Every “ATS-friendly resume” guide says the same things: avoid tables, avoid columns, use standard headers, save as .docx or PDF. What almost none of them tell you is whether those rules actually hold up once you feed a real resume into…
You’ve started narrating your own life in the third person on the drive to work. She pulled into the parking lot and felt her stomach drop, the way it always did on Sunday nights, except now it’s Tuesday too. You’re not…
You bombed the stretch assignment. Or got a mediocre review. Or got let go. And now every new opportunity comes with a little asterisk in your head: but what if it happens again? You’re staring at a job posting, or a…
It’s 9:47pm. You’re re-reading a Slack message from your manager for the fourth time, hunting for subtext that probably isn’t there. Your calendar just got a mystery invite titled “Quick Sync” with no agenda. Your boss said “let’s circle back” in…
You’re in a meeting. Your VP says, “Let’s take this offline, loop in the SME, and circle back with a quick POC before EOW — assuming the ROI checks out.” You nod. You have no idea what four of those words…
You know the person. Walks into every meeting like they own the building. Talks first, talks longest, never seems to second-guess a single word. You assume that’s what confidence looks like. Then you watch them fumble the first hard question they…
The interviewer sets down their notes and asks: “So — what does equality and diversity mean to you?” Your brain, which has been so confidently prepared for “tell me about yourself,” quietly exits the building. Here’s the good news: nobody’s testing…
Someone asks you where you see yourself in ten years. You say something about “growth” and “leadership” and quietly hope they don’t ask a follow-up question. That’s not a plan. That’s a vibe. A real 10-year career plan isn’t a vision…
Somewhere between the second and third resume draft, everyone writes it. “Tech savvy.” It sits there, vague and confident, doing absolutely nothing. It’s not a lie, exactly — it’s just too soft to survive contact with an ATS scan or a…
Nobody stumbles into a promotion by accident. Behind every raise, leadership role, or successful career switch is a string of decisions someone made on purpose — not luck, not timing, not just “working hard and hoping.” Yet most professionals move through…