“I’ve been a Project Manager, a Business Analyst, and an Operations Manager. I have so much experience, so why can’t I secure a new role?”
If I had a pound for every time a client asked me a variation of this question, Bowser, my French Bulldog, would be eating gourmet dog food for the rest of his life.
It’s a feeling I understand completely. You look back at your career and see a collection of different roles, projects, and responsibilities. You have a broad range of experience, but you struggle to connect the dots.
When you try to write your CV, it feels impossible to articulate your value in a clear, compelling way. You end up with a document that says you can do a bit of everything, which in today’s market, often translates to a hiring manager as being an expert in nothing.
Why the Generalist Gets Ignored
In a competitive job market, ambiguity is your enemy.
Hiring managers are not looking for a generalist. They have a specific problem they need to solve, and they are looking for the specialist who can solve it.
Think of it this way: if your boiler breaks in the middle of winter, you don’t search for a general handyman. You search for a certified heating engineer. You want the expert.
Recruiters and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) work in the same way. They scan for specific keywords and expertise. A CV that is too broad and generic will likely score low in the ATS ranking, meaning it won’t be prioritised for a recruiter to review. The story you’re telling yourself is that your wide experience is a strength, but in the job search, it can become a weakness if not framed correctly.
Finding Your Superpower
So, what’s the solution? The answer isn’t to discount your experience. It’s to reframe it.
You need to stop seeing your career as a random series of jobs and start looking for the common thread, the recurring theme that ties it all together. This is your niche. This is your professional superpower.
This process involves a deep dive into your work history, looking past the job titles and focusing on the problems you consistently solved.
What were you always the ‘go-to’ person for? What challenges did you enjoy tackling the most? In every role, what was the unique value only you seemed to bring?
From Generalist to Specialist: A Real-World Example
Let me reframe this for you with a quick story about a client I worked with. Let’s call him Tom.
Tom came to me feeling completely stuck. His CV listed roles in project coordination, team support, and operations management across different industries. He was frustrated because he was applying for jobs he knew he could do, but he was getting nowhere. His CV presented him as a ‘jack of all trades’.
We sat down and audited his entire career. We discovered a powerful pattern. In every single role, Tom had been the person responsible for getting teams comfortable with new software. He was the one who figured it out first, created the training guides, and championed the change.
We had found his niche. We rebranded him from a generalist to a ‘Digital Adoption Specialist’. We completely rewrote his CV to tell this story, highlighting his expertise in change management and software implementation.
The result? Within two months, he landed a role with that exact title. It was a perfect fit for his skills, and it came with a significant salary increase. He wasn’t a ‘jack of all trades’ anymore; he was an expert.
How to Start Defining Your Niche
You can start this process yourself right now.
- Audit Your Achievements: Go through each role on your CV and write down three key achievements. Not just duties, but actual results. What problems did you solve?
- Look for the Pattern: Analyse those achievements. Is there a common skill? A recurring theme? Are you always the one organising chaos, improving processes, or managing difficult stakeholders?
- Give it a Name: Once you find the thread, give it a name. Are you a ‘Process Optimisation Expert’? A ‘Client Relationship Specialist’? A ‘Technical Problem Solver’? This new title becomes the headline for your career story.
This isn’t about starting from scratch. It’s about finding the diamond in the experience you already have and polishing it so it shines.
I know this can be tough to do on your own. When you’re so close to your own career, it can be almost impossible to see the bigger picture clearly.
If you’re struggling to find the common thread in your own experience, let’s talk.
Book a free, no-obligation 30-minute consultation with me today. Together, we can uncover your specialist superpower and build a career story that gets you noticed.