their careers stall.

“I need to be more confident.”

“I’ve lost my confidence.”

“I don’t think I come across confidently enough in interviews.”

I hear versions of these statements every week...

Episode 341 - Financial stress can change how we assess risk, negotiate, job search and plan our next career move. Carrie Joy Grimes, founder and CEO of WorkMoney, joins me to discuss financial runway, career transitions, money anxiety and how to make better decisions when your income or employment suddenly feels uncertain.

When experienced professionals lose their jobs, one of the first questions I ask is not about their resume, LinkedIn profile or network. I ask about money. How long can you afford to be out of work? The answer matters because a job search conducted with six...

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The people deciding your next role form an opinion about you before you ever apply. This conversation shows you how to shape it.

My guest is Vanessa Errecarte: marketing lecturer at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, consultant, and author of Valuable and Visible. She created one of the only for-credit MBA courses in per...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 339 - I answer the seven LinkedIn questions my career coaching clients ask most often, from headlines and About sections to recruiter visibility, skills, posting, and making your profile support your next career move.

Most experienced professionals know LinkedIn matters. They know recruiters use it, hiring managers check it, and that former colleagues, board contacts, clients, and professional peers may look them up before making an introduction.

And yet, many still treat LinkedIn as a...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 338 - I answer the seven career questions my clients ask most often about visibility, CVs, achievements, career change, age bias, role choice, and career storytelling.

My clients don’t come to career coaching because they lack experience. They come because they are trying to make sense of that experience. They have done the work. They have led teams, managed complexity, navigated politics, influenced stakeholders, delivered projects, rebuilt systems, survived restructures, and made decisions under pressure.

...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 337 - Job searching can test even the most experienced professionals. In this episode, I reflect on Sabalenka’s emotional loss at Roland Garros and explain why job seekers need to move from emotional reaction to strategic response after rejection, redundancy, long job searches, interviews, and career setbacks.

There are moments in sport when we see more than performance.

We see pressure, and the private battle that sits underneath public achievement.

That happened re...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 336 - If I were job hunting now, I would not apply at scale, outsource my voice to AI, or wait until I was unemployed to build visibility. This article explains five common mistakes experienced professionals should avoid and how to make the job search more strategic.

If I were job hunting in 2026, I would not start by asking how many jobs I should apply for each week. I would ask a more useful question: what would...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 335 - Most job seekers focus on applying more. But in a tougher market, volume alone is not enough. Kyle Austin Young explains how “probability hacking” can help professionals improve their odds, de-risk career change, prepare better for interviews, and make smarter career decisions.

Most professionals do not think about their careers in probabilities.

They think in effort.

They think, “I have worked hard.”

They think, “I have good experience.”

They think...

Episode 334 - Executive headhunter Gerard Miles explains how search firms identify, assess, and approach candidates, and what experienced professionals can do to become more visible, relevant, and memorable to the recruiters who matter.

Many experienced professionals reach a point in their career where the job market starts to feel strangely opaque.

Earlier in their careers, they could apply for advertised roles, hear back from recruiters, attend interviews, and move through a relatively visible hiring process. But at senior levels, the rules change.

The hiring process is quieter. The shortlist may be built before...

Episode 333 - Workforce participation drops sharply after 45, despite strong demand for experienced talent. In this episode, we explore the structural barriers, age bias, and outdated career models holding professionals back, and what individuals, employers, and governments can do to better support longer, more productive working lives.

We have all fallen in love with NASA's crew for its Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon in more than half a century. What stood out to me was the composition of the team. Every astronaut selected was Generation Xer, in their 40s and 50s.

Episode 332 - Natalie Moore joins me to explore what leaders and professionals need most in 2026: courage, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and space to think. We also discuss burnout, work design, hybrid work, and how career pivots can happen through small, intentional steps.

The themes in this week's podcast episode are not really about personal reinvention in the lifestyle sense, but they're also not hot takes about work culture. They sit at the intersection, as so many issues do when it comes to career and our personal lives. How to we reinvent leadership, organisational design, career strategy, and human...

Episode 331 - Your experience may speak for itself on paper, but in interviews your body language is speaking too. Linda Clemons shares practical ways to project confidence, warmth, and authority so experienced professionals can perform better in interviews, networking events, and high-stakes conversations.

In Episode 331 of The Job Hunting Podcast, I speak with Linda Clemons about body language, executive presence, and the ways experienced professionals are often misread in interviews. Our conversation explores how stress shows up physically, why long tenure can mask unhelpful communication habits, and what candidates can do to present themselves with greater clarity...

Episode 330 - Patrick Dunlop, organisational psychologist and Future of Work professor, shares what he learned from studying recruiters, what’s overhyped, what’s still painfully manual, and how experienced candidates can move with confidence through modern selection processes.

Spend enough time around job seekers and you will hear the same diagnosis: “Hiring is broken.”

Spend enough time around recruiters and you will hear a different one: “We’re drowning.”

Both can be true. What has changed in the last few years is not simply the technology inside recruitment. It’s the volume, the noise, and the m...

Episode 329 - We unpack what interviewers are really reacting to, how to show agility at any age, and how to stay authentic while adapting to different cultures and expectations.

I understand why Brené Brown and Adam Grant can say “thumbs down” on executive presence and get a standing ovation. In their conversation on Dare to Lead, they frame executive presence as “party of one” and contrast it with leadership as a “collective capability.” It’s a compelling point, and a necessary correction for leaders who confuse charisma with competence or confuse performative confidence with real stewardship.

But in my day...

Episode 328 - I borrow two tools from elite sport psychology: the difference between thoughts and attention, and the difference between internal and external focus. You’ll learn how to stop fighting your nerves and start directing your attention.

Job searching can feel deeply personal, but the mechanics of it are closer to a high-performance environment than most people want to admit. You are assessed in real time. You are compared, often invisibly, against other candidates. You are expected to communicate with clarity, confidence, and restraint while navigating uncertainty, rejection, and the emotional weight of change.

Fo...

Episode 327 - I share six tools I use with experienced professionals who feel stuck in job search. You will leave with clearer direction, a simple decision filter, and practical ways to build momentum.

January has a particular sound in my inbox. It is the quiet urgency of people who are either ready for change or exhausted from trying. Many are senior professionals with decades of achievement behind them, now facing a job search that feels unfamiliar, slower, and strangely impersonal.

The temptation is to treat that discomfort as a personal flaw. Please, do not. Instead...

Episode 326 - Navigate career uncertainty with strategies to stay relevant amid AI disruptions and global shifts.

Rebroadcasting as Episode 326 during our holiday break, this episode (originally released as Episode 295) continues to be one of the most practical and impactful guides for professionals feeling threatened by uncertainty in the job market, especially from AI.

The job market feels like it's operating in a dense fog. For many professionals, particularly those in mid-to-senior corporate roles, navigating a career today is less like following a GPS and more like learning to read a compass in the dark. This...

Episode 325 - In a world that celebrates hustle, rest can feel counterintuitive. But for ambitious professionals, learning to pause is not optional. It’s a strategic necessity.

Rebroadcasting as Episode 325 during our holiday break, this episode (originally released as Episode 298) continues to be one of the most practical and impactful guides for professionals feeling burned out at work.

If you’ve spent the last few months feeling more exhausted than usual, struggling to focus, or wondering why your motivation has gone missing despite a looming job application or promotion deadline, you’re not alone. In my coa...

Episode 324 - If you've ever felt frustrated by job search advice that doesn’t seem to work for you, this episode will help you understand why, and what to do instead.

This episode is being rebroadcast as Episode 324 during our holiday break. It originally aired as Episode 277, and it remains one of the most useful episodes I’ve recorded for professionals who feel stuck in their job search.

If you spend any time on LinkedIn these days, you’ll find no shortage of job search success stories. Posts from professionals who landed a new role in rec...

Episode 323 - I break down why experienced corporate professionals are struggling to regain control of their careers and share three practical steps to accelerate your job search

This episode is being rebroadcast as Episode 323 during our holiday break. It originally aired as Episode 275, and it remains one of the most useful reset episodes I’ve recorded for experienced professionals who feel stuck in their job search.

The job market has been tough over the past few years. Whether you were impacted by the pandemic or faced the challenges of the post-pandemic economy, job hunting is no...

Holiday Replay Episode 322 - Are your job search efforts failing short? Discover the 5 critical mistakes that could be stopping you from landing your next role, and how to correct them.

This episode is being rebroadcast as Episode 323 during our holiday break. It originally aired as Episode 275 and it remains one of the most useful reset episodes I’ve recorded for experienced professionals who feel stuck in their job search.

This is the kind of episode that lands differently when you’re tired, discouraged, or overthinking your next move. If this year didn’t go to plan...

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 321 - The job market in 2025 has been flat, competitive, and emotionally draining for many professionals. In this episode, recruiter Geoff Slade and I unpack what’s really happening behind the scenes and what job seekers can do to stand out, especially when everyone’s application starts to look the same.

If 2025 felt harsher than you expected, you were not imagining it. As a career coach, I’ve watched experienced professionals, including senior leaders, get caught in longer...

Episode 320 - Discover the idea of “productive cringe” and how the slightly embarrassing moves you avoid are often the exact moves that unlock new roles, better opportunities, and a more sustainable career. 

Over the past few months, a phrase has appeared again and again in my coaching sessions with senior professionals. 

At first glance, these m...

Episode 319 - When a role disappears or a career stops feeling right, most professionals reach for more control, more effort and more doom scrolling. In this conversation, Professor Stephen G Post explains why generosity, service and “pure unlimited love” are powerful tools for coping with job loss, protecting mental health and realigning your career with a deeper sense of calling.

Recording this episode with Professor Stephen G Post felt very different from my usual conversations about job search strategy. We did not talk much about keywords, ATS or networking scripts. We talked about love, service, calling and what...

Episode 318 - I answer real questions from professionals who are worried about a prolonged job search. We talk about whether to use the LinkedIn Open To Work banner, how to cope when your job search has stretched past a year, and what to do when employers say you are “too senior”.

In my inbox and on my Zoom screen, the same faces keep appearing. They are senior managers, directors, heads of function, sometimes C suite executives. They are in their forties, fifties, and sixties. They have built careers inside large companies, delivered turnarounds, navigated crises, and led hund...

Episode 317 - Losing a job or having a terrible job can pull you straight into survival mode. In this conversation with Jon Rosemberg, we unpack how to move from white-knuckle coping to a more intentional, agentic way of designing your next chapter. 

Survival mode is a nervous system response, not a personal failure.  

In this podcast conversation, I spent time unpacking what survival mode actually is with my guest, Jon Rosemberg, who has studied applied positive psychology and worked as a COO in high-pressure environments. It is easy to forget that our bodies are old har...

Episode 316 - Dr. Sheila Gujrathi discusses how to build real influence, find sponsors, and move into executive roles without losing yourself. We unpack how fear shows up and what to do when you aren’t the “obvious” candidate. 

I recorded this episode to answer a question many experienced professionals wrestle with: How do you keep advancing when you do not fit the traditional mold for senior leadership? My guest is Dr. Sheila Gujrathi, a biotech executive, physician, and scientist who has led programs from idea to approval, served as a CEO and board director, and built platforms to support lea...

Episode 315 - Crisis expert Edward Segal maps the first moves leaders should make when something goes wrong, who to call, what to say, how to brief the media, and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Most professionals I speak to who are experiencing a career crisis did not see it coming, and almost all of them did not prepare for it. Corporate professionals still treat crisis management as something that happens to other people, like the CEOs in the headlines and the companies and brands trending on social media for all the wrong reasons. In...

Episode 314 - Recruiter-turned-Founder Georgie Hubbard unpacks how to pivot with confidence, optimize your resume and LinkedIn, and ditch “spray & pray” for targeted strategies that actually get results.

After dozens of conversations with senior professionals over the past few months and the discussions in my latest podcast episode, I keep coming back to the same conclusion. The people who are progressing in this year’s job market are not the ones applying faster or to more roles. They are the ones who have adapted to a hiring system that is more algorithmic and more cautious than it was a year...

Episode 313 - Employment attorney Jessica Childress is back, unpacking what “toxic” really means at work, and how to decide if it’s time to stay or go. 

I'm sure you're well aware that experienced professionals have had to cope with hostile cultures, micromanagement, and difficult leaders in their careers. Some issues are illegal. Many are not. Either way, the impact on your confidence and career can be profound. In this episode, employment attorney Jessica Childress helps us separate what is unlawful from what is simply unhealthy, and to outline a practical approach for documenting issues, engaging HR strateg...

Episode 312 - If you second-guess your success, Alison Shamir shares the mindset shifts and tools that help professionals recognise and overcome imposter thoughts. 

For years, clients have reached out to me with this dilemma: They are capable, experienced professionals who are unsuccessful in their job search. Usually, this is my diagnosis: They are not short of qualifications; they are short of traction.  

Listening back to my conversation with imposter syndrome expert Alison Shamir, I was struck by how precisely her framework matches what my clients have faced in their careers. That is, a human tendency to...

Episode 311 - Leanne Brannigan spent years hiring. Then she was laid off, and used social media to document her experience job searching while unemployed. Her story exposes how the system treats candidates and what we can do better.

I spend my weeks advising professionals who assumed that their extensive work experience and a tidy LinkedIn profile would carry them through a choppy market. Then they collide with reality: Long hiring cycles, few roles at their level, automated screens that reward keywords over judgment, and interview panels that want evidence, not eloquence. The latest episode of my podcast...

Episode 310 - Most job seekers focus on what they should do. In today’s episode, we dig into what they aren’t doing and why that’s costing them jobs. 

At a time when headlines are dominated by artificial intelligence, layoffs, and economic uncertainty, the themes from my discussion with Nick Waterworth, CEO of Ambition, on The Job Hunting Podcast (ep 309) deserve a closer look. His insights align with what I hear daily from my clients, and he offers explanations and advice that will benefit many job seekers on their path to career advancement and success in the hiring...

Episode 309 - Beyond the headlines, workplace scandals reveal deeper lessons about governance, disclosure, and accountability. In this episode, I share strategies for overcoming missteps and rebuilding your professional brand. 

Every so often, a string of corporate headlines forces us to confront the evolving nature of leadership. In recent months, the departures of high-profile CEOs from Astronomer, Nestlé, and Super Retail have done exactly that. Each case was triggered not by financial mismanagement or strategic failure of disclosure. More specifically, in relation to personal relationships that crossed professional boundaries. These stories are not about romance or morality. They ar...

Episode 308 - Rejections are part of the job search and they can also guide your next steps. In this episode, Renata answers questions about resumes, layoffs, LinkedIn gaps, and how to pivot into new opportunities.

In recent months, the messages I receive from clients and podcast listeners have become increasingly urgent. Experienced professionals, many in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, are being forced to navigate layoffs, endless rejections, and the unsettling prospect of having to pivot careers in an economy that feels unstable at best.  

The questions raised by hundreds of participants in a recent we...

Episode 307 - From the rise of portfolio careers to the growing importance of digital transformation, the 2025 Interim Executive Survey highlights how executives are choosing new ways of working.

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In this week’s episode of The Job Hunting Podcast, I spoke with Donna Burr, Partner in Interim Executive Management at Watermark Search International, about the findings of their 15th Annual Interim Executive Survey. With 15 years of data and nearly 900 survey respondents in 2025, this report offers invaluable insight into how executives are choosing to work flexibly in interim roles, what organizations wa...

Episode 306 - This episode explores how LinkedIn activity can protect you from layoffs, attract opportunities, and build long-term credibility.  

I believe that LinkedIn activity is the new career currency. In fact, I am certain of that, and I have clients’ results to prove it. To determine if professionals were already aware of this fact, I ran a poll on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, asking where people felt most stuck in building their presence on the platform. The answers surprised me, though perhaps they shouldn’t have. It wasn’t the profile. It wasn’t resume-style updates. The real st...

Episode 305 - Many professionals dream of a board career, but few know how to get there. In this episode, I unpack the three biggest blockers and share a roadmap to help you secure your first board role.

A large number of experienced professionals are eyeing board appointments as the next chapter in their careers. In a recent LinkedIn poll I conducted, nearly eight in ten respondents said they wanted a board role within the next five years. The allure is understandable. Board seats promise influence, intellectual challenge, and the prestige of shaping an organization’s future without th...