The 9 Interview Questions You Can Never Ask — But Would Tell You Everything
Written By Nicole Barbano - May 11, 2025
Let’s be honest — the “Tell me about a time when…” interview questions are as old as the Reagan administration and about as useful as a flip phone for taking a picture.
They’re rehearsed, predictable, and they rarely tell you who someone really is. If you’re hiring, managing, looking to level up — or just trying to live with more discipline and grace — it’s time to look beyond the script.
The best indicators of success, leadership, and integrity often show up in the places no one’s asking about — habits, routines, awareness, and how someone moves through everyday life.
These questions are technically off limits — but they’re the ones that would tell you everything.
9 interview questions you can’t ask — but everyone should consider asking themselves.
1. What did the first three hours of your day look like?
Why we’re asking: What happens between 5 and 8 a.m. tells us more than a resume. Movement, reflection, planning, even quiet — it's about showing up for your life with intention. Leaders tend to start early, with structure. Chaos in the morning usually leads to chaos all day.
2. How much money do you have?
Why we’re asking: Show me someone who doesn’t know their finances, and I’ll show you a life falling apart — or one decision away from it. If money can buy happiness, then not knowing where your money is buys misery by the pound. The question isn’t about the number — it’s about awareness. Cash flow, debt, emergency fund, credit utilization, retirement accounts. Do they know where they stand? If someone is leading your organizational budget, they should first know how to lead their own.
3. What’s your retirement strategy?
Why we’re asking: A teenager on TikTok today has more financial literacy than many department heads managing multi-million-dollar budgets. How someone prepares for retirement reflects how they’ll plan for your organization’s long-term goals. We’re looking for specific age goals, investment diversification, and contingency planning. Bonus points if they’re involved in the portfolio.Double bonus points if they’re not deferring the whole retirement plan to a spouse or financial advisor. Leadership isn’t passive. And how people plan their retirement a part from a beach somewhere, someday, speaks volumes about their financial accumen.
4. What’s dinner during the week look like?
Why we’re asking: Is food and nourishment a time for family, conversation, gratitude — no devices, maybe a good book nearby? Or is it mindless eating in front of the TV every night? Or blowing money on eating out? We’re not judging — we’re observing. Because how someone eats reflects how they value time, care for themselves, and show up with presence or detachment. It may sound harsh. Yet, I can look back to my own time of chaos and not meal planning or having family meals is a first domino to other bad decesions.
5. What’s your favorite piece of art, book, or music?
Why we’re asking: The things that move us, shape us. They also reveal how someone expands their world. Are they curious? Are they reading, listening, learning, and reflecting?
In the spirit of Mother’s Day, my favorite piece of art is a still life of flowers by Jan Van Huysum, which I first saw with my mother, Sandra. We were at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She later bought the print and had it beautifully framed for me. It hangs in my home, or sometimes you may see it during a Zoom meeting behind me. It’s a reminder of beauty, memory, and the quiet strength that we pass down through small gestures. (Ask this question and you’ll learn volumes about the other person, I promise).
Having a favorite piece of art, book, song, or movie is something to share and to be inspired by.
“Bouquet Of Flowers In An Urn, 1724 " by Jan Van Huysum
6. Can you give me a ride?
Why we’re asking: Someone’s car tells you who they are when no one is watching. Is it clean? Gas tank full? Windows clear? Or is it a mess of old receipts, wrappers, and burnout?
One of my first clients was a Critical Access Hospital in the foothills of California. I was driving up to meet with the Board for a CEO search, and my mother told me — “Clean your car.” I had three small children and was already fairly tidy, but she was pointed in her direction. I cleaned that car, washed it twice, and even treated the leather. It looked good and smelled even better. It was a proud moment driving up to the hospital.
I arrived, ready to impress. And, as if my Mother knew, the HR Director looked at me and said, “Let’s go meet the Board Chair for lunch before the meeting — can you drive?”
7. I’d love to invite you to tomorrow’s Legacy Ball — it’s semi-formal.
Why we’re asking: Can someone pull it together and show up well, even on short notice? It’s not about having an expensive suit or designer dress— it’s about being presentable, confident, and proper for the occasion. Do you get a haircut before you need it, or when it’s overdue? Being ready to dress up, smile, extend a manicured hand, and hold a conversation with confidence shouldn’t take a day and a pit crew to prepare for. People who take pride in how they leave the house tend to take pride in their work, too.
8. What was the worst part of your last job?
Why we’re asking: Everyone has an answer — it’s how they tell the story that matters. Are they stuck in blame, or do they show growth and insight? Do they see challenges as defining moments or just complaints? Leadership reveals itself in hard seasons, not just on good days.
9. Can I see your phone?
Why we’re asking: Patterns tell a story. What are the last 10 videos they liked? What tone do they use in comments? Are they curious and kind — or angry and opinionated? What apps are they starting and ending their day with? A person’s phone reflects their mind, priorities, and peace. (Taking a look at your own is a great self-check-in.)
The Bottom Line:
These aren’t questions you can ask in a formal interview, but the answers are everywhere if you know where to look.
If you’re hiring, growing, or just trying to be a better human being — pay attention to how people live.
And more importantly, pay attention to how you live.
You don’t need a title to be a leader. You need intention, follow-through, and the courage to live a little better — every single day.
Bad Behavior Is Not a Strategy. It’s a Liability.
It all begins with an idea.
Written By Nicole Barbano - July 15, 2025
There’s a low rumble growing louder in leadership conversations— Can you hear it?
Post-COVID, we clapped. We gave bonuses. We embraced the battle cry of work-life balance.
We expanded HR committees into emotional triage centers. We made room for burnout. We let things slide. We lowered the bar and left it there in many cases. Meanwhile, other organizations and professionals picked up the mantle of hard work and carried it forward.
And now? We’re seeing the cost:
🔹 Missed deadlines and sloppy deliverables
🔹 An absence of appreciation or kindness in our tone
🔹 Less than polite behavior
🔹 Complaining louder than contributing
When Top Performers Get the Same Perks as Low Performers
Every company has top performers. They don’t need constant praise—they want results. What they don’t want is to keep carrying the water for those who won’t show up—or worse, those who do, only to deflect responsibility and avoid the real work.
And then there are the others:
Constantly taking
Consistently avoiding responsibility
Growing more entitled with every quarter
Believing that curt tones, foul language, and 9 a.m. Sunday texts reflect leadership or build morale is a fundamental misunderstanding of both.
I’m not talking about natural ebb and flow. I’m talking about chronic withdrawal, with no deposit.
Eventually, someone says, “Enough.”
And by then, it’s already cost your professional climate in terms of talent, innovation, and revenue.
Your Brain on Bad Behavior
When we avoid hard things—miss deadlines, dodge direct feedback, show up late—our brains experience real chemical shifts.
When we avoid hard things, we activate the amygdala and limbic system, where stress, shame, and the emotional hangover of procrastination take hold.
But when we do the hard things—lead with hard listening, or meet the deadline 48 hours early, review the work one more time, say thank you, or offer to help—we activate the prefrontal cortex. That’s where discipline, motivation, and self-trust live.
Do hard things. On time and with pride. That’s how you build trust—not just with others, but with yourself.
As Dr. Andrew Huberman puts it:
“Dopamine is not about reward. It’s about the pursuit.”
Discipline followed by action. Action followed by consistency. That’s how leaders are built.
You Have Agency. Are You Using It?
Every meeting. Every deadline. Every conversation.
You’re choosing your tone, your time, and goal— Or you’re choosing not to choose, which is still a decision. And, we know the result of that decision.
See content credentials
When we don’t take agency, we:
Complain instead of solving
Avoid instead of communicating
Gossip instead of lead
Procrastinate instead of executing
Alienate others with our lack of appreciation and collaboration
So here’s the real question: When did being accountable, direct, and kind become so rare?
Lessons from Fish, Nurses, and Buc-ee's
Pike Place Market, Seattle – The first stop after my Dad picked me up at SeaTac when I would visit him in Seattle. The fishmongers weren’t just throwing salmon. They were throwing joy, standards, and a shared mission. That energy became the FISH! Philosophy (2000):
Choose your attitude
Be present
Make their day
Play
Valley Children’s Hospital, Madera, California – my first job in healthcare recruitment. The CNO and RN leaders were working toward Magnet designation. The excitement was invigorating. They were accessible, gracious, and efficient. I learned lessons from that group that I still talk about today.
Buc-ee’s, Texas – Last Christmas, Justin and I did a road trip from Nashville to Los Angeles to visit clients and friends along the way. While traveling through the Southwest, Buc-ee's was a lesson on consistent, high-production professionalism at every stop. If you ever have an opportunity to hire anyone who has worked at Buc-Eee's for any position in your organization, do it now. They will probably have your job by next year!
Kindness, consistency, and competency aren’t radical. They should be the standard.
Five Questions to Ask Yourself
If you're not sure how bad behavior is showing up in your organization, start here:
Do I dread getting emails from someone at work, or do I send emails that others dread to read?
Are deadlines routinely missed without consequence? Am I missing deadlines or allowing others to do it?
Are hard conversations avoided because the reaction “isn’t worth it”? Am I taking things too personally or too afraid to speak up because of how someone might react?
Is back channelling tolerated and direct conversations avoided? Anytime someone says, let me call Bob and get back to you- It should be, let's get Bob on the phone and sort this out.
Are meetings unproductive, and no one’s willing to fix it? Am I leading lousy meetings or showing up and just "going with the flow?"
Start with awareness. End with accountability. This isn’t about perfection—it’s about ownership.
You’re either allowing bad behavior, participating in it, or modeling it. Often, it’s a mix of all three.
Or—you could be the one to raise the standard.
The organizations that thrive are led by those who hold the line, not with slogans, but with standards. Standards that build trust, drive performance, and establish a professional environment where results and respect coexist.
Because bad behavior isn’t a strategy. And no organization can afford to normalize it.
The Great Step Back™: A Strategic Realignment
It all begins with an idea.
Written By Nicole Barbano - June 21, 2025
The Great Step Back™ is not a retreat, nor is it a rejection of ambition. It’s a deliberate, high-agency movement reshaping how people approach work, wealth, and well-being.
Mischaracterized as early retirement or a Gen Z quirk, this shift is neither a pause nor a protest—it’s a plan. It’s about redefining success on terms that prioritize clarity, control, long-term impact, and most importantly, opportunity.
The Core of the Movement: Agency Over Autopilot
High earners—executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs—are stepping back from systems that no longer serve them. They’re rejecting:
Broken compensation models that reward presence over performance. Someday, this model of compensation will be taught by future thought leaders as one of the tipping points and culturally criminal mistakes of modern times.
The notion of rewarding mere attendance, akin to meeting KPIs, echoes the flawed practices of Soviet-era Russia, where effort and results were disconnected from rewards.
History shows this model was unsustainable and ineffective. We pay people the same amount of money for doing the same job without accountability for productivity. And, we wonder why people are leaving the traditional work model?
Titles tethered to unsustainable demands—3 AM Slack pings, PTO that, when taken, turns punitive upon returning to the office, the expectations to onboard and perform in remote organizations without onboarding and rituals, and cultures that penalize excellence while shielding mediocrity.
The myth of "more is better", opting instead for curated careers that align with their values, earning goals, investment strategies and experiences.
Embracing self-imposed austerity to build a portfolio that enables opportunity, choices and calm. Living well belone one's means and thriving in the downsized feeling like you've just won the golden ticket.
This isn’t about working less; it’s about working better. It’s a calculated realignment, driven by those who recognize that time, not money, is the ultimate currency.
A Philosophical Anchor: Lessons from Atlas Shrugged
In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the world’s essential contributors—engineers, innovators, builders—walk away from a system that exploits their competence. They don’t leave in anger but with clarity and quiet, choosing to create value on their terms.
The Great Step Back™ echoes this ethos, though less dramatically. High earners and our emerging ambitious aren’t vanishing; they’re recalibrating. They’re producing—quietly, sustainably, and with precision—outside the confines of outdated structures.
The Portfolio Career: The New Blueprint
As Professor Lynda Gratton of London Business School noted, the future of work lies in portfolio careers—dynamic, multi-stream professional lives that reject linear ladders and rigid retirement timelines. High earners are embracing this model, asking not “What’s my next job?” but “What’s my next stream?”
In practice, this could look like:
Consulting 20 hours a week for an established organization or a local start-up.
Leading a local organization's marketing strategy.
Providing fractional leadership for reduced compensation and a robust health and retirement plan.
Mentoring emerging leaders or building a SaaS side project.
Training for a marathon or summering in Scotland, all while maintaining a high level of earnings in tandem with the new standards of austerity.
Their lifestyles reflect this clarity:
Living in a modest "starter" home, rejecting the “house on the hill” status trap.
Choosing mortgages that align with lean, intentional budgets. Mortgage payments that resemble car payments. Instead of a mortgage that resembles a luxury vacation.
Superfunding 529 plans to secure their children’s futures instead of funding every extracurricular activity and gadget.
Trading the part-time job block of hours you're spending on social media for fitness and learning.
The Healthcare Exodus: A Case Study
The Great Step Back™ is already reshaping industries. A 2023 Morning Consult study found that 27% of healthcare workers (this is not limited to RN's) plan to exit the field, driven not by fear of automation (McKinsey predicts 30% of revenue cycle roles will be automated by 2030) but by exhaustion with inefficiency and rigid models. (Let that sink in if you work in revenue cycle or finance.)
The sharpest minds are stepping back now—not to retire, but to build smarter solutions, from telehealth ventures to consulting practices that leverage their expertise without the grind.
Redefining Work: A Challenge for Employers
For organizations, The Great Step Back™ demands a reckoning. High earners are no longer swayed by vague promises of “flexibility” or flashy titles. Smart and the much-needed entry-level worker is not dazzled by "opportunity" when they are risking their lives trying to punch a clock on time because childcare is an hour away, or they are subject to the bad manners of a worn-out leader.
Rewriting the job description:
Is this role a 1099 contract, a 20-hour portfolio project, or a 60-hour leadership commitment?
Does the PTO policy respect the role’s demands?
Can the work be done asynchronously, or outside the 8–5 desk-bound model?
And, eventually...Create a compensation model based on productivity, not title.
Even in fixed-schedule fields like nursing or law enforcement, innovation is possible—smarter shift designs, autonomy within structure, or incentives that reward impact over hours. Clinging to outdated control mechanisms risks alienating the talent that drives results and is necessary to sustain our communities.
The Social Media Trap: Keeping Up with the Joneses. (Is it time to move?)
The phrase comes from a 1913 comic strip titled Keeping Up with the Joneses by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand. In the strip, the characters constantly try to keep pace with their neighbors—the unseen "Jones" family—who are always one step ahead.
The average adult spends 2 hours and 23 minutes daily on social media, over 16 hours a week consuming curated lives that fuel comparison. Even if you spend half of that time scrolling, it's the equivalent of letting twenty-dollar bills fly through the air. Because that kind of self-imposed time theft in the battle cry of self-care and me-time will cost you in compensation, intelligence, and poor health outcomes at some point in the future.
The (proverbial) Joneses (and yes, they are horrible people), with their performative wealth and endless highlight reels, are not your friends.
They’re not building community or showing up for the messy or joyful, or boring human moments that matter. They aren't inviting you over for Friday dinner and meaningful conversations.
High earners and those who earn are stepping back are choosing life over likes:
Dinners without phones.
Work that respects their time.
A dedication to the 4F's - First, (that would be yourself), Fitness, Finances, Family.
Weekends that restore rather than recover.
Never looking to retirement after creating a 100-year career on their terms.
This shift isn’t minimalism; it’s discernment—curating time and energy for what delivers real value.
The Executive’s Breaking Point
In executive coaching, the refrain is universal: “I’m done. I want something different. I'm tired of the politics. The sacrifice isn't worth the lifestyle. I want my time back."
Done with late nights, moving targets, and unspoken expectations. Done with 70-hour weeks masquerading as “flexible.” Done with relocating families for a title and a 9 PM call that was more of a complaint and a criticism.
This isn’t quitting—it’s clarity. It’s the moment high earners realize they don’t need everything they’ve been told to chase. Less becomes more when it’s the right less.
The Great Step Back™ in Action
This movement is about:
Doing more of what matters: High-impact work, meaningful relationships, personal growth.
Doing less of what drains: Bureaucracy, status games, performative busyness.
Saving more, spending smarter: Building wealth without lifestyle inflation. Opting for experiences over momentary purchases.
Asking better questions: What am I building, and who is it for?
It’s a sign of relief, a recognition that success doesn’t require exhaustion.
Your Next Move
For high earners and the motivated, The Great Step Back™ is both a personal strategy and a competitive edge. Audit your:
Career path: Does it align with your 4 F’s™?
Organization: Are you enabling or stifling agency?
Team structure: Do job descriptions reflect reality?
Finances: Are you saving and investing with intention?
Schedule: Is it designed for impact or inertia?
For leaders, this is a recruitment advantage—a chance to build teams that attract the best by offering clarity, flexibility, compensation based on productivity, not title, and respect for time. For individuals, it’s a blueprint for a life that works now, not in 30 years.
The Great Step Back™ is happening—quietly, powerfully, and on purpose. It’s not a luxury; it’s leadership. Join the movement, and redefine what success means for you.
Mastering Measurable Success: How KPIs Drive Executive Excellence
It all begins with an idea.
Written By Nicole Barbano - May 25, 2025
In a world reshaped by AI, evolving work models, and economic volatility, executive leaders face unrelenting pressure to deliver results. At Hunter Ambrose International, we’ve built our reputation on a singular conviction: know your numbers, and you’ll know your future. For over two decades, our firm has placed emerging and transformative leaders who leverage Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to navigate complexity and drive measurable impact.
My early career experiences at KForce and Aya Healthcare—brief but formative—instilled a KPI-driven mindset that still informs how we lead, hire, and partner with clients. In today’s environment, that mindset is not optional. Organizations that measure what matters will not only survive, but grow and lead.
The Power of a KPI Culture
Since 2020, the dominant workplace conversation has focused on culture, burnout, work-life balance, and flexibility. Important topics—but we’ve overcorrected.
Culture only counts when you know your numbers, because no organization can claim a strong culture if it can’t meet payroll.
It’s time to talk about the work again. Not abstractly. Not in theory. But in practical, quantifiable terms.
At Hunter Ambrose, our KPI framework is built around 7 core pillars:
Client Acquisition & Retention
Search Execution
Candidate Engagement
Revenue & Performance
Operational Efficiency
Marketing & Brand Awareness
Community Impact & Global Engagement
Question? How many of your employees know your organizational KPIs or their own?
The KPI-Driven Leader
Our executive search process is grounded in identifying leaders who don’t just perform—they measure.
We ask:
How do you define success?
What metrics guide your day, week, and quarter?
How do you measure what matters?
The answers convey a story of learning, leading, and results. KPI-driven leaders display clarity, discipline, and humility. They know their strengths—and more importantly, they know what they don’t know. This is what makes someone the smartest person in the room.
Great leaders and high-caliber human beings don’t wait for conferences or high-priced consultants to lay the groundwork.
They make the call: I will know my numbers.
They commit: I will plan my work based on the metrics that define success.
It’s a mindset shift—and it happens in a moment. If you’re willing to get uncomfortable and admit your KPI structure may need rebuilding, you’ve already taken the first step.
Launching or Reviving Your KPI Culture?
If your organization isn’t KPI-focused, ask why. And then, more importantly, fix it. Here’s a practical action plan to get started:
Set a KPI Alignment Meeting for your team within the next week. If your KPIs are unclear or outdated, ask team members to reflect over the weekend: How are they spending their time? What’s working? What’s not?
Use AI to generate a baseline. Input a calendar export, job description, and company goals into a prompt-based AI tool. The output can provide a starting KPI set. A legitimate KPI initiative is data-driven.
Reverse engineer from your promise. If your role promises revenue growth, client trust, or operational performance, map backward from that promise to define measurable activity. Your calendar should have time blocks to reflect your KPI's.
Know your numbers, and you’ll know where to pivot.
5 questions to build a robust KPI culture:
What are your department’s top 3–5 goals this quarter? Align every team to these priorities.
What specific metrics support each goal, and who owns them? Ensure clear accountability.
What does a successful day, week, or month look like for each team member? Define tangible benchmarks.
How often are KPIs reviewed, revised, and tied to business outcomes? Keep them dynamic and relevant.
Are your KPIs visible, understood, and motivating—or just a checklist? Inspire action through clarity. Post, track, update, adjust, achieve, celebrate.
Know your numbers, and you’ll know where to pivot.
From Insight to Action
At Hunter Ambrose International, we believe the leaders who make the most lasting impact are those who bring clarity, curiosity, and a strong command of their performance metrics. These are the qualities we look for—and expect—when identifying executive talent.
Too often, hiring decisions are made based on credentials alone. But resumes don’t reveal how someone thinks, how they measure success, or how they adapt. That’s why we ask the hard questions—the ones tied to results.
Whether you're leading a healthcare system, a startup, or a private investment office, the principle is the same:
If you don’t know your numbers, you can’t lead through change. It's time to lead the KPI conversation.
The culture conversations have been had. Now it’s time to turn intention into execution. Start by knowing what matters. And measure it.
Does Anyone See the Iceberg Ahead?
It all begins with an idea.
Written By Nicole Barbano - May 17, 2025
Picture this…
It’s Monday morning, and we’re on the deck of a luxurious cruise ship, drink in hand, casual conversation, sliding the shuffleboard puck with a nonchalant “everything’s fine.” And, you know it's not.
The band plays on—self-care workshops, DEI buzzwords, and LinkedIn posts dripping with “you’re amazing” vibes. It feels good…
Meanwhile, dead ahead, an iceberg looms: the erosion of purpose, execution, and accountability in our work.
We've been sailing straight for it since 2022 (or perhaps pre-2020), ignoring the warnings, which have been infrequent at best.
The top business publications in the U.S. have been complicit -
As we all have perhaps… Churning out feel-good fluff. While once-thriving companies are paying the price. It’s time to drop the drink, grab the wheel, and course-correct before we crash.
These are rough approximations due to data limitations.
Estimated Percentages by Publication- Click to view graph
Above are the estimated percentages of articles in each category, based on the publication’s focus, audience, and available evidence.
Except for a few publications, the focus on everything but doing great, high-caliber work should sound an alarm across every company in the United States.
Where are the playbooks for getting work done?
The Drift Away from Work
This isn’t an anti-everything article. This is about work—the kind that keeps companies alive. Cultures become a dirty word, a catch-all for extras like DEI and work-from-home perks that mean nothing if your organization can’t pay its bills, make payroll, or innovate.
From 2022 to 2025, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company dedicated 30–55% of their articles to DEI, workplace culture, remote work, and empathy.
While only 25–50% focused on productivity, project management, efficiency, or fiscal stewardship. These outlets, our supposed guides, have fed us fluff over substance. (And our meeting agendas and performative posts have been in lock step.)
Where are the playbooks for getting work done?
For building systems that don’t buckle under vague promises or endless Slack threads? We’re drowning in “self-care” manifestos but starving for execution and thirty for results.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers showed how mitigation communication (polite failures to challenge authority, instead of direct communication speaking in facts, not feelings), quite literally, crashes planes.
Most workplaces aren’t cockpits, but the stakes are real. We nod to impossible deadlines, planning the weekend while half listening, and take on projects we can’t deliver, because we don’t ask for the tools or know what tools we need. We dodge hard truths to seem “empathetic.” We let people coast because they are close to retirement, and asking them to do their job better would be “too much.” That is not leadership. It’s an academic description of co-dependency.
The result? At best, failure. At worst, a dangerous optimism rooted in wishful thinking rather than a disciplined, strategic plan executed with precision, on time, and within budget.
Even more concerning? Strong organizations with vision, purpose, and talented people are being forced to close their doors. Not from lack of potential, but from a lack of execution.
Companies that once led their industries are now scraping by because we’ve prioritized feelings over results.
Teams burn out, targets are missed, and accountability’s a ghost that slipped around the corner.
The Grown-Ups Are Done
This week, Jamie Dimon, the forthright CEO of JPMorgan, underscored a critical disconnect: corporate rhetoric has become increasingly detached from reality. The Wall Street Journal, in its May 2025 report, echoes this sentiment, highlighting a widening rift between executives and employees over workplace culture that has drifted far from effective execution. (Links for both below).
Initiatives such as remote work, unlimited paid time off, and equity grants—once heralded as catalysts for productivity—have, in many cases, fostered complacency among a significant portion of the workforce. The promise of flexibility and fairness has not translated into the expected gains, leaving many organizations struggling to maintain momentum.
In the realm of retained search, true leadership recruitment demands agility. We must pivot swiftly and evaluate candidates not merely on their resumes but against the real-world complexities of the roles they are poised to assume.
Can they map revenue cycles? Define an AI policy? Lead an Agile sprint or construct a GANTT chart? Pitch a new client? Complete great work before the deadline? These are no longer niche competencies—they are the new baseline for leadership.
Equally critical is discerning whether a candidate seeks a portfolio career or a traditional one, and which aligns best with our clients’ needs.
Understanding a candidate’s or employee’s current SEC proposition—whether they are focused on saving, earning, or creating (or all three) is essential. And as leaders, we must also reflect on our own SEC proposition to keep our seats at the head of the table.
The retained recruitment industry, meanwhile, is expanding at a pace reminiscent of speculative markets, with new firms proliferating and offering unsustainably low fees alongside compromised standards. This is a stark departure from the profession’s storied past, where it played a pivotal role in assembling the brightest minds for monumental endeavors like the Manhattan Project during World War II. Today, much of the industry has devolved into transactional, contingency-driven practices marked by inconsistent execution. Even within retained search, misaligned expectations among vendors, clients, and candidates often result in a lack of cohesive alignment, undermining the ability to deliver sustainable results in an era that demands mutual honesty of skills, vision, and deliverables.
Regrettably, LinkedIn has evolved into a platform dominated by self-aggrandizement, ambiguous leadership platitudes, political discourse, and melodramatic narratives of being “overwhelmed yet thriving”—all of which eclipse substantive discussions on strategy and results.
While LinkedIn offers valuable tools, such as its newsletter publishing feature, there is a pressing need to recalibrate its algorithm away from the superficial dynamics reminiscent of other social media platforms.
In contrast, X has seen its membership surge by 40% in 2024, outpacing LinkedIn. This shift reflects X’s emphasis on authentic, unfiltered ideas over polished, curated statements.
Consequently, those driving revenue and managing lean organizations are gravitating toward platforms that prioritize substantive work over superficial noise.
Over 400 million people apply for jobs across LIZ (LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter) each month, while less than 7 million people start a new job in the United States.
The Job Market’s Wake-Up Call
The U.S. labor market remains a dynamic engine of opportunity, with approximately 6.5 million Americans transitioning into new roles each month—a testament to its resilience and vitality.
Yet, this number is dwarfed by the sheer volume of job applications submitted monthly, estimated at over 400 million across LIZ (LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter. And, statistically,80% of those who find a new job don’t find it on a job board. The amount of time wasted on applying for jobs by people who have a job, and worse, those who need a job but aren’t finding one, is nothing short of tragic.
For those already employed, this reality demands a shift in perspective. Do not contribute to the noise of undirected ambition. Instead, focus on excelling in your current role, where true value is created. Engage with purpose: seek out challenging assignments, invest in continuous learning, and demonstrate leadership through action.
Treat your current position as the cornerstone of your career trajectory, not merely a stepping stone. Your organization depends on your full commitment, not on your distracted pursuit of the next opportunity.
In an era where companies prioritize results and accountability, your dedication to mastery and execution will set you apart.
It will not only secure your place but also position you for future advancement when the right moment arrives.
True professional growth is not measured by the number of applications sent but by the depth of impact made in your current role.
What is your ideal outcome?
The Iceberg Is Here—Let’s Shift to Action
The iceberg—complacency, distraction, and a lack of accountability—isn’t on the horizon anymore. It’s at the bow. Whether you're new to a role or a seasoned leader, the grace period is over. Organizations are under pressure, and survival now hinges on focused execution, not commentary.
If you want to stand out, start with what’s in your control.
Build a reading list that sharpens your critical thinking.
Volunteer for the hard project. Ask your leader directly: “Where’s our biggest gap—and how can I help close it?”
Learn to run a project, whether it's Agile or a Google doc. Became a master project manager - There are amazing tools, most free, as a solid starting point.
Understand your department’s numbers and find ways to improve the KPI’s and the bottom line.
Train your team on AI for measurable results, not because it’s trending.
Talk to strangers. At least three each week.
Act like your competition is right next to you—because they are.
Talk to your boss. Ask them where they see opportunity for you, and what support you need to get there.
Be honest about where you're stuck. And when someone gives you feedback or direction, treat it like the gift it is.
The grown-ups—clients, managers, and the high performers holding things together—are no longer interested in noise. They want outcomes.
This week, this month—show up like your future depends on it. Because it does.