18 years at one company, then 16 interviews without her network

A Director of Business Analytics came to us after having worked for 18 years at the same organization. Her company got acquired twice and she found herself working for Microsoft in January of 2023.

After a couple of years, she was caught in a large restructuring wave at Microsoft, leaving her looking for new Director level roles elsewhere.

Three interviews in six months

As anyone who has worked continuously for so long, she took some time out for R&R, and got back to applying. And then she kept applying. She wanted to land a job NOW as she was bored of sitting at home.

Over the next 6 months, she was able to land only 3 interviews, but at AWS, LinkedIn and Adobe, mind you.

The problem with these was that she had not given a formal interview for 18 years. She had always moved within the company, got promoted or made lateral switches without substantial effort.

As goes with any skill, interviewing is a numbers game. The more reps you do, the more muscle you build.

Does the market move by contact?

When we told her this, her response was:

“Well, how DO you land more interviews? I feel my lack of external network is holding me back. I noticed that the current market moves by contact, not my skill set written in my resume. Is that right?”

Partially right, the market DOES move by contact, but not in the way most people think, and she was right in thinking that only applying online won't get her anywhere.

It's not about "who you know", that's just a lie LinkedIn influencers keep selling you. What gets your foot in the door is presenting yourself to the hiring manager as a solution to the problem they are looking to solve.

You won't get hired just because you have the right skills, there are many people who have your exact skillset. But if you have already solved a problem very similar to theirs, that's when you get an interview call.

16 interviews from public information alone

Our client wanted a base comp of $200K, and preferred a green field project to have a stronger say in leadership decisions.

So, when we got to work, we kept these preferences in mind and did not use her existing network at all. We applied to public openings and reached out to recruiters for those roles based on nothing but public information, and ended up landing her 16 qualified interviews.

In the end she accepted a Senior Director of Data and Analytics role at one of the fastest growing FnB brands in the US, with the exact comp she was aiming for.

Even after joining, she said:

“I still don't understand how you land me, uh, in the getting the interviews. That part is still a mystery for me, um, because, because it's amazing. That's all I'm going to say. It definitely is amazing.”

So, it is not really about who you know, it is whether you know about Wolf Mentoring or not.