The One Question That Can Change Your Job Search
Is this a real gap or am I hiding the proof?
And how to show up as the obvious choice.
You've been at this for months.
Scrolling job boards. Tailoring resumes. Getting those "we went with someone else" emails that make your stomach drop.
Everyone keeps telling you the same thing: "You need more skills. Get certified. Learn the latest tools. Close those gaps."
So you do. You spend weekends on Coursera. You add certifications to your LinkedIn. You study frameworks you've never used.
And you're still not getting the calls.
Here's what no one's telling you:
LinkedIn is full of advice about getting more certifications, learning new tools, adding technical competencies to your resume.
And sometimes? That advice is right. If you're pivoting into AI without any machine learning background, yes—you probably need those certifications. If you're moving from marketing to data science, you'll need to prove you can actually code.
But here's what I've learned after years of working with hiring managers and watching talented professionals get passed over:
Most of the time, hiring managers aren't sitting there with a checklist, waiting to ding you for not having every bullet point.
They're thinking bigger than that.
What they're really asking themselves is:
Can this person solve the problems we're facing?
Will they hit the ground running?
Do I trust them to lead, influence, adapt—especially when things shift fast?
They're not just hiring for skill. They're hiring for proof.
The proof that says: I get it. I've done this. I can do it again.
When Skills Actually Matter (And When They Don't)
But for most career moves, especially within your field or adjacent industries, the skill gap is usually smaller than you think.
Here's the problem I see over and over again with high-performing candidates:
Most people bury the proof.
They lead with vague summaries instead of sharp, specific strengths. They over-index on responsibilities instead of results. They undersell what they've actually navigated, led, built, or turned around.
And then they wonder why they're not standing out.
I watched this happen with Brandon, who spent months convinced he needed more technical certifications and skills to make his next career move into a solutions engineering role.
He had 18 years of experience running his own agency, deep client relationship management skills, and a track record of solving complex business problems. But every conversation ended with "you don't have direct solutions engineering experience."
The deeper issue? He was approaching interviews almost apologetically, focusing on what he didn't have rather than what he brought to the table.
When we worked together, the real issue became clear: Brandon wasn't translating his entrepreneurial experience into the language that hiring managers understood. He was leading with "agency owner" instead of "strategic problem solver who understands both the technical and business sides."
But here's the thing: if you stopped looking at the title and looked at his actual experience, Brandon had years of presales and solutions engineering work. He just wasn't positioning it that way.
For Brandon, it wasn't a skill gap. It was a translation gap.
We repositioned his agency experience as consultative selling, his client management as stakeholder navigation, and his technical problem-solving as solutions engineering. More importantly, we shifted his confidence from apologizing for what he lacked to confidently presenting what he delivered.
The result? First solutions engineering offer in just five weeks. Within two months, he had secured his current role and confidently stepped into solutions engineering.
Here's the remarkable part: One of those offers came from a hiring manager who had initially passed on Brandon months earlier. After we repositioned his experience and he reached back out, she said it was a "night and day experience from our first conversation several months ago."
Brandon later told me: "Laurie helped me shape my story and secure my Senior Solutions Engineering role." He already had everything they needed. He just needed to make it obvious—and impossible to overlook.
How to Make Your Value Obvious
This isn't about getting more qualifications. It's about telling the right story, the real story, in the right way.
Lead with what matters. What is this role really hiring for? Put that at the top of your resume, not paragraph three.
Show proof, not just presence. Instead of "Managed cross-functional projects," try "Led 8-person team to deliver $2M software implementation 6 weeks early, improving client onboarding time by 15%."
Connect the dots explicitly. Say it directly: "This experience managing global rollouts directly translates to leading your customer migration strategy."
Walk them through your thinking. In interviews: "Here's how I approached that challenge… here's what I saw… here's what I did… here's the impact."
Make it easy for them to see what you bring. Don't make them guess.
The Question That Changes Everything
If you're feeling stuck in your search, ask yourself: Is this actually a skill gap, or am I making them work too hard to see the proof of what I bring?
If it's a real gap—like pivoting into a new field—by all means, build the skills. Get the certifications. Create the portfolio. Show the receipts.
But for most roles? You don't need more skills. You need better translation.
You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be clear.
The hiring manager trying to fill an urgent role isn't looking for flawless. They're looking for obvious.
That person is probably you. You just need to make it obvious.
Ready to stop chasing certifications and start positioning your existing value strategically?
My newsletter shares the specific strategies I use with clients to translate their experience into irresistible positioning—the kind that makes hiring managers think "this is exactly who we need."
No generic advice. No skill gap hysteria. Just practical tactics for becoming the obvious choice.
