Active Job Search for Serious Professionals

There are moments when “seeing what’s out there” quietly turns into I need to move.

A role has shrunk. A firm has changed hands. A new boss has arrived with a different agenda. Or you’ve simply outgrown a job that was once a stretch and is now a cage. You know you are not starting from zero. You also know that a mid-career move in finance or a related profession is not something to wing between meetings.

This is a space for people who want to treat a job search with the same seriousness they bring to capital decisions: careful, patient, honest, and willing to act.

What this work is for

This is not a volume game.

You are not trying to spam dozens of roles or impress strangers with a hyper-designed CV. You are trying to answer a harder question:

What kind of work, at what pace, in what sort of culture, would actually be suitable for me now?

We look at your situation from several angles:

  • The work you do well but can no longer stand

  • The work you have never quite been trusted with, despite the competence

  • The kinds of leaders, teams, and cultures that bring out your best

  • The financial reality you need to honour without selling yourself off wholesale

From there, we shape a search that fits your temperament: deliberate, thoughtful, and human rather than performative.

How we work together

We talk one-to-one, by video or phone, occasionally in person if we are in the same city. There is no program to “complete.” We work with the live situation in front of you.

In practice, that often means:

  • Looking at your CV or résumé together and stripping out the “kitchen sink” brain dump so that your experience is clear, sharp, and credible instead of crowded

  • Reading your cover letters, emails, and outreach messages so they sound like a thoughtful adult, not a template or a plea

  • Running mock interviews that are less about “performing confidence” and more about telling the truth cleanly under pressure

  • Talking through dining, networking, and small-room etiquette for people who would rather be useful than charming

  • Working on negotiation in a way that respects both parties and does not come from panic, scarcity, or wounded pride

  • Practising the art of waiting: holding your nerve between rounds, not chasing for reassurance, and not giving away your power in the silence

After most conversations, you leave with one or two concrete steps: a revision, a call to make, feedback to seek, a role to decline, or a role to pursue properly instead of “seeing what happens.” I am an incrementalist. Small honest moves, repeated, usually beat dramatic declarations followed by collapse.

Working with recruiters (or deciding not to)

So sooner or later, a recruiter appears.

Sometimes it is a polished email. Sometimes a vague message from a junior associate. Sometimes a partner you already know. The tone is often the same: “You’d be perfect for this.” Your ego perks up, your doubts wake up, and suddenly you are in a process you did not choose.

The first question we ask together is simple: Is this opportunity suitable, or just flattering?

Recruiters work for their client, not for you. A good recruiter can still be a genuine ally: they know the market, they see patterns across firms, they can open doors you could not push alone. A careless recruiter, or the wrong mandate, can pull you into months of distraction that end with a “you were a very strong candidate” and nothing more.

In our conversations, we treat recruiters as one input, not as pilots of your career.

We look at:

  • What this recruiter actually knows about you beyond your CV and credentials

  • Who the real client is, and what problem they are trying to solve

  • Whether the role moves you toward the life you want, or simply sideways into a shinier cage

  • How much information you want to disclose, and when

You do not have to jump at every message. You do not have to “be flattered” on cue. You are allowed to ask blunt questions about mandate, reporting lines, culture, risk, and realistic next steps. You are allowed to say “not now” or “not for me” without burning bridges.

Sometimes the right move is to engage: to brief the recruiter clearly on what would and would not be suitable, to let them represent you into a process, and to use their access as part of a deliberate search.

Sometimes the wiser move is to stay out of the funnel entirely, keep the relationship warm, and focus your limited energy on your own targeted search instead of someone else’s pipeline.

My role is to sit beside you while you decide which is which, and to help you hold your line when flattery, scarcity, or anxiety try to make the decision for you.

What begins to change

You still face the same market, the same competition, the same constraints. What changes is how you move through them.

You stop treating every role as a referendum on your worth and start treating it as a suitability question. You become clearer about what you will and will not do, and why. You become more honest with yourself about the trade-offs in front of you rather than chasing a fantasy perfect job that cannot exist.

Most importantly, you act.

You do not sit for another year in quiet resentment, scrolling job boards and LinkedIn, telling yourself you “should be grateful.” You make thoughtful moves, at a pace that respects your nervous system and your responsibilities, toward work that fits the person you are now, not the person you were when you first picked a major.

If that kind of search appeals more than another round of random applications and performance-mask interviews, then this is the work.