#27 The market isn't the problem

Everyone’s talking about how hard the market is right now.

Tech stocks are down. Hiring feels slower. The headlines make it sound like nobody’s moving.

And yet — in the last 12 months, 10 of my 24 US clients have landed new roles and the rest are still in active searches at various stages.

Same market. Same economy. Same headlines.

So what’s actually going on?

The patterns from inside my practice

I started tracking something simple: time from locked personal brand to accepted offer. Personal brand meaning the point where direction, positioning, and materials are all tight — not just “updated my resume.”

The average across those 10 placements is 4.3 months. At senior levels, six months is a normal timeline — and in this market, plenty of searches stretch well beyond that.

Some moved faster — closing in around three months. Some took closer to seven or eight.

And when I look at what separated the fast movers from the slow ones, it wasn’t seniority. It wasn’t their network size. It wasn’t luck or timing.

It was two things.

One: how clear their personal brand was — and whether their application strategy actually matched it.

The clients who moved in three months had a tight story and were applying to roles where that story made obvious sense. There was a direct line between “here’s what I’m great at” and “here’s why this specific company needs that.”

The clients who took seven or eight months often had impressive track records — they’d built teams, launched products, driven nine-figure outcomes.

But the way they described that work was still anchored in the system where they did it. “I owned the returns strategy” makes perfect sense inside Amazon.

It means nothing to a hiring manager at Stripe.

Same credentials. Same market. Wildly different timelines — based on whether their story had been translated for the places they were actually applying.

Two: whether they were actually networking or just applying.

This is the one nobody wants to hear.

The fast movers weren’t just submitting applications. They were having real conversations with real humans inside their target companies. Not mass outreach. Not “just reaching out to connect.”

Actual, specific conversations where they could articulate why they were interested in this company and what they’d bring.

The slow movers were relying on applications and hoping inbound interest would come from having a strong profile.

Strong profiles help. But they don’t replace the work of reaching out to specific people with a specific reason.

What this means if you’re sitting on the fence right now

The instinct to wait for a better market is understandable.

But the pattern from my own practice suggests that market conditions aren’t the variable that matters most.

Preparation is.

The clients who are landing right now aren’t landing because the market is kind to them. They’re landing because they did the positioning work before they started moving, and then they executed against a tight, specific strategy.

The ones who are struggling aren’t struggling because the market is cruel. They’re struggling because the approach is too broad for the signal to cut through.

Tough markets don’t punish movement. They punish vagueness.

And they actually reward preparation — because when most people pull back, the candidates who show up with clarity and specificity stand out more, not less.

A question worth sitting with

If you’re hesitating to make a move right now because of the market, ask yourself this:

Am I actually waiting for better conditions? Or am I waiting because I haven’t done the preparation that would make me confident enough to move regardless?

Those are very different situations. And only one of them gets better with time.