Paul Upton

Want to get to your next Career Level? Or into a role you'll Love? ◆ We help you get there! | Sr. Leads ► Managers ► Directors ► Exec Directors | $150K/$250K/$500K+ Jobs

"With no exaggeration- Paul and the LeaderUP program changed my life!" – James
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👉 Message me on LinkedIn

Why Senior Leads, Managers, Directors & VPs choose to work with me:
▶️ You want to break into your next leadership role, get promoted, or move to a promotional opportunity. Maybe you are seeking to break into your next level or senior leadership.

▶️ You're stuck in your current role, not much company growth, or growth opportunities. Or you do not like your current company/role and want to find a better one and level up your career to the one you deserve!

▶️ You're in a job search, you know you are good, but something is missing, you are not getting interviews, or are not getting offers!

▶️ You're tired of being frustrated & wasting time!

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐞: I've spent the last 14+ years working at top Fortune 100 companies.
◾️ 10+ jobs over this time and 2 highly competitive leadership programs
◾️ 7 times promoted/found promotional opportunities (often they found me)
◾️ Most recently an executive director at a telecom leading an organization of 150+ people.

𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝:
◾️ What it really takes to stand out in the Top 1% of leaders
◾️ How to be a great leader and more importantly how to develop this in others
◾️ How to hire the best, I've done over 500+ interviews and hired multiple high performing 10X teams

I am one of the few career coaches who has leadership/hiring manager experience and knows what they are looking for!

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒!

I have put these learnings together and have created the 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐔𝐏 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐓𝐨𝐩 1% 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 to help leaders and aspiring leaders reach the next level and land their dream jobs/promotions. 

Are you someone who wants...
✅Wants more MONEY, TIME, FLEXIBILITY, and GROWTH?
✅Gets multiple offers and CHOOSES the best one for them?

And would rather...
✅Follow a proven step-by-step process that works!
✅With the 1:1 support, you need along the way!
✅That takes 70% less time & effort and 99% less frustration!
✅And finally, get that dream job that they deserve and are excited to jump out of bed for?

► LeaderUP Job Offer System & Coaching Program -  Reach out to learn more!

👉 Learn more: message me!

Founder, CEO & Chief Career Officer - Career Expert | Career Success Coach | Leadership Coach

👉 Message me on LinkedIn

I am one of the few career coaches who has Fortune 50 leadership & hiring manager experience. This gives me the perspective to know exactly what hiring managers (not just recruiters) are looking for in a Manager, Director, VP+, how to stand out, and what it really takes to be a top 1% Leader & Candidate!

I have partnered with recruiters, HR leaders, hiring managers, and leaders to understand and distill the most important qualities and traits of successful leaders and how to find these in candidates and develop them in leaders. 

Through all this and hundreds of interviews, I have learned what the Top 1% of candidates do and built a system that works to help leaders, aspiring leaders, and high performers learn these skills and get the jobs & opportunities they really deserve!

► I help YOU master YOUR resume + LinkedIn so you STAND OUT and get NOTICED

► I help YOU learn how to ROCK your interviews and build real, memorable connections with hiring managers & GET OFFERS!

► I help YOU learn the skills to negotiate like a PRO to get the best total compensation package possible

► I really care. My sole reason for LeaderUP is to help YOU find success and fulfillment in your career. Success YOU DESERVE and have earned by working harder, learning more, and putting in the effort to SUCCEED!

I have created the LevelUP Leadership Top 1% Candidate Coaching Program to help leaders get promoted and land their dream jobs using Top 1% Applicant Strategies, leveraging the top SECRETS learned from Expert Resume Writers, Recruiters, Hiring Managers, Leaders, and Top Candidates, as well as many failures, successes, and continuous improvement!

► LevelUP Leadership Top 1% Candidate Coaching Program

MESSAGE me on LinkedIn to learn more and how I can help you!
Email me at Leaderup.Program@gmail.com

A VP candidate walked away from a $280K offer.

Two weeks later, she proved “playing safe” is the real risk.  

She came to me as a Director. Strong track record. Clear VP potential.

A big brand posted a VP role.

Scope looked huge. Title looked shiny. Process dragged for 10 weeks.  

Panels. Presentations. Homework. Politics everywhere.

Final offer: $280K total.

Low range for VP in her market. Messy scope. Weekend “fire drills” baked into culture.  

Her words: “I feel I should say yes. Roles at my level feel rare.”  

My reply: “You do not need a VP title that pays Director money with burnout hours.”  

She declined. With grace. No bridge burned.

Next day we went all in on a different plan:  

• Clear VP narrative for her resume and LinkedIn  
• Tight value story for board, CEO, COO problems  
• Target list of growth companies that need decisive leaders  
• Direct outreach with short, sharp messages  

Within 10 weeks:

• Three new processes, all true VP scope  
• Two clean offers  
• One dream role  

Final package:  

• Real VP role  
• $52K more total comp than the first offer  
• Fewer direct reports, clearer charter  
• Culture that respects boundaries  

Same market. Same time.

Different result because she refused a misaligned “safe” choice.

Right now leadership hiring splits into two groups:

• Companies clinging to power with slow steps plus low offers  
• Companies hungry for leaders who decide, act, own outcomes  

Senior leaders win when they market themselves to the second group, not beg the first group.

Alignment over fear is the move that changes careers.

HR: We'd like to offer you the Director role at $165,000.

Her: I appreciate the offer. Based on my research and the scope of this role, I was expecting something closer to $195,000.

HR: That's above our budget. $165,000 is our max.

Her: I understand. I'm genuinely excited about this opportunity. Can I share something?

HR: Of course.

Her: In my current role, I reduced vendor costs by $2.3M annually. For a role at this level, I'd want to ensure the compensation reflects the value I'll bring. Is there flexibility in the total package?

HR: Let me talk to the hiring manager.

24 hours later:

HR: We can do $178,000 base with a $23,000 signing bonus.

---

She didn't beg.
She didn't threaten.
She didn't accept the first number.

She stated her value with evidence and asked if there was flexibility.

That one conversation was worth $36,000.

Most people lose thousands because they're afraid of one uncomfortable moment.

---

The offer is never the offer.

It's the opening of a negotiation.

Would you have asked—or accepted?

“We can’t promote you this cycle.”

90 days later she signed a Senior Director offer for +$72,000 more comp.

Her title inside the company: Senior Manager.

Her reality: running Director level projects, calming executives, fixing broken teams.

3 performance cycles in a row her VP said the same line.

"Not ready for Director. Maybe next year."

She did not lose skill. She lost patience.

When she came to LeaderUP she felt stuck, angry, tired.

We did three big moves.

1) We turned her hidden Director work into hard numbers.

• Revenue impact
• Cost savings
• Scope of people leadership
• Size of budgets under her control

2) We rebuilt her story for the external market at Senior Director level, not "high potential manager" level.

Interview stories, resume, LinkedIn profile. Every piece showed national scale leadership.

3) We used the LeaderUP 4x4 Marketing Method to get her story in front of hiring VPs.

Targeted outreach. Warm intros. Direct value messages.

Within 90 days she landed a national Senior Director role.

• Thirty four direct reports
• Seventy two thousand dollar raise
• Equity on top

Her old company tried to react only when she gave notice.

Too late.

Internal promotion games stay political in 2026.

The external market can feel more fair when you market yourself at the level you already operate.

How long have you been doing Director level work without Director level title or pay?

I walked away from a Fortune 100 Executive Director title.  
I wanted impact, freedom, and the right people instead.  

For years my identity came from:  

• Big logos  
• Large teams  
• The next promotion  

Stress climbed.  
Travel climbed.  
Politics climbed.  

My health dropped.  
Family time dropped.  
Joy at work dropped.  

On paper everything looked perfect.  
Inside I felt empty and trapped.  

My biggest fears before leaving:  

• Losing status  
• Losing steady pay  
• Disappointing people  
• Wasting fourteen years of work  

I stayed longer than I should from fear and habit.  
My body started to send clear signals.  
Sleep went bad.  
Energy went low.  
Sunday dread became normal.  

One day I realized my ladder leaned on the wrong wall.  
Safe did not feel safe anymore.  

I chose a different path.  

I took the same executive playbook I used for years:  

• How to stand out in the top 1 percent  
• How hiring leaders think  
• How promotion decisions happen behind closed doors  

Then I built LeaderUP.  

Now I help senior leaders land roles they love, with lives they can sustain.  
More money, more meaning, more space to breathe.  

Success for me no longer means title plus chaos.  
Success means work I care about, people I trust, a life I can keep.  

My hope: more leaders choose a new version of success before burnout makes the choice for them.

I was an invisible top performer for years.  

I became Executive Director when I finally changed my story.  

For a long time I believed numbers spoke for me.  

• Exceeded every target  
• Fixed broken processes  
• Saved millions in cost  

Yet I got passed over.  
Told to “be patient”.  
Watched others with more visibility move ahead.  

My work lived in slides, trackers, late nights.  
Not in decision rooms.  

The turning point came when a mentor said:  
“Your impact is strong. Your story is missing.”  

I stopped dumping data.  
I started sharing simple stories leaders could repeat.  

Instead of:  
“I reduced cost by 12% across three regions.”  

I said:  
“I found a way to save us millions without cutting headcount. Here is what changed for our teams.”  

Key shift:  
I made my impact clear, human, easy to retell in promotion talks.  

Here is what I did different:  

• Tracked every win with numbers and a one-line story  
• Framed work as problems solved for the business, not tasks done  
• Gave my manager short updates they could forward word-for-word  
• Shared credit with my team, claimed clear ownership for my part  

Promotions started to find me.  
Roles came to me, not the other way round.  

The move from hard worker to Top 1% leader is not more effort.  
It is a story of impact leaders cannot ignore or forget.  

Share your thoughts on this shift from invisible top performer to visible Top 1% leader.

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She was the ‘go‑to fixer’ for 7 years.  
One mindset shift, now she leads 28 people as Director.  

For a decade she lived in firefighter mode.  

Late nights.  
Weekend emergencies.  
Last‑minute saves before executive reviews.  

Leaders praised her hustle.  
They sent thank you emails.  
Promises of "next cycle" promotion.  

Title stayed Senior Manager.  
Pay stayed flat.  

Inside LeaderUP we named the pattern:  

• High trust in crises  
• Low trust in strategy  
• Seen as doer, not builder  

The market rewards builders.  

We built a new story for her career.  

She stopped volunteering for every rescue.  
She started owning cross‑functional programs with clear outcomes.  
She mentored two successors, then pushed work down to them.  
She translated wins into business language: revenue, cost, risk.  

Within 90 days recruiters treated her as Director level.  

Panels asked about her systems, not her late nights.  

Offer she accepted:  

• Director, national scope  
• Team of 28  
• 51% increase in total compensation  

Same person.  
New mindset.  
New evidence.  

Promotion arrived when she stopped proving she could take more tasks.  

Progress started when she showed she could build leaders & systems which worked without her.  

Firefighters keep lights on.  
System architects change level.  

Many high performers stay stuck in fixer mode for years.  

Career breakouts come when leaders shift from hero work to scalable work.

The job market is chaos.

Reorgs, layoffs, shifting markets.
Not bugs in a career.
Features of the game.

Your mindset must be the calm storm center if you want that promotion.

I led teams of 150+ people during big shakeups.
Whole org charts moved in one day.
Strong performers lost roles.
Average performers kept seats.

One pattern stayed clear.

The people who thrived did not chase the “safest” job.
They built the strongest position.

They had:
• Clear targets for their next role
• Strong, visible skills
• A proactive strategy, not a wait-and-see mindset

True stability came from inside:
• How they thought
• How they planned
• How they showed up in the market

A powerful shift helped me and my clients:

Move from “I hope things calm down”
To “I always build my options.”

That shift looks very practical:

• Sharpen your story
→ Clear value, clear results, clear next step

• Keep your network warm
→ One call, one message, one update each week

• Treat your career like an asset
→ Review it, invest in it, protect it, grow it

You do not control markets or reorgs.
You control how prepared you stand when they hit.

Use chaos as a signal.
Time to upgrade mindset, skills, story, network.

Your calm center in the storm becomes your unfair advantage.

She was told VP roles are rare in this economy. 100 days later, she chose between 3 VP offers.

First call, her voice shook.

“Paul, maybe I should wait. VP searches feel dead. I do not want to waste energy.”

She was not missing skill. She was missing confidence, strategy, communication.

We fixed each one.

Step one: we rebuilt her story for VP level.
Step two: we trained every single conversation.

Harvard professor Allison Wood Brooks said:
“Every person you know, every relationship in your life is a repeated sequence of conversations over time.”

Job search is the same.
Recruiters. Hiring managers. Execs.
Repeated conversations.

If you improve each one, results change fast.

We used a simple 4-part communication framework:

• Topics
She prepared 3–5 topics before every call: team goals, business pain, growth plans, leadership style.
No small talk drift. Clear, sharp conversations.

• Asking
Follow-up questions every time:
“Can you share an example?”
“How will you measure success in year one?”
She stopped selling. She started understanding.

• Levity
She let her personality show. Short stories. Light humor. Human, not stiff. That made her memorable.

• Kindness
Thank-you notes. Warm praise for the team. Respect for each person’s time. People felt great after talking with her.

Result:
• 14 screens
• 7 interview processes
• 3 VP offers in 100 days

The truth is: learning to be a stronger communicator gives you more respect, more influence, more offers.

Where do you need to upgrade your conversations to reach your next level role?

Hot take: For $150K+ leaders in 2026, playing it safe is the most dangerous career move.  
Here’s why.  

For years I thought safety meant:  
• Stay in one company  
• Keep my head down  
• Wait for the “right time”  

On paper I looked strong.  
Inside I felt smaller every year.  

I stayed in roles that no longer stretched me.  
I knew I could lead at a higher level.  
I kept telling myself, “One more safe year.”  

Each “safe” year did three things:  
• My market value grew  
• My salary stayed flat  
• My confidence quietly dropped  

The gap between my value and my reality got wider.  
I was not safe.  
I was stuck.  

For $150K+ leaders, risk needs a new meaning.  

Real risk looks like:  
• Stagnant skills → same problems, no new tools  
• Single income stream → one decision away from zero  
• Zero decision‑maker network → no one with power knows your name  

Safe on the surface.  
Danger under the hood.  

Smart risk looks different.  
Smart risk grows your options, not your fear.  

Pick one smart risk for this quarter:  
• Start one new conversation with a senior decision maker  
• Raise your hand for one visible project that scares you a little  
• Make one bold career move you delayed for years  

You will not win every time.  
You win more by taking clear, smart risks than by waiting for perfect safety.  

How long will you keep calling “safety” what is really slow career decline?

Director: "You said Q4 2024. It's now Q1 2026."

VP: "I know. Things keep shifting."

Director: "I've been running this division for 18 months without the title or the comp."

VP: "And you've done a phenomenal job."

Director: "Then promote me."

VP: "We need to wait for the next cycle."

Director: "You said that three cycles ago."

VP: "These things take time."

Director: "No. These things take courage. Yours."

...

VP: "Let's not be hasty."

Director: "I'm not being hasty. I've been patient for 18 months. That's the opposite of hasty."

VP: "So what are you saying?"

Director: "I'm saying another company didn't need 18 months to see what you keep postponing."

The director put in her notice that Friday.

9 weeks later...

New company.
Executive Director title.
$55K more in total comp.
The role she'd already been doing — except now she's paid for it.

Here's what kills me.

Her VP wasn't evil.
He just wasn't urgent.

And that's worse.

Because "wait" sounds reasonable.
"Next cycle" sounds fair.
"We'll revisit" sounds like a promise.

But it's not a promise.

It's a delay disguised as a plan.

And every quarter you wait is a quarter someone else won't.

The system doesn't reward patience.

It rewards the people who stop waiting.

♻️ Repost if you're tired of "next cycle."

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The first time a client said “your program changed my life,” I froze.  

My idea of success changed that day.  

He came to me exhausted, burned out from toxic leadership.  
Promotions stalled, effort ignored, pay stuck.  
On paper he looked strong.  
Inside, he felt invisible.  

We went to work together:  

• Clear story for his value  
• Target roles with real growth, not chaos  
• Interview skills that showed his leadership  
• Boundaries with work, plus space for family, health, joy  

Months passed.  
One night I sat alone in my office, inbox open, long day behind me.  

A message came in from him.  

He wrote about a new role, a supportive boss, double compensation, calm evenings with his family.  
He wrote about feeling seen, safe, respected for the first time in years.  

No bonus in my corporate career ever felt like that moment.  
No “exceeds expectations” on a performance review reached that deep.  

For years I chased:  

• Titles  
• Larger teams  
• Bigger budgets  
• Higher bonus targets  

Success meant more headcount, more zeros on numbers.  

That message broke that old scorecard.  

At a certain point in leadership life, money still matters, titles still matter, yet they move to second place.  

Top place goes to the lives you help shift:  

• People who escape toxic rooms  
• Leaders who stop repeating harm  
• Families who get a present, healthy parent back  

My work now runs on that fuel.  

Share if your own measure of success has started to change too.

If you wait to “feel ready”, you’ll still be in the same role next year.
Move now, fix later.

I talk every week with leaders who say:
“I’ll update my resume when things calm down.”
“I’ll start looking when the timing is right.”

Next month becomes next quarter.
Next quarter becomes next year.

Nothing changes.
Stress grows.

The uncomfortable truth:
You rarely feel ready before a big move.
You feel ready after you start moving.

In my own career, every promotion and big jump looked like this:

• I said yes before I knew every detail
• I learned fast while already in motion
• I fixed gaps as I went

From the outside it looked “strategic”.
From the inside it felt scary and messy.

But action gave me:

• Clarity on what I wanted
• Confidence from real wins
• Options when I needed them

Waiting gave me nothing.

If your role feels wrong, do not wait for:

• A perfect market
• A perfect resume
• A perfect plan

Move now, fix later:

• Write a rough target role list
• Message one person who can help
• Update one part of your LinkedIn
• Apply to one stretch role today

Small moves compound.
Silence and delay also compound.

How long have you been waiting for the promotion and career you know you deserve?

He almost waited another year.
Thank God he didn't.

...

He was an Executive Director at a fintech.
Running a 40-person org.
Owning a $22M P&L.

His VP took credit for everything.

Every board deck.
Every strategic win.
Every turnaround he engineered.

His name never made it above the fold.

He told himself the same story:

"Maybe next cycle."
"Maybe after this reorg settles."
"Maybe when the timing is better."

He'd been saying that since 2024.

Two years of maybe.

His hands would shake on Sunday nights.
He stopped mentoring his team.
He caught himself snapping at his kids.

Not because he was angry at them.
Because he had nothing left to give.

He was running on fumes.
And calling it "patience."

One night he was staring at the ceiling.
3:47am.
Heart racing for no reason.

He grabbed his phone.
Booked a call with LeaderUP

He didn't even think it'd work.
He just knew he couldn't do another year.

First session, we told him the truth:

"Your problem isn't performance. It's that nobody outside your company knows you exist."

He'd spent 4 years building empire
for a VP who treated him like staff.

We diagnosed the real career killer:
Zero external visibility.
Zero leverage.

So we executed.

Stopped talking about his "team size."
Started framing the $22M in outcomes.

We ran an **Influence Audit**.
Mapped the 12 people in fintech
who actually greenlight VP hires.

He reached 6 of them in 3 weeks.
Not pitching.
Solving their problems out loud.

Within 60 days:

Two VP conversations.
One final round.
One offer.

**VP of Operations.
$310K total comp.
A $55K jump.**

Direct line to the SVP.
No more credit stolen.
No more ceiling.

He called me after he signed.

He didn't talk about the money first.

He said:

"I slept through the night."

**He got his life back.**

Not because something changed in him.
Because he stopped waiting
for something to change around him.

Here's what nobody tells you:

"Waiting for the right time"
is just fear wearing a nice outfit.

The right time was last year.
The second best time is today.

Every quarter you wait
is a quarter someone less qualified
takes the role you deserve.

Stop waiting.
Start moving.

♻️ Repost if you're done
giving "maybe" another year.

Your resume is not a story of tasks.
It is a value report, and here are 5 steps to prove it.

Senior leaders do not get hired for “owned X”, “responsible for Y”, “supported Z”.

Senior leaders get hired for money moved, time saved, risk reduced, experience improved.

After hundreds of Senior Manager & Director resumes each year, I use a simple 5-step “Impact Rewrite” process.

Clients who follow this process often double interview rates.

Here is how I do it with them.

Step 1: Pull raw responsibilities
• Copy bullets from past roles
• Keep every line task-based for now

Step 2: Find the main business lever
For each bullet, mark one lever:
• Revenue
• Cost
• Risk
• Customer or employee experience

Step 3: Attach a number
Use any real number you can find:
• % change
• Dollar value
• Volume or time
Numbers turn noise into proof.

Step 4: Use the formula
Action + lever + metric

For example:
“Led cross-functional project”
becomes
“Led cross-functional launch that grew ARR 18% & added $4.2M pipeline in 9 months”

Step 5: Compare with target Director or VP role
• Open a job description
• Scan each bullet on your resume
• Check match with scope, scale, levers in that role

Senior leaders win when every line reads like a business case.

Not “busy”.
Valuable.

Your next step to Director or VP starts when each bullet proves impact in numbers.

Your calendar is full. Your promotion path is empty.  

That is not a time problem. That is a priority problem.  

Years ago my week looked packed.  

Back to back meetings.  
Decks.  
Fire drills.  
More meetings.  

My output was high.  
My stress was high.  

Yet I had zero conversations about my next role.  
Zero positioning with senior leaders.  
Zero movement toward promotion.  

One Friday I opened my calendar for the past month.  

I saw work for:  
• Projects  
• Teams  
• Stakeholders  

I saw almost nothing for:  
• Future roles  
• Key relationships  
• Strategic visibility  

My effort went to current-role tasks.  
My future got leftovers.  

I decided on a new rule for myself.  
Later I gave it to clients.  

Protect 60 minutes every workday for “future-you” work.  
Do it before you touch email or urgent tasks.  

Future-you work means:  
→ Reach out to senior leaders  
→ Book coffee chats  
→ Build trust with sponsors  
→ Share wins with the right people  
→ Map next-step roles offers  

No reschedule.  
No skip.  

Once I did this, leaders began to see me differently.  

More invites to key meetings.  
More pull into high-impact work.  
More offers without applications.  

Same 24 hours.  
New priority order.  

Careers stall when calendars ignore the future.  

Protect 60 minutes for future-you work today.  
Repeat next week.  
Let compounding do the heavy lift.  

Share one change you will make to protect those 60 minutes.

He was invisible on LinkedIn.  
6 weeks later, recruiters called him a top 1% candidate and chased him.  

Director of Customer Experience.  
Strong track record.  
Happy teams, higher NPS, lower churn.  

On paper he looked perfect.  
Online he looked silent.  

Dead profile.  
Generic headline.  
No content.  
No views from decision makers.  

Inside LeaderUP we ran him through our 4x4 Marketing Method.  

Step 1: Niche  
• We narrowed focus to B2B SaaS customer experience  
• We highlighted turnaround stories, not task lists  

Step 2: Headline + About  
• We rebuilt both to speak in numbers  
• Revenue saved, churn reduced, teams built  
• Clear promise: “Director who turns support orgs into profit centers”  

Step 3: Profile as landing page  
• Banner for his target roles  
• Featured section with wins, not files  
• Experience written for executives, not HR screens  

Step 4: 15‑minute daily system  
• 5 minutes: comment on posts from VPs, founders, recruiters  
• 5 minutes: share one short insight from his work  
• 5 minutes: send 2–3 targeted connection requests  

After 6 weeks:  
• Profile views up 10x  
• Inbound messages from two Fortune 100 companies + one high‑growth startup  
• He accepted a Director role without a formal application  

Truth in a noisy market:  
The market cannot hire you when no one sees you.  

Treat LinkedIn as a landing page for decision makers, not a static resume, signal strength rises fast.  

What would shift in your career if hiring managers saw you as a clear, must‑interview leader before you touched the apply button?

Hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
He wasn't having a heart attack. He was having a realization.
He couldn't walk into that building one more time.

On paper? He was a Senior Director at a F500.
In reality? He was the office janitor.
Cleaning up messes. Staying until 8pm. Missing his kid's soccer games.

No raise in 3 years. "Budget constraints," his boss claimed.
(While the company posted record profits in Q3).

He had sent out 50 applications on LinkedIn. Silence.
He thought he was too old. Too expensive. Washed up.

That's when we spoke.
He was tired. He sounded defeated. He was ready to settle.

I looked at his resume. 
It was a tragedy.

It listed tasks. "Managed team." "Oversaw operations." "Attended meetings."
It screamed "Doer."

Companies don't hire SVPs to do. 
They hire them to lead.

We deployed the LeaderUP Resume Impact Formula.
We stripped out the fluff.
We stopped asking for permission.

"Managed team" became "Led 40-person unit to generate $22M revenue increase."
We stopped talking about responsibilities. We started selling ROI.

6 weeks later.
He didn't get an interview. He got a bidding war.
Two offers. Both $60k over his current base.

But the money didn't matter.
The text he sent me did:
"I just resigned. I feel like I can breathe again."

Stop waiting for them to notice you. 
They won't.

The system is designed to keep you exactly where you are—cheap, reliable, and stuck.

♻️ Repost if you're ready to take back control.

She built the entire department.
Someone else got the credit.

...

Three years as a Director of Revenue Ops.
Built the forecasting model from nothing.
Hired 9 people. Trained every one of them.

Her VP presented her work at QBRs.
Used her slides. Her data. Her language.

Never once said her name.

She told herself: 
"They see me."
"They know who did this."
"My time is coming."

It didn't come.

The company created an Executive Director role.
Her role. 
Her scope. 
Her team.

They gave it to an external hire.

She found out from a Slack announcement.

She sat at her desk for 20 minutes.
Staring at the screen.
Hands completely still.

That night she told her partner:

"If I don't make a move now, I never will."

Not next quarter.
Not after the next reorg.
Now.

She booked a call with LeaderUP.

First thing we told her:

"You don't have a performance problem.
You have an invisibility problem."

We ran the Visibility Playbook

Step one: Stop doing the VP's prep work.
Start presenting your own insights directly.

Step two: Build relationships one level up.
The people who approve headcount and budget.

Step three: Shift from executing to leading.
Delegate the dashboards.
Own the narrative.

She was terrified.

"What if they think I'm not a team player?"

We told her the truth:

"They already don't think of you at all.
That's the problem."

She executed for 11 weeks.

Started presenting at cross-functional reviews.
Built a direct line to the VP of Sales.
Proposed a revenue acceleration initiative.
Put her name on it.

A SaaS company in her network noticed.

They weren't hiring.
They created the role for her.

Executive Director of Revenue Operations.
$385K total comp.
A $85K jump.

Her old company still hasn't backfilled her.

Because they didn't know what she did.

That's the trap.

You keep waiting for them to notice.
They keep waiting for you to stay quiet.

Every quarter you wait is a quarter someone
else takes credit for your work.

The clock doesn't pause for loyalty.

It was never about her talent.

It was about who owned the story.

♻️ Repost if you're done being invisible.

The most expensive tax you pay isn't to the IRS.
It's the "Inaction Tax."

You’re miserable.
You’re underpaid.
You’re doing the work of a VP for a Senior Manager’s salary.

Yet, you stay. Why?

Because the devil you know feels safer than the devil you don't.
You tell yourself it's "safe" to wait.

I call it fear dressed up as logic.

Here are 5 lies smart leaders tell themselves to stay stuck (and the hard truth):

1. "I'll look after this project wraps."
TRUTH: There is always another project. The system is designed to overlap deadlines so you never come up for air.

2. "The market is bad right now."
TRUTH: Top talent moves in every market. While you hide in the weeds, your competition is taking the seats at the table.

3. "I have too much unvested equity to leave."
TRUTH: Calculate the hourly rate of your misery. Those options aren't worth your sanity or your health. And they can just be easily negotiated into the new role.

4. "My boss said promotions are coming next cycle."
TRUTH: A verbal promise is a corporate lie. If it’s not in writing, it’s a distraction tactic to keep the mule pulling the cart.

5. "I'm just grateful to have a job."
TRUTH: This scarcity mindset is exactly why they feel comfortable paying you 30% under market value.

Stop waiting for a lifeboat. 
The ship is sinking.

Build your own raft.

♻️ Repost if you needed this wake-up call today.

She kept losing to “internal candidates.”  

Until we turned her into the obvious external upgrade they could not ignore.  

Senior product leader. Six Director final rounds.  

Six times, the call came:  
“We went with an internal person.”  

She felt cursed.  
Strong resume, strong references, strong skills.  
No offers.  

When she came to LeaderUP, we found the real issue.  

Her stories stayed at team and feature level.  
Company panels hired for portfolio and risk level.  

They heard:  
“I own roadmaps, squads, launches.”  

They needed:  
“I own bets, risk, outcomes.”  

We rebuilt her story bank with my SERI style method:  

• Situation: portfolio tension, market shift, or revenue gap  
• Execution: options, trade‑offs, resource moves  
• Result: 12–18 month outcomes, not launch dates  
• Impact: risk reduced, upside unlocked, trust gained  

We added pre‑interview stakeholder mapping.  

For each person on the panel she knew:  
• their portfolio or product area  
• where they felt pressure from ELT  
• metrics which kept them awake at night  

Every answer now sounded like she already sat on their side of the table:  

• “Here is how I shaped our three core bets across the portfolio”  
• “Here is how I traded speed vs risk with legal and compliance”  
• “Here is how we moved X metric over four quarters”  

Next panel. Global tech company. Two strong internal front‑runners.  

Offer went to her. Director title. Meaningful pay jump.  

Internal preference loses power when you speak risk, bets, and outcomes in the company’s own strategic language.

Ehsan Ali 🚀

Top-Ranked Australian Career Coach | Helped 100+ Senior IT Pros Land $200K–$400K+ Roles | 2–4 Level Jumps. 30%–120% Raises. | Take the 3-Min Quiz & Uncover Your Hidden Growth Blockers

For Indian-origin professionals like us, 
career was never just a paycheck.

It’s identity.

Study hard.
Get a good job.
Hustle. Climb fast.
Move abroad. Make everyone proud.

I did all that too.

From the outside, it looked sorted.
Good roles. Good money. Comfortable life.

But inside, I felt it.

I was playing safe.
Staying reliable.
Delivering more. 
But not becoming more.

Then life got heavier.

Mortgage. Kids’ school fees. Lifestyle. Ageing parents.

And work got shakier.

Reorgs. Layoffs. Politics.
Big decisions made fast, without warning.

During Covid, I hit a turning point.

I quit.
And then... two years of no income.

That season humbled me.

It forced me to face a truth most senior pros avoid:

Doing good work keeps you employed.
It does not protect your future.

I wasn’t looking for motivation. 
I needed a method.

So I studied what actually drives senior growth:

• How trust is built at the top.
• How leaders make decisions behind closed doors.
• How hiring really works at senior level.
• Why capable people get overlooked.

Then I applied it—to myself.

Even after two years without a job, I started getting invited into $400K+ interviews.
Doors that once felt locked began to open.

Now I had to choose:

Go back quietly, rebuild the title...
or help others rebuild their power.

I chose the second.

Over the last 4+ years, I’ve turned those hard lessons into playbooks and private sessions that help mid-to-senior IT professionals reclaim direction, self-worth, and income.

Recent wins from the community:

🚀 Tim (Senior Director): 18 months without a role to two $300K+ offers in 10 weeks
🚀 Urvish (S/W Engineer): laid off to Principal Engineer in 10 weeks, then Director in 12 months
🚀 Hesham (Principal Engineer): $200K to $650K+ in 3 months
🚀 Maruf (VP, Analytics & AI): Invisible to Global Top 100 within a year

If you’re feeling that mix of frustration, fear, and quiet exhaustion, don’t wait for things to “settle”. 

They won’t.

Start now:

✅ Take the 2-minute Career Diagnostic Quiz (link in Featured)
✅ Or DM ROUNDTABLE for an invite to my Virtual Career Roundtable
Private. Invite-only.

Podcast Host & Producer

Australia's 1st Business & Career podcast featuring inspiring stories of Indian Expats who either successfully transitioned into entrepreneurship or excelled in their careers beyond the perceived limitations and ceiling

Ehsan Ali

Nobody quits when they’re respected, paid, and growing.

They quit when one of those gets taken away.

So when someone “suddenly resigns”…

It wasn’t sudden.

It was the final straw
after months of quiet shrinking.

They left when:

• the workload grew, but the role didn’t
• their results got praised, not rewarded
• they were trusted to deliver, not trusted to decide
• they became the fixer, not the future

Most mid-senior IT professionals don’t quit for fun.

They quit because staying started costing them:

sleep
confidence
self-respect
time with family

And here’s the trap:

A decent salary can hide a bad deal.

You tell yourself:

“It’s fine.”
“I’m lucky.”
“Once this project ends…”

But “fine” becomes 3 years.
Then 5.

Respect. Pay. Growth.

If you don’t have at least two,
you’re not building a career. You’re tolerating a job.

Quick self-check:

When was the last time this job made you feel bigger?

Not busier.
Bigger.

♻️ Repost this for someone who’s been “fine” for too long
🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for $250K–$400K+ Senior IT career playbooks

Senior IT Career Coach & Strategist | End Career Stagnation. Land Your $250K–$400K+ Next Level Role | 22 Years of lived experience in IT. Not HR. Not a Recruiter.

Everyone is replaceable at work.
Even the ones who stay late.
Especially them.

I know that's uncomfortable.
Especially for those of us raised to believe the opposite.

Work hard. Stay humble. Don't complain.
Be grateful you have the opportunity.

Our parents didn't build their lives in a new country by saying no.
They survived by being indispensable.

And we watched that.

We learned it.

We wore it like armour into every job we ever had.

So now you're 42.
Senior Manager. Principal Engineer. Solution Architect. 18 years in.
Answering Slack at 11pm.

Fixing other people's emergencies because you were raised not to drop things.

Skipping the gym, the doctor, your kid's thing.

Because that's what commitment looks like.
That's what you were taught.

And here's what you got for it.

The same salary band for three years.
A "you're really valued" at EOFY.
A quiet feeling that if you stopped carrying it, everything would fall apart.

Here's what nobody told us:

The loyalty that kept our parents safe in survival mode
is the exact thing keeping us stuck in growth mode.

The people above you aren't working harder.
They stopped absorbing everything.
They started deciding what mattered.

Availability is not seniority.
Reliability is not leadership.

The market doesn't pay $300K for the person who never drops the ball.
It pays $300K for the person who decides which balls matter.

You don't have a work ethic problem.
You were just never shown that the rules changed.

♻️ Repost for someone still carrying the armour they no longer need.
🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for $250K–$400K+ senior IT career playbooks.

They rewarded you with more work.

Not more money.
Not more title.
More work.

That’s not appreciation.

That’s PERFORMANCE PUNISHMENT.

Last week in my Hidden Gold roundtable, a Senior Engineering Manager in Sydney said something that stopped the room:

“I’ve been the most reliable person in 3 different teams.
I’ve never once been the most promoted.”

No one argued.
Too many people in that room had lived it.

The people who moved ahead were not carrying more.
They just stopped carrying what was never theirs.

High performers become the company’s safety net.

Something breaks? You.
Cross-team fire? You.
Last-minute exec deck at 9pm? You.

And slowly your role becomes this invisible pile of
steering committees,
executive reporting,
cross-functional fire drills.

Important work.
Useful work.
But not promotable work.

Because promotions rarely go to the person holding the system together.

They go to the person leading the work leadership cannot afford to get wrong.

Revenue risk.
Delivery velocity.
Platform modernisation.
Capability gaps.

The work that lands in board packs. The work that gets discussed when senior leaders close the door.

The work that makes someone say,
we need this person in the room.

And the difference is not just doing that work.

It is how you talk about it.

Not:

“Here’s what I did.”

But:

“Here’s the business problem I saw.
Here’s the initiative I led.
Here’s the outcome it created.”

Same work.
Different signal.

The first sounds like someone dependable. The second sounds like someone who should be shaping decisions.

One gets more work. The other gets the title.

If you've been the safety net for too long, you already know which one you've been.

The next step is learning how to reposition the work you're already doing, so the right people finally see it the right way.

That's exactly what we work through live at the Hidden Gold roundtable.

Real profiles. Real senior IT leaders. Real repositioning, on screen, together.

This Thursday is the last session for March.
Small room. Senior IT only.

DM me GOLD and I'll send you the details.

If you'd rather check quietly first: https://lnkd.in/g8HtDBRn
If seats are still open, you can grab one there.

Room closes Thursday morning.

♻️ Repost this for the high performer quietly carrying half the company.

🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for $250K–$400K+ senior IT career playbooks that actually work.

In IT, two people can have the same experience.
One still ends up $200K ahead.

Here's why.

A bar of iron is worth $100.
Turn it into horseshoes? $250.
Sewing needles? $70,000.
Watch springs? $6 million.
Laser components? $15 million.

Same iron.
Different refinement.
That's how careers work too.

Same years in the industry.
Same certifications.
Sometimes even the same job title.

One stays stuck at $180K.
The other moves into $280K, $320K, $400K+ roles.

I've seen this gap up close.

One of my clients, a Data Analytics Senior Manager, 18 years of experience, Sydney, went from $220K to $285K in 10 weeks.

Same resume. Same skills. Completely different positioning.

Most senior IT professionals are not underqualified.
They're undershaped.

One person learns how to shape their hidden gold, how to present their experience in a way the market actually pays a premium for.

The other stays as raw material.

We grew up being told:
Keep your head down.
Do good work.
The rest will follow.

Our parents said it. Their parents said it.
It worked for a world where loyalty was rewarded, and tenure meant promotion.

That world is gone.

In today's Australian IT market, the market doesn't reward the hardest worker in the room.

It rewards the one who is best positioned.

Your experience alone does not multiply your value.

Refinement does.
And most people are never shown how.

That’s why some professionals stay invisible for 10 years…
while others become the obvious hire in 10 weeks.

You may already be sitting on career gold.

But right now, it still looks like scrap metal to the market.

That’s the gap I help close.

I'm unpacking this live at my 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, a small private virtual session for mid-senior IT professionals who know they have more to offer than their current title, salary, or visibility suggests.

If you're an IC, Manager, or Director in IT and your LinkedIn or resume is underselling you, comment 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 and I'll send you the details.

♻️ Repost for someone whose value is being missed.
🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for senior IT career growth playbooks.

Some companies build careers.
Some quietly break confidence.

A Data Analytics Senior Manager reached out to me earlier this year.

18 years in the industry.
Strong track record.
A stint at Macquarie.

If you know the industry in Australia, you know the nickname:

The Millionaire Factory.

High rewards. High pressure.
And in some pockets, a culture that slowly grinds people down.

He landed in one of those pockets.

By the time he left, he was exhausted.

But that wasn’t his biggest problem.

His biggest worry was the conversation he’d have in every interview.

“How do I explain why I left?”

He’d resigned. The environment had become suffocating.

So I told him:

Don’t lead with why you left.
Lead with what you built.

He went quiet.

Then said:

“I’m not sure I even know what that is right now.
I don’t feel good enough.”

18 years. $220K. And that’s where he was.

This happens to capable people everywhere.

Big 4 banks.
Telcos.
Consulting firms.

The name on the door doesn’t matter.

A toxic pocket.
A restructure.
A layoff.
A PIP.
A promotion that never came.

And slowly the story changes.

From: “I’ve built serious capability.”
To: “Maybe I’m not that impressive.”

But when we unpacked his career, the truth was obvious.

There was serious hidden gold.

Problems he solved that others couldn’t.
Decisions that influenced millions in revenue.
Work that shaped how entire teams operated.

None of it was visible in the way he was telling his story.

So we fixed three things:

→ Extracted the hidden gold from his experience
→ Built a clear value narrative with proof stories
→ Repositioned his LinkedIn and introduction

10 weeks later.

$285K. Top-tier consulting firm.
A $65K jump.

And then came the part he didn’t expect.

They hired him specifically for the work he’d done in that toxic pocket.

The place that broke his confidence 
was the exact reason they wanted him.

He just needed someone to help him see it first.

This week I’m showing exactly how this works. 
Live. Virtual. Small private group setting. Limited Seats.

Real LinkedIn profiles.
Real people.
Real hidden gold uncovered on screen.

Saturday 14th March, 4pm AEST
Thursday 19th March, 5:30pm AEST

If you’re a senior IC, manager, or leader in engineering, product, delivery, or sales:

You know you’ve done serious work.

But you still struggle to explain it in a way the market responds to.

DM me GOLD and I’ll send you the link.

Or grab a seat directly here, if still available:
https://lnkd.in/g8HhDbRn

"We found someone slightly better."

That sentence has ended more careers than bad interviews.

They didn’t choose someone with better skills.
Or a better résumé.
Or better answers.

They chose the person who made them feel certain.

Hiring managers don’t choose from checklists.

They choose from conviction.

Emotion first.
Logic later.

If you leave even a sliver of doubt, you lose.

It doesn’t matter how talented you are.
How many certifications you hold.
How much experience you bring.

What matters is how certain they feel after meeting you.

Here’s what certainty looks like in an interview:

✅ A story they can believe
✅ Outcomes, not activity
✅ Calm authority in the room

Interviews are not talent contests.

They are certainty tests.

The offer doesn’t go to the best candidate.

It goes to the one who removes every doubt.

If they have to think about it…

it’s already a no.

Only certainty wins.

If you’re tired of hearing
“we found someone slightly better” —

Stop competing on paper.

Start commanding the room.

📌 I’m running a free live session this month:
Hidden Gold — Live LinkedIn Profile Breakdown (Senior IT)

If your 15+ years of experience is buried under generic language,
I’ll show you exactly how to fix it live.

DM GOLD and I’ll send the invite.

♻️ Repost if this felt a little too real
🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for career strategy that turns experience into leverage

The hardest part of a career setback isn’t losing the job.
It’s losing the version of yourself you believed in.

I’ve seen this happen to senior IT professionals with 18, 20, even 25 years of experience.

Senior Managers.
Principal Engineers.
Solution Architects.
Directors.

People who’ve built teams from scratch.
Delivered programs worth tens of millions.
Kept entire organisations running.

Then something happens.

A toxic pocket inside the company.
A layoff.
A restructure.
Three years of being passed over.
A PIP that quietly signals the end.

And suddenly the question appears:

“𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐈’𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭.”

That’s when the panic kicks in.

Another certification.
An MBA.
An AI course.
Posting “Open to Work.”
Applying everywhere.

𝐈𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭.

Because the real problem isn’t more activity.

It’s that most senior professionals never learned how to find the gold in their own experience and explain it in a way the market understands.

So when someone asks, “𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟,” they give a career timeline.

And 20 years of real value stays buried.

I’ve seen capable people without job for 12, even 18 months.

Not because they lacked value, but because they were trying to solve a positioning problem with more activity.

That’s exactly what I’m showing live this week.

Real LinkedIn profiles.
Real people.
Real hidden gold found on screen, in front of you.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟓:𝟑𝟎𝐩𝐦 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓
𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟒𝐩𝐦 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓

If you’re a senior IC, manager, or leader in IT who knows you’ve done a lot but can’t explain it in a way the market responds to, DM me 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃.

I’ll send you the link to join live, if seats are still available.

𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐈𝐓.

Not your manager.
Not your performance reviews.
Not the certifications you collected along the way.

How to find the 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝 in your own experience.

Last week, I was working with a Senior Program Manager at a Big Tech company.

𝟏𝟕 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲.

Led large programs.
Managed complex stakeholders.
Delivered work that affected thousands of users.

Halfway through our conversation, he paused and asked:

“𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐈’𝐦 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥?”

On paper, he clearly was.

And I hear versions of that question all the time.

From Principal Engineers who’ve architected systems used by millions.
From Solution Architects who’ve led transformations worth tens of millions.
From Program Managers who’ve kept entire organisations running.

They all say some version of the same thing:

“𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐈’𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡.”

Here’s the truth.

It’s rarely a capability problem.
It’s a 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦.

Most senior professionals know how to do the work.

But they were never taught how to step back, extract the gold from their experience, and explain it in a way the market values.

So when someone asks, “𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟,” they talk about roles, projects, and responsibilities.

Not the real value they bring.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐚𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞.

It costs people better roles, better pay, and opportunities they were never even considered for.

That’s how incredibly capable people end up sounding ordinary.

That’s exactly what I’m showing live this week.

Real LinkedIn profiles.
Real people.
Real hidden gold found on screen, in front of you.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟓:𝟑𝟎𝐩𝐦 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓
𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟒𝐩𝐦 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓

If you’re a senior IC, manager, or leader in IT who knows you’ve done a lot but can’t explain it in a way the market responds to, 

DM me 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃.

If you’d rather check the details quietly, here’s the link.
https://lnkd.in/g8HhDbRn

If seats are still open, you can grab one there.

21 years in enterprise IT.
His LinkedIn headline said:

Senior Program Manager | ANZ Bank

That’s not positioning.

That’s a business card.

At Saturday’s Hidden Gold roundtable, he sat down and said:

“Roast my profile. I want to know exactly what’s costing me.”

He was targeting Director-level roles.
Doing the work.
Building the capability.

But something was not converting.

So I pulled his profile up live in front of the room.

Here was the problem.

21 years.
Programs worth tens of millions.
Stakeholders at EGM level.

And the first thing the market saw?

A job title.
And an employer.

That’s how most senior IT profiles in Australia still read.

The problem was never his experience.

His profile was missing three signals:

Reputation.
Influence.
Impact.

All three were there.

Buried.
Invisible.
Whispering.

Two minutes later, his headline looked like this:

Senior Program Manager | $80M Core Banking, Product & Cloud Programs | CIO & EGM Engagement | Ex-ANZ, Accenture

Same person.
Same career.
Completely different weight in the market.

Then he asked the real question:

“How do I use this to get mentioned in rooms I’m not in?”

That’s the real game at Director level.

Not just who you know.

But who thinks of you
when the role opens
before it ever gets posted.

That’s what we’re covering this Thursday.

Small room.
Senior IT only.
Real profiles.
Live teardowns.
On screen.

If your profile still reads like a title dump
while you’re already doing Director-level work,

DM me GOLD and I’ll send you the link.

♻️ Repost this for the senior IT pro whose profile undersells them every single day.

🔔 Follow Ehsan Ali for $250K–$400K+ senior IT career playbooks.

A recruiter DM’d you on LinkedIn last month.

You replied.

They went quiet.

So you told yourself:

Maybe the role was filled.
Maybe the timing was off.
Maybe they found someone more senior.

Maybe.

But here’s what more likely happened.

They liked your message.

Then they clicked your profile to validate it.

And what they found
didn’t match the person they had in mind.

So they moved on.

That was last month.

Before Atlassian cut 1,600 jobs globally.

Around 480 of them were in Australia.

Senior engineers.
Architects.
Program managers.
Delivery leads.

They’re updating their LinkedIn profiles right now.

They’re hitting the market right now.

And many of them have one of the strongest tech brands in Australia on their headline.

So that recruiter who went quiet on you last month?

Their inbox just got a lot more crowded.

And most senior IT profiles still look exactly the same:

Job title.
Company name.
Maybe a certification.

But no signal of the scale you operate at.
No signal of the decisions you influence.
No signal of the transformation work you’ve led.

You don’t have a skill problem.

You have a profile that sells you short.

You may be excellent.

But if your profile can’t prove that fast, you disappear.

That’s how good people get overlooked.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is the final Hidden Gold session for March.

Small room.
Senior IT only.

We take real LinkedIn profiles, put them on screen,

and show you, in real time, what the market is actually reading.

Then we fix them.

If you're a senior IC, architect, manager, or leader,
and the market isn't seeing what you're actually worth:

DM me GOLD and I’ll send you the details.

Or grab a seat here if one’s still open:
https://lnkd.in/g8HhDbRn

Last session for March.
Room closes Thursday morning.

This afternoon’s session was meant to finish 30 minutes earlier.

It didn’t.

Nobody wanted to leave.

Not because I was running a presentation.

Because the room got real.

A small engaged group.

Cameras on.
Profiles open.
No hiding behind “I’ll fix it later.”

One person said he doesn’t feel good enough when speaking with senior leaders.

Another said he’s been moving across roles for years but still can’t clearly see what value he should package.

Another had been told for years to focus on keywords, certifications, and job titles.

But the real shift happened when we started pulling apart their profiles live.

Not to make them look prettier.

To find the hidden gold.

The proof.
The pattern.
The value sitting inside years of work that even they had stopped seeing clearly.

One moment stuck with me.

After we unpacked his profile, one participant said he already felt more confident.

That matters.

Because most senior IT professionals don’t need more noise.

They need a better lens.

They need someone to show them:

→ what their experience is actually worth
→ how to position it for the right market
→ how to stop sounding like a job title and start sounding like a solution

That’s why the session ran over.

Not because I had more slides.

Because once people start seeing their value differently, the conversation changes.

One session left. That's it for March.

Thursday 19th March, 5:30pm AEST

If you’re a senior IC, manager, or leader in IT and you know you’ve done serious work but still struggle to explain it in a way the market responds to:

DM me GOLD. I’ll send you the link.

Or if you'd rather check the details quietly:

Open article: Hidden Gold: Live LinkedIn Profile Breakdown - Coach Ehsan by calendly.com

Hidden Gold: Live LinkedIn Profile Breakdown - Coach Ehsan

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