#43 You've known since winter
You've known since winter. You updated the resume, had a few conversations, told yourself you'd really get going once the launch shipped, the reorg settled, or some other milestone outside your control arrived.
It's June. You haven't really started.
I don't think that's procrastination, and I don't think it's fear of rejection.
Most senior people I talk to are avoiding something more specific: the length. A senior search runs six to nine months on a good day — no deadline, no scoreboard, no one telling you whether you're on track. You'd be signing up for a project with no defined end, on top of a job that already takes everything you've got.
Of course you keep finding reasons it's not the week to begin.
But the length isn't a sign you're behind, or that you left it too late. Part of it is just structural: there are far fewer director and VP seats than the level below, and they don't turn over often. Smaller pond, bigger fish. No amount of preparation makes those roles appear faster.
The part that's actually in your hands is how much time you pile on top of that floor — and most people pile on a lot. Months of it. They go to market before they're locked down: a fuzzy target, a story that isn't ready, positioning they end up rewriting halfway through after the quiet feedback comes in. The scarce roles, you can't speed up. The churn, you can. And the churn is usually the bigger half of the calendar.
And that absence lands harder for people like us. We run on metrics to hit, milestones to clear, a rating that spells out, twice a year, exactly how you're doing. The search hands you none of it. Nobody tells you if you're doing well, or even doing enough. So the first one isn't just long. It's a kind of not-knowing you've never had to sit in.
Which is exactly why you start now, while you still have cover. A nine-month search is frightening from a standing start, with no salary behind it. It's almost a non-event when you've got a job, a pay check, and time. You have all three this week. That's not a reason to wait — it's the best position you'll ever search from.
One thing to try this week:
stop measuring the search by what you don't control — offers, callbacks, who replied. Pick one input you do control and track only that. Three real conversations a week. Not applications. Conversations. It's the closest thing to a rating you'll get out here, and it's the part that compounds while everything else stays quiet.
If you've been waiting for a good week to start and it keeps not arriving, hit reply and tell me what's actually in the way. I read every one.
Chat soon,
Mel
P.S. The calmest searches I see are run by people who started while they still had somewhere to be on Monday morning. The runway you're trying to protect by waiting is the exact thing that makes the search easy. Don't spend it sitting still.