#39 The bottleneck is almost never where it feels like it is
- Mel Fox Dhar
- May 20
- 2 min read
The people asking for time on my calendar right now are sharing a familiar pattern, so I'm bringing it here.
Senior leaders — Directors, L6s, L7s, Principals — are doing all the recognisable things. Resume updated. LinkedIn refreshed. Applications going out. Coffees and catch-ups happening. And none of it is compounding.
Not because the effort is wrong. Because the language you use to describe what you're good at only works inside the company you're trying to leave.
About 80% of the time, what feels like a resume problem, an interview problem, or a networking problem is actually a foundation problem showing up downstream. The foundation is: who you are, what problem you solve, where you're going next. If that's not legible to someone outside the building, everything built on top of it breaks — and it breaks in ways that look like something else.
Two patterns I see constantly:
→ Getting interviews but not converting. The assumption is that it's an interview prep problem — better stories, sharper examples, more practice. Usually it isn't. The story is perfectly calibrated for someone who already understands Amazon. The scope is there. The rigour is there. But to someone on the other side of the table who's never heard of a WBR or a PRFAQ, it all sounds operational. The seniority is invisible. The strategic altitude doesn't come through. That's not an interview prep problem. That's a translation problem, and it's upstream.
→ Not getting interviews at all. The assumption is that the resume needs rewriting. Usually the LinkedIn reads like an internal promotion doc — impressive to anyone who already knows the system, invisible to anyone who doesn't. Rewriting the resume doesn't fix that. The foundation underneath does.
This is what makes senior searches so disorienting. You're not doing the wrong things. You're doing reasonable things on top of an unclear foundation, so the effort doesn't compound. And from the inside, it just feels like you need to do more of what you're already doing.
One thing worth trying this week: answer these three questions out loud, without editing as you go.
What are you known for?
What problem do you solve?
Where are you going next?
Notice where you get vague, where you reach for internal language, where the answer only makes sense if the listener already knows your company.
That's your starting signal — and it's almost certainly upstream of whatever surface problem you're currently trying to solve.
Ready to Land is open now. We kick off June 11 — six weeks, small group, senior tech leaders making their next move. The work is exactly this: rebuilding the foundation so the rest of your search actually compounds. If you've been doing all the recognisable things and none of it is moving, this is your moment to grab a spot.