The Job Hunting Podcast

Episode 347 - Years of experience do not always translate into a convincing interview. I explore how to make your expertise clearer, prepare without sounding scripted, and recognize when interviewer bias is part of the problem.

A professional can spend 25 years becoming good at their work and still struggle to explain that work in a job interview. Asked about a difficult decision, they begin with the organizational history, describe the stakeholders, explain the constraints, and eventually reach the decision itself. By then, the interviewer may have stopped following. The candidate leaves knowing they had more to offer than the conversation revealed.

I see versions of this problem in my coaching practice. Experienced professionals often assume that preparation means finding more examples, anticipating more questions, and making sure nothing important is left out. Yet the difficulty is frequently one of selection: deciding what another person needs to understand, and making that understanding possible within a few minutes. More experience provides more material, but it does not automatically provide a clearer answer.

This was the challenge I wanted to explore with communication and vocal coach Helen von Dadelszen, whose background includes HR and recruitment. Our conversation raised a question that matters to candidates and employers alike: how much of what we call competence in an interview is actually the ability to communicate competence? Improving that ability can help someone progress. Confusing it with the whole of their professional value can lead employers to overlook capable people.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Why great professionals struggle to say what they have done
• 01:15 Competence or communication: what recruiters should separate
• 03:49 Habit 1: Putting your whole career into one answer
• 07:47 Habits 2 and 3: A flat tone and a blank face
• 12:26 Neurodivergence and masking: should you tell the panel?
• 15:05 Habit 4: Rushing and mumbling, and the one-line fix
• 18:09 Laid off and doubting yourself: where to start
• 20:33 When interviewer bias is real (and what you control)
• 26:57 What executive presence really is
• 29:16 Habit 5: Trailing off, and the four-step PREP fix
• 33:05 Speaking up in meetings without sounding unsure
• 39:58 The one thing to do before any important conversation
• 42:04 Will AI make you a worse communicator?

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Book a Career Consultation with me to prep for your job interview
• Helen Von Dadelszen’s website
• Helen’s book
• Helen’s LinkedIn profile
• Helen’s YouTube Channel

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 346 - As AI reshapes the workplace, experienced professionals face a new challenge: combining decades of expertise with emerging technological capabilities. Professor Jon Whittle explains why successful AI adoption depends on much more than technology, and what professionals over 40 can do to remain competitive.

Artificial intelligence is changing how organizations operate, what employers expect, and how professionals demonstrate their value. For experienced workers, the challenge is not to abandon decades of expertise, but to learn how to apply it in a workplace being redesigned around AI.

For professionals in their 40s, 50s and 60s, the conversation about artificial intelligence has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Every week brings another prediction about disappearing jobs, another announcement about AI agents performing sophisticated tasks, or another company explaining how technology will allow it to operate with fewer employees. For people who have spent decades building expertise, professional relationships and a reputation for delivering results, the uncertainty raises a legitimate concern: how much of that accumulated experience will employers value in five or ten years?

As a career coach working primarily with experienced corporate professionals, I see how this uncertainty affects people's confidence. Some are already looking for work after redundancy, while others are considering whether their current roles will remain relevant. Many understand that they need to learn about AI but are unsure what meaningful proficiency looks like, particularly when their professional strengths have traditionally been leadership, strategy, communication and organizational judgment rather than technology.

I recently revisited this question with Jon Whittle, an AI expert with more than three decades of experience, a former senior leader at CSIRO's Data61, and now a professor at Melbourne Business School. When we first spoke earlier this year, I was considerably more concerned about AI's implications for careers than he was. Several months later, despite significant advances in the technology, his position had not fundamentally changed.

What emerged from our conversation was a more useful way to think about career resilience. The biggest challenge for experienced professionals may not be that AI makes their expertise obsolete, but that employers increasingly expect them to combine that expertise with capabilities they have not yet developed. This is an important distinction because it shifts the conversation from defending an existing career to actively shaping its next stage.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 0:00 Is AI really coming for your job?
• 1:04 The AI veteran who never expected this in his lifetime
• 4:44 More worried than earlier this year?
• 7:02 Why AI companies are asking to be regulated
• 9:54 The “uniquely human” skills AI is already eroding
• 14:52 Leading AI with imposter syndrome
• 18:31 50-something with a strong career? Start here
• 23:40 Why 80% of AI success isn’t technical
• 29:48 What not to do, and why a gap helps
• 33:56 What 60 Minutes missed about AI and hiring
• 40:28 Why 200 applications get you nowhere
• 46:34 Why an AI professor now posts every day
• 50:56 He left a 1,000-person role, with no website
• 54:43 Don’t build the website first

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Book
• Podcast
• Jon Whittle’s Substack: Being Human in an AI World
• 60 Minutes Australia Investigation into AI in Recruitment60 Minutes Australia Investigation into AI in Recruitment
• Reset Your Career
• Podcast episode 311 with Leanne Brannigan: When the Recruiter Becomes The Candidate

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 345 - After decades of work, many experienced professionals can describe what they have done but struggle to explain why it matters now. This episode explores how understanding your value, rather than relying on titles, credentials and experience alone, can change the way you approach job searches, career transitions and the next stage of your working life.

One of the hardest career questions for an experienced professional should, in theory, be one of the easiest: What is your value?

After 20, 25, or 30 years of work, there is plenty of evidence to draw from. You have qualifications, projects, promotions, difficult problems solved, teams led, budgets managed, relationships built, and lessons learned the hard way. Yet in my work as a career coach, I regularly meet accomplished professionals who struggle to explain why any of this should matter to the person sitting across from them in a job interview.

The problem is rarely a lack of experience. More often, they have confused experience with value.

That distinction became the central idea in my recent conversation with Helen Palmer, creator of value(x) hub and the broader Self unLimited approach to working life. Helen argues that value is not a fixed characteristic we accumulate over a career. It is contextual, plural and dynamic. What one employer prizes, another may barely notice. What mattered enormously to us professionally at 35 may matter considerably less at 55.

“Value is in the eye of the beholder,” Helen told me.

For experienced professionals, this idea is more challenging than it first appears. It means that having impressive credentials, a senior title, or a long track record does not automatically make our contribution relevant to the next opportunity. It also means we cannot outsource the work of interpreting our experience to employers and expect them to reach the conclusion we hoped for.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Why capable people can't describe their value
• 00:50 Twenty years of friendship, and one question about value
• 03:54 Value vs values: what value literacy means
• 06:07 Why time for money is nobody's real value exchange
• 08:33 Value you create for your employer vs value for you
• 14:10 "My boss doesn't value it": value is in the eye of the beholder
• 17:51 What your old credential tells the person reading your application
• 19:47 "I'm an accountant" is a feature, not your value
• 23:11 Why most value proposition statements fall flat
• 24:11 Months without interviews: do you still value the work?
• 26:37 You don't need passion from every job (the workscape)
• 31:11 When what you value changes in your 50s
• 32:50 The value exchange ledger, and why you time-box it
• 39:22 When your identity is welded to your job title
• 42:18 "You should stay": leaving when there's nothing left to give
• 44:53 Seeing your career in eras, and grieving the old one
• 49:54 Break the egg: Helen's advice if you're unsure what's next
• 51:21 Where to find Helen

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Understanding “workscape”
• Value-literacy
• Helen Palmer’s LinkedIn profile

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 344 - Career change after 40 does not have to mean abandoning everything you have built. In this conversation with Kate Dillon, we explore portfolio careers, small career experiments, transferable career capital and how to create more professional options without making an unnecessary leap.

There is a particular kind of career dissatisfaction I see frequently among experienced professionals. They are successful by conventional measures. They have seniority, expertise, a respectable salary and two or three decades of professional history behind them. Yet increasingly, they feel uneasy about the idea that the next ten or fifteen years of their working life should look much like the last ten or fifteen.

The problem is that many people interpret this uneasiness as evidence that something dramatic needs to happen. They imagine leaving their employer, retraining completely, launching a consultancy, buying a business or finally pursuing the idea they have been quietly carrying around for years. Then reality intervenes. There is a mortgage, children at university, aging parents, a lifestyle built around a certain income, and a professional reputation that took a long time to establish.

This is where the conversation about career change can become unnecessarily binary. Stay or leave. Corporate career or entrepreneurship. Employment or consulting. Security or freedom.

My conversation with Australian lawyer, strategist and entrepreneur Kate Dillon offered a much more useful possibility: perhaps the next stage of an experienced professional's career does not require abandoning what came before. It may instead involve building outward from it.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The myth that you have to pick a lane
• 02:47 How she built a portfolio career (it wasn’t planned)
• 06:31 The loss and public failure that freed her
• 10:35 Planner or not? Vision without a rigid plan
• 14:34 Why she built a business without quitting her job
• 21:06 The smallest experiment before you leap
• 25:35 Who to talk to (and the boss conversation to have)
• 31:31 The money question no one warns you about
• 37:02 “What do people pay you for?” and why you never start from scratch
• 41:30 AI, and the hardest skill: unlearning
• 47:02 Your next 12 months: where to start

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Kate’s diagnostics
• Find my talents TalentPredix strenghts assessment
• Book Mentioned: Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield
• Episode 121 - Impostor Syndrome and Fear of Success
• Episode 242 - The Role of Business Intelligence (BQ), Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and Social Intelligence (SQ) in Career Advancement
• Episode 287 - Hiring Makes No Sense Anymore: Why Recruitment and Hiring Feel Like a Burden and How Leaders Can Fix Them
• Episode 288 - How to Job Hunt During the Mid-Year Slowdown

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 243 - Salary is one of the most uncomfortable parts of the job search, especially when employers ask for expectations early in the process. In this episode, compensation consultant Matt McFarlane explains how companies think about pay, salary bands, job titles, negotiation, and what experienced professionals need to understand before naming a number.

Few moments in a job search create as much discomfort as the salary question. It often appears too early, too bluntly, and too impersonally. A candidate is completing an online application, still unsure whether the role is a genuine fit, and suddenly a form asks for salary expectations or current compensation. For experienced professionals, especially those in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, that question can feel less like an administrative step and more like a trap.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 0:00 The question that traps every job applicant
• 0:47 Why nobody wants to talk about salary
• 1:56 What employers really do with your number
• 7:02 A smarter way to answer the salary question
• 9:42 How companies build your pay package
• 14:38 Why the top of the band is rarely offered
• 18:21 Job titles, ego, and what they cost you
• 22:29 Why startups hand out titles instead of money
• 25:23 What startup hiring gets wrong (and right)
• 30:55 The client who wrote his own job description
• 34:07 Do employers expect you to negotiate?
• 38:57 What you can negotiate besides salary
• 39:47 Who fixes broken pay structures
• 42:49 Inside the Startup People Summit
• 44:34 Ask Matt your questions on LinkedIn

Links mentioned in this episode:

• LinkedIn profile, Matt McFarlane
• Watch the Replay of the Startup People Summit 2026
• FNDN’s website (Matt’s business)
• Podcast episode about salary negotiation (245)
• Podcast episode with startup founder Alex Naoumidis (47)
• Podcast episode with startup Chief People Officer, Emily Zhang (191)

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 342 - What if confidence isn’t the thing holding you back? I’m sharing what I’m seeing in the job market right now, from executive presence and relatability to why being more human may be your biggest advantage in the age of AI.

Confidence has become one of the most common explanations experienced professionals give me when their careers stall.

“I need to be more confident.”

“I’ve lost my confidence.”

“I don’t think I come across confidently enough in interviews.”

I hear versions of these statements every week from people with 15 or 20+ years of professional experience. They have managed teams, delivered complex projects, advised executives and built careers that demonstrate considerable competence. Yet when they enter a job search or begin aiming for a more senior role, confidence suddenly becomes the diagnosis. Increasingly, I think we may be diagnosing the wrong problem.

The professionals who stand out today are not necessarily the people projecting the greatest certainty. Often, they are the ones who communicate with enough self-awareness to be credible, enough courage to be visible and enough humanity to be memorable. And in an employment market increasingly saturated with AI-assisted communication, those qualities may become considerably more valuable.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 0:00 The new luxury is not using AI
• 1:06 Why today is off-script
• 2:49 Three things I can't stop noticing
• 4:18 Why relatable beats confident
• 8:21 Confidence is overrated
• 10:31 It's not really confidence they lack
• 12:04 What executive presence actually is
• 15:07 There's no one right way to command a room
• 17:16 The worst thing you can do in an interview
• 19:43 The new luxury: slowing down in an AI world
• 21:27 The career privilege nobody talks about
• 23:54 When AI writes everything, being human is scarce
• 26:23 Why slow is the new status symbol
• 30:19 Become more of yourself

Links mentioned in this episode:

• LinkedIn post from the beginning of 2026
• Episode 118 - Generalist or Specialist: Chances Are, You May Be Misusing the Labels!
• The ONE Thing Executives Who Land Jobs Fastest All Do

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 341 - Financial stress can change how we assess risk, negotiate, job search and plan our next career move. Carrie Joy Grimes, founder and CEO of WorkMoney, joins me to discuss financial runway, career transitions, money anxiety and how to make better decisions when your income or employment suddenly feels uncertain.

When experienced professionals lose their jobs, one of the first questions I ask is not about their resume, LinkedIn profile or network. I ask about money. How long can you afford to be out of work? The answer matters because a job search conducted with six months of financial runway can look very different from one conducted with six weeks.

Financial stress has a way of turning a career decision into an emergency. Suddenly, the goal is no longer to find the right next role. It is to make the discomfort stop. That distinction came up repeatedly in my recent conversation with Carrie Joy Grimes, founder and CEO of WorkMoney, a U.S. nonprofit focused on helping working people improve their financial lives, and author of The Joy of Money: How to Do More With and Feel Better About Your Money, No Matter How Much You Have.

“Financial stress isn't a thing that we walk around saying, ‘I'm financially stressed right now,’” Grimes told me. Instead, she described it as something that gradually weighs on us until we become accustomed to operating under pressure. That pressure can have consequences well beyond our bank accounts.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 01:03 Introduction and Context of Financial Stress
• 02:31 Understanding Financial Stress and Its Impact
• 05:11 Strategies for Managing Financial Stress
• 08:22 Navigating Career Transitions and Financial Decisions
• 12:51 The Role of Employers in Alleviating Financial Stress
• 17:59 Adapting to a Changing Workforce and Financial Landscape
• 21:15 The Importance of Financial Education and Support
• 25:50 Conclusion and Final Thoughts on Financial Well-being
• 33:18 Embracing Change: The Transition to Entrepreneurship
• 36:36 Budgeting for Joy: Finding Freedom in Financial Choices
• 38:41 The Reality of Financial Distress: Sharing Real Stories
• 41:27 Overcoming Financial Anxiety: Understanding Your Worth
• 45:22 Empowering Women: Negotiating and Understanding Value
• 52:09 Building a Supportive Community: The Role of Organizations
• 54:07 The Joy of Money: Understanding Your Relationship with Finances

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Carrie Joy Grimes’ new book, The Joy of Money
• Carrie’s non profit organization, WorkMoney

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

👉 Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

👉 Join 5,000+ senior professionals getting actionable ideas to get your next job and take control of your career directly in their inbox

The people deciding your next role form an opinion about you before you ever apply. This conversation shows you how to shape it.

My guest is Vanessa Errecarte: marketing lecturer at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, consultant, and author of Valuable and Visible. She created one of the only for-credit MBA courses in personal branding in the United States, and she has a message for every senior professional who was taught that great work speaks for itself: the market stopped listening to silent excellence.

We talk about why decades of strong work can disappear from view after a redundancy, how recruiters and hiring managers now discover senior candidates before a resume is ever read, and what separates real authority from empty visibility on LinkedIn. Vanessa explains why the advice to simply post more backfires, and why helping people publicly beats talking about yourself.

You will also hear the practical layer: her formula for introducing yourself so people remember you, the difference between an influencer's job and yours, what AI can and cannot do for your thinking, and a minimum viable personal brand that takes 1 to 3 hours a week, starting with one LinkedIn post.

In this episode, career coach Renata Bernarde and UC Davis marketing lecturer Vanessa Errecarte argue that personal branding is about creating value for others rather than promoting yourself: senior professionals get remembered, referred, and recruited when they publicly help their audience solve problems, because visibility without earned trust produces no career results.

Your one thing this week: write one LinkedIn post using Vanessa's formula. Open with a short personal story, connect it to why it matters, then teach a framework of three to five steps your peers can use.

As I say at the close of this episode, your expertise can be recognized, remembered and recommended through a little bit of work on your part. Subscribe so next week's episode finds you.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Introduction to Personal Branding and Visibility
• 03:06 The Shift in Career Progression and Recruitment
• 05:55 The Importance of Genuine Authority in Visibility
• 09:08 Navigating Personal and Professional Branding
• 11:52 Building Trust Through Value
• 15:03 Leveraging Personal Stories for Professional Growth
• 17:46 The Role of AI in Personal Branding
• 20:56 Overcoming the Visibility Trap
• 23:57 The Challenge of Authenticity in Online Presence
• 27:33 Creating Engaging Content
• 28:30 The Impact of Viral Posts
• 29:04 Building Trust and Authenticity
• 31:57 Navigating Job Transitions
• 36:06 Minimal Visibility Strategies
• 39:31 Consistency in Personal Branding
• 43:24 Leveraging Different Platforms
• 46:17 The Human Element in Online Engagement
• 50:11 The Importance of Real-Life Connections

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Vanessa’s website
• Learn more and join Renata’s RB Career Club

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 339 - I answer the seven LinkedIn questions my career coaching clients ask most often, from headlines and About sections to recruiter visibility, skills, posting, and making your profile support your next career move.

Most experienced professionals know LinkedIn matters. They know recruiters use it, hiring managers check it, and that former colleagues, board contacts, clients, and professional peers may look them up before making an introduction.

And yet, many still treat LinkedIn as a digital filing cabinet. A place to store job titles, dates, and old responsibilities. That is a missed opportunity.

Your LinkedIn profile is designed to be a record of where you have worked. It is a positioning tool. It should help the right people understand who you are, what you are known for, what problems you solve, and where you may be heading next.

This is especially important for professionals in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. By this stage, your career is usually more complex. You may have worked across sectors, held several leadership roles., and you may be changing direction. For example, you may be moving from executive work to board roles, from corporate to consulting, from one industry to another, or from full employment into a portfolio career. If that's the case, your career complexity can be valuable. But if your LinkedIn profile does not translate it clearly, it can become confusing.

That is why Episode 339 of The Job Hunting Podcast focuses on the seven LinkedIn questions my clients ask me most often. These are not questions from people who lack experience. They are questions from people who often have a lot of experience, but are not sure how to make that experience visible, searchable, and relevant.

https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Importance of LinkedIn for Professionals
• 06:05 Utilizing the Featured Section
• 08:20 Choosing the Right Skills
• 14:37 Crafting Your About Section
• 20:53 Why Recruiters Aren't Finding You
• 26:05 Positioning for Future Opportunities

Links mentioned in this episode:

• My LinkedIn Audit Service
• My website

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 338 - I answer the seven career questions my clients ask most often about visibility, CVs, achievements, career change, age bias, role choice, and career storytelling.

My clients don’t come to career coaching because they lack experience. They come because they are trying to make sense of that experience. They have done the work. They have led teams, managed complexity, navigated politics, influenced stakeholders, delivered projects, rebuilt systems, survived restructures, and made decisions under pressure.

But when they sit down to explain what they want next, the story often becomes unclear. This is especially true for experienced professionals – those in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. By this stage, your career is rarely linear. You may have worked across sectors, changed functions, taken time out, held several leadership roles, been made redundant, moved countries, started consulting, returned to employment, or begun exploring board opportunities.

Your experience may be rich. But rich experience can also be hard to explain. That is why Episode 338 of The Job Hunting Podcast focuses on the seven broader career questions my clients ask me most often.

These are not LinkedIn questions. I will cover those in another episode. These are the bigger questions behind a job search, career transition, or professional reset. They are the questions that sit underneath the CV, the interview, the networking conversation, and the search strategy.

And if there is one idea I want you to take from this episode, it is this: Your experience does not speak for itself. You need to translate it.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Understanding the Translation Problem in Careers
• 01:07 The Seven Key Career Questions
• 02:01 Visibility in the Job Market
• 05:25 Tailoring Your CV for Success
• 08:38 Highlighting Achievements Over Responsibilities
• 11:15 Navigating Career Changes
• 14:02 Addressing Age and Experience Bias
• 17:53 Choosing the Right Roles to Apply For
• 20:10 Crafting a Clear Career Story

Links mentioned in this episode:

• You can find more information about Renata's coaching services at renatabernarde.com

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 337 - Job searching can test even the most experienced professionals. In this episode, I reflect on Sabalenka’s emotional loss at Roland Garros and explain why job seekers need to move from emotional reaction to strategic response after rejection, redundancy, long job searches, interviews, and career setbacks.

There are moments in sport when we see more than performance.

We see pressure, and the private battle that sits underneath public achievement.

That happened recently at Roland Garros, when Aryna Sabalenka lost a match many expected her to win and later said she felt like she wanted to quit tennis. Reports from Reuters and Sky Sports captured the emotional weight of that moment. It was not polished or strategic. It was human.

I was watching the interview with my father, and he said something that stayed with me. He observed that Sabalenka has the physical gifts of an elite tennis player. The strength, the talent, the training, the ability. But at that level, the difference is often mindset.

That comment made me think about job seekers.

Not because looking for work is the same as elite sport, of course. But because both can place people under intense pressure. Both require repeated performance under judgment. Both involve rejection, recovery, comparison, and the ability to reset after disappointment.

https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Emotional Side of Job Searching
• 05:45 Mindset Matters in Job Search
• 10:01 Navigating Redundancy and Emotional Responses
• 17:17 Dealing with Rejection and Performance Feedback
• 22:12 The Challenges of a Long Job Search
• 28:00 Exploring Career Changes and New Directions
• 32:47 Building Resilience in Job Search Strategies

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Renata's website

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 336 - If I were job hunting now, I would not apply at scale, outsource my voice to AI, or wait until I was unemployed to build visibility. This article explains five common mistakes experienced professionals should avoid and how to make the job search more strategic.

If I were job hunting in 2026, I would not start by asking how many jobs I should apply for each week. I would ask a more useful question: what would genuinely improve my odds?

That shift matters because the job search has become more efficient and more frustrating at the same time. Candidates can now use artificial intelligence to write resumes, tailor cover letters, prepare for interviews, research employers, and apply for more jobs in less time. Employers are also using AI to screen, sort, compare, and manage applicants. In theory, this should make hiring easier. In practice, it has made the process noisier.

A 2026 Robert Half survey found that 67% of HR leaders say AI-generated applications are slowing hiring, 84% of HR teams report heavier workloads as AI-tailored applications increase, and 65% of hiring managers say AI-enhanced resumes make skills harder to verify. This is the paradox of the 2026 job search: job seekers can apply faster, but hiring managers are finding it harder to trust what they read.

For experienced professionals, especially those in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, the answer is not to join the noise. The answer is to become sharper, more credible, and more strategic. There are five things I would not do if I were job hunting now.

Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Introduction to Job Hunting Challenges
• 00:50 Stop Applying at Scale
• 06:39 The Role of AI in Job Applications
• 10:11 Building Visibility Before Job Seeking
• 14:08 Education vs. Real Career Problems
• 18:27 Analyzing Job Search Data for Improvement

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Renata's website

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Ready to take the next step in your career? Book a free Career Coaching Introductory Meeting with me.

Episode 335 - Most job seekers focus on applying more. But in a tougher market, volume alone is not enough. Kyle Austin Young explains how “probability hacking” can help professionals improve their odds, de-risk career change, prepare better for interviews, and make smarter career decisions.

Most professionals do not think about their careers in probabilities.

They think in effort.

They think, “I have worked hard.”

They think, “I have good experience.”

They think, “I am qualified for this role.”

They think, “If I apply to enough jobs, something will happen.”

And sometimes, something does happen.

But in a tighter job market, hope is not a strategy. Volume is not always a strategy either. The experienced professionals I work with are often surprised to discover that the most important question is not, “How do I apply for more jobs?”

The better question is: How do I improve the odds that the right opportunity will convert into an interview, an offer, and a good career decision?

That question was at the centre of my conversation with Kyle Austin Young, the guest on Episode 335 of The Job Hunting Podcast.

https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Journey to Consulting and Writing
• 10:32 Strategies for Career Success
• 15:13 Building a Personal Brand
• 20:10 Navigating Career Pivots
• 27:15 Identifying Weak Links in Job Searches
• 33:30 Navigating Job Hunting Strategies
• 35:02 Building a Personal Brand
• 37:26 Leveraging Social Media for Networking
• 38:31 The Importance of a Portfolio
• 39:28 Practicing Communication Skills
• 41:41 Dealing with Rejection and Failure
• 46:50 Learning from Setbacks
• 49:25 Understanding Employer Needs
• 55:31 Final Thoughts on Goal Setting

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Kyle's LinkedIn profile
• Kyle's website
• Kyle's book, Success Is A Numbers Game

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 334 - Executive headhunter Gerard Miles explains how search firms identify, assess, and approach candidates, and what experienced professionals can do to become more visible, relevant, and memorable to the recruiters who matter.

Many experienced professionals reach a point in their career where the job market starts to feel strangely opaque.

Earlier in their careers, they could apply for advertised roles, hear back from recruiters, attend interviews, and move through a relatively visible hiring process. But at senior levels, the rules change.

The hiring process is quieter. The shortlist may be built before a role ever becomes public. And the people being considered are often not actively looking.

This is why so many senior executives become frustrated when they approach the job market the same way they did ten or twenty years ago. They update their resume, apply for roles online, wait for responses, and assume that if they are good enough, the market will find them.

But executive recruitment does not work that way.

In my conversation with Gerard Miles, a headhunter specialising in the games and entertainment sector and co-founder of Mission One, we discussed what really happens behind the scenes in senior hiring. And although Gerard works in a very specific niche, the lessons are not limited to gaming.

Replace the word “gaming” with mining, education, retail, health, technology, financial services, or government, and the same principles apply.

At the senior executive level, hiring is less about applications and more about relevance, reputation, timing, and trust.

https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Journey into Gaming and Entertainment
• 06:52 Headhunting in the Gaming Sector
• 12:25 Sourcing Candidates: The Headhunter’s Process
• 18:33 Navigating the Hidden Job Market
• 21:16 Patterns of Successful Candidates
• 24:27 The Current State of Gaming and Entertainment
• 31:15 Building Relationships with Headhunters
• 39:17 Effective Networking Strategies
• 42:00 Navigating Career Opportunities in 2026

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Gerard's recruitment firm, Mission One
• Gerard's Podcast, Mission One: The Executive Edge
• Gerard's LinkedIn Profile
• Halt and Catch Fire

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 333 - Workforce participation drops sharply after 45, despite strong demand for experienced talent. In this episode, we explore the structural barriers, age bias, and outdated career models holding professionals back, and what individuals, employers, and governments can do to better support longer, more productive working lives.

We have all fallen in love with NASA's crew for its Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon in more than half a century. What stood out to me was the composition of the team. Every astronaut selected was Generation Xer, in their 40s and 50s.

When the stakes are high, we do not default to youth. We choose experience. That's what NASA did . They choose judgment. They choose people who have navigated complexity before and can do so again under pressure.

And yet, in the labour market, we continue to behave as if the opposite were true.

This contradiction sits at the heart of what has been described as the “longevity paradox”: We are living longer, healthier lives, but participating less in the workforce as we age. For the corporate professionals I work with, this is not an abstract concept. It is a lived experience, often emerging in their mid-40s and becoming more pronounced thereafter.

This issue has become more personal for me recently. At the age of 54, I have just become a grandmother. It has prompted a different kind of reflection about time, work, and what the next decades should look like. Like many of my clients, I am not thinking about slowing down. I am thinking about how to work in a way that is sustainable, meaningful, and aligned with the realities of a longer life.

The question is whether our institutions are prepared to support that.

https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//Read the full Blog on the Websitehttps://www.renatabernarde.com/episode//

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Introduction to the Longevity Economy Paradox
• 06:14 Understanding Workforce Participation and Aging
• 09:02 Personal Experiences with Career Transitions
• 12:09 The Role of Technology and AI in the Workforce
• 15:22 Challenges of Ageism in Recruitment
• 18:09 Strategies for Job Seekers Over 50
• 21:23 The Importance of Networking and Community Support
• 24:16 Midlife Career Checkup: Questions to Reflect On
• 26:57 Final Thoughts and Action Steps for Listeners

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Michele Lemmens' LinkedIn
• Rebecca Hall's LinkedIn

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 332 - Natalie Moore joins me to explore what leaders and professionals need most in 2026: courage, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and space to think. We also discuss burnout, work design, hybrid work, and how career pivots can happen through small, intentional steps.

The themes in this week's podcast episode are not really about personal reinvention in the lifestyle sense, but they're also not hot takes about work culture. They sit at the intersection, as so many issues do when it comes to career and our personal lives. How to we reinvent leadership, organisational design, career strategy, and human behaviour so we can cope with the new ways of working?

That is where many of my clients live. They are not junior workers trying to “find their passion.” They are experienced corporate professionals, senior managers, and executives trying to make good decisions in a labour market that has become harder to read, less forgiving, and more emotionally demanding.

Here is what I keep seeing in my coaching work.

My clients are not simply struggling with job search mechanics. Yes, they need resumes, LinkedIn positioning, networking strategies, and interview preparation. But those are not the only things making this moment difficult. Many are also dealing with return-to-office mandates they did not choose, leadership cultures that speak the language of wellbeing without redesigning work, and AI-driven hiring processes that make the market feel more opaque than ever. LinkedIn reported in January that nearly two-thirds of people say finding a job has become more challenging, while U.S. applicants per open role have doubled since spring 2022. At the same time, 93% of recruiters say they plan to increase their use of AI in 2026.

Those are not small shifts. They change how people experience work, how they think about security, and how they approach career planning.

In my conversation with Natalie Moore on The Job Hunting Podcast (332), what emerged most clearly was that professionals who are coping best right now are not necessarily the most confident. They are the ones who are able to think clearly under pressure, notice when an environment is no longer working for them, and act with intention before their options narrow.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 – Welcome Back: Natalie Moore Returns
• 01:11 – Reinvention After Closing a Business
• 03:10 – Headline Hopes for the End of 2026
• 06:42 – How Leaders Can Stop Reacting and Start Responding
• 08:59 – True or False: Can Resilience Training Fix Burnout?
• 09:47 – True or False: Will Good Workers Naturally Adapt to AI?
• 10:55 – True or False: Do Career Pivots Require a Big Leap?
• 12:42 – Three Questions to Ask When You Feel Flat at Work
• 16:45 – What Stress and Burnout Really Look Like in High Performers
• 21:45 – Listening to Your Body and Noticing Your Triggers
• 24:03 – What We’re Leaving Behind in 2026
• 25:22 – Showing Up Differently in Business and on LinkedIn
• 28:40 – Why Workplace Wellbeing Still Feels Surface-Level
• 30:32 – Is It Time to Redesign the Workday?
• 32:55 – When Training and Development Add to Burnout
• 35:19 – The High-Performance Habits That Need to Go
• 36:50 – Why White Space Matters at Work and in Job Search
• 38:08 – Natalie’s Career Change Story and the Power of Slow Pivots
• 39:21 – What Matters Most in 2026: Confidence, Courage, or Clarity?
• 41:43 – AI, Human Work, and What Still Makes Us Valuable
• 43:34 – The Human Capabilities Professionals Need Now
• 45:44 – Final Thoughts and Where to Find Natalie

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Natalie Moore's LinkedIn Profile
• Follow Josh Piterman on Instagram to find out when he's running breathwork workshops in Melbourne
• Josh Piterman Inside Timer
• Episode 130 - Post-pandemic Stress and Other Factor Affecting Your Wellbeing at Work, with Natalie Moore and Lisa Saunders
• Episode 72 - Systemic Gender Biases, Double Standards, Mental and Physical Dangers Affecting Women in the Workplace - with Hannah Piterman Ph.D.

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 331 - Your experience may speak for itself on paper, but in interviews your body language is speaking too. Linda Clemons shares practical ways to project confidence, warmth, and authority so experienced professionals can perform better in interviews, networking events, and high-stakes conversations.

In Episode 331 of The Job Hunting Podcast, I speak with Linda Clemons about body language, executive presence, and the ways experienced professionals are often misread in interviews. Our conversation explores how stress shows up physically, why long tenure can mask unhelpful communication habits, and what candidates can do to present themselves with greater clarity, warmth, and authority.

Experienced professionals often assume that interview performance is mainly determined by the strength of their track record and the quality of their answers. That assumption makes sense. After all, senior candidates are usually selected for interview because their credentials already suggest competence. Yet many still leave the process confused by the outcome. They feel they answered well, understood the brief, and showed relevant experience, but did not turn the opportunity into an offer. In many cases, the missing factor is not substance. It is presentation in the broadest sense of the word.

This does not mean superficial polish or fake self-confidence. It means the interaction between verbal and nonverbal communication: posture, tone, pace, facial expression, emotional regulation, and the overall impression of steadiness. Employers do not assess these factors separately from capability. They fold them into their judgment of capability. For experienced professionals, especially those who have spent a long time inside one organisation, this creates a specific challenge. They may be highly competent, but no longer practised in making that competence clear to strangers in a short, high-pressure setting.

That issue came through clearly in my conversation with Linda Clemons, a global expert in nonverbal communication and executive presence. One of her most useful observations is that people are constantly judging alignment. They listen to the words, but they also notice whether the rest of the person appears to support them. When language, tone, movement, and emotional state line up, credibility rises. When they do not, doubt enters the room, even if nobody says it out loud.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Evolution of a Podcast Host
• 01:14 Understanding Body Language and Nonverbal Communication
• 04:04 The Impact of Posture on Communication
• 06:55 Reading Nonverbal Cues in Real Life
• 10:01 Preparing for Job Interviews
• 12:56 Navigating Interview Dynamics
• 16:01 The Importance of Presence in Communication
• 18:17 Body Language and Interview Presence
• 21:03 Navigating Behavioral Questions
• 23:37 The Importance of Authentic Communication
• 26:01 Understanding Communication Dynamics
• 28:09 The TAP Framework: Truthful, Authentic, Purposeful
• 30:33 Vulnerability in Leadership
• 33:11 Emotional Barriers: Frozen, Flooding, and Flat
• 38:00 The Impact of Long Tenure on Interview Performance
• 43:35 Linda's Book and Final Thoughts

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Linda Clemons LinkedIn Profile
• Linda Clemons' Book

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 330 - Patrick Dunlop, organisational psychologist and Future of Work professor, shares what he learned from studying recruiters, what’s overhyped, what’s still painfully manual, and how experienced candidates can move with confidence through modern selection processes.

Spend enough time around job seekers and you will hear the same diagnosis: “Hiring is broken.”

Spend enough time around recruiters and you will hear a different one: “We’re drowning.”

Both can be true. What has changed in the last few years is not simply the technology inside recruitment. It’s the volume, the noise, and the mismatch between what candidates think is happening and what is actually happening inside organisations.

In my conversation with Professor Patrick Dunlop, an organisational psychologist at Curtin University, one theme kept resurfacing: the biggest misunderstanding is not about AI. It’s about realism. Hiring varies wildly from one organisation to the next, and much of what candidates assume is “automated” is still surprisingly manual, uneven, and dependent on human judgement.

What follows is a structured, evidence-informed way to think about modern hiring if you are an experienced professional, particularly in your 40s and beyond.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 Understanding Assessment Tools
• 00:52 The Importance of Job Analysis
• 03:48 Designing Effective Assessment Processes
• 06:53 The Role of Simulations and Case Studies
• 09:59 Concerns About Psychometric Testing
• 12:56 Faking in Assessments and Its Implications
• 15:50 Cultural Differences in Assessment Responses
• 26:44 Cross-Cultural Assessment in Personality Testing
• 30:57 Candidate Experience and Recruitment Processes
• 36:10 The Impact of AI on Job Applications
• 39:04 Adapting to New Technologies in Job Search
• 49:19 Future Trends in Recruitment and Assessment

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Patrick Dunlop's LinkedIn Profile

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 329 - We unpack what interviewers are really reacting to, how to show agility at any age, and how to stay authentic while adapting to different cultures and expectations.

I understand why Brené Brown and Adam Grant can say “thumbs down” on executive presence and get a standing ovation. In their conversation on Dare to Lead, they frame executive presence as “party of one” and contrast it with leadership as a “collective capability.” It’s a compelling point, and a necessary correction for leaders who confuse charisma with competence or confuse performative confidence with real stewardship.

But in my day-to-day work as a career coach for experienced corporate professionals, executives, and senior technical specialists, executive presence is not a fad, a buzzword, or an outdated corporate relic. It is a hiring variable. It’s the most searched term on my podcast’s website. And pretending otherwise leaves job seekers at the mercy of unspoken rules.

That’s why I devoted Episode 329 of The Job Hunting Podcast to executive presence, alongside two experts who don’t treat it as a personality type or a costume: Dr. Alexa Chilcutt, executive coach and faculty lead for the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Executive Education Business Communication Certificate, and Dr. Carl DuPont, Associate Professor of Voice at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute and Executive Education faculty at Carey.

What I took from our discussion is this: executive presence is real because the question isn’t whether it exists. The question is whether we teach it responsibly, in a way that helps professionals be read accurately, without forcing them into a narrow mould.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• My website
• My Instagram
• Subscribe to my newsletter
• Group coaching wait list
• Work with Renata: All my courses and coaching services
• Alexa Chilcutt, PhD
• Carl DuPont, DMA
• Alexa and Carl's website
• Alexa and Carl's book - for 25% discount, enter the code Pres26 at checkout

Links mentioned in this episode:

• 00:00 Introduction to Executive Presence
• 01:51 Defining Executive Presence
• 04:43 The Importance of Communication
• 07:36 Challenging Traditional Views on Executive Presence
• 09:54 Navigating Ageism in the Workplace
• 12:52 Cultural Dissonance and Code Switching
• 28:33 Authenticity vs. Performance in Executive Presence
• 32:27 The Evolution of Personal Branding
• 34:22 Navigating Cultural Expectations in Professional Appearance
• 37:42 The Role of Voice in Executive Presence
• 41:23 Embracing Diversity in Professional Narratives
• 46:52 The Art of Communication: Finding Your Voice
• 52:03 Overcoming Barriers to Executive Presence

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Episode 328 - I borrow two tools from elite sport psychology: the difference between thoughts and attention, and the difference between internal and external focus. You’ll learn how to stop fighting your nerves and start directing your attention.

Job searching can feel deeply personal, but the mechanics of it are closer to a high-performance environment than most people want to admit. You are assessed in real time. You are compared, often invisibly, against other candidates. You are expected to communicate with clarity, confidence, and restraint while navigating uncertainty, rejection, and the emotional weight of change.

For experienced corporate professionals and executives, this becomes even more complex. The stakes feel higher, the stories are longer, and the margin for error can seem smaller. Many of the people I work with are excellent at their jobs, yet they find the job search uniquely destabilising. That’s not because they are not capable. It’s because job hunting creates a different cognitive and emotional context than most leadership roles do.

Read the full Blog on the Website

Book a Free Introductory Meeting with Renata

Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses

Timestamps to guide your listening:

• 00:00 The Competitive Nature of Job Hunting
• 03:26 Understanding Thoughts vs. Attention
• 19:27 Internal vs. External Focus in Job Search
• 33:02 Applying Focus Techniques in Real Scenarios

Links mentioned in this episode:

• My Instagram
• Subscribe to my newsletter
• Group coaching wait list
• Reset Your Career online course
• All my courses and coaching services:
• Video with Alex Cohen that I mentioned on the podcast
• Movie Wimbledon
• Netflix series Break Point

About the host, Renata Bernarde

Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

Watch the Episodes on YouTube

Follow Renata on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X / Twitter