👉 Click Here to work with me: https://www.renatabernarde.com/

👉 Join 5,000+ senior professionals getting actionable ideas to get your next job and take control of your career directly in their inbox: https://www.renatabernarde.com/subscribe

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 Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

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.

Read the full Blog on the Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

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 Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

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.

Read the full Blog on the Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

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 Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

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.

Read the full Blog on the Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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.

Read the full Blog on the Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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.

Read the full Blog on the Website

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

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

31 Days of Action for Job Seekers

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

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

Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses



Timestamps to guide your listening:

1. 00:00 The Evolution of a Podcast Host
2. 01:14 Understanding Body Language and Nonverbal Communication
3. 04:04 The Impact of Posture on Communication
4. 06:55 Reading Nonverbal Cues in Real Life
5. 10:01 Preparing for Job Interviews
6. 12:56 Navigating Interview Dynamics
7. 16:01 The Importance of Presence in Communication
8. 18:17 Body Language and Interview Presence
9. 21:03 Navigating Behavioral Questions
10. 23:37 The Importance of Authentic Communication
11. 26:01 Understanding Communication Dynamics
12. 28:09 The TAP Framework: Truthful, Authentic, Purposeful
13. 30:33 Vulnerability in Leadership
14. 33:11 Emotional Barriers: Frozen, Flooding, and Flat
15. 38:00 The Impact of Long Tenure on Interview Performance
16. 43:35 Linda's Book and Final Thoughts

Links mentioned in this episode:

1. Linda Clemons LinkedIn Profile
2. 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