FAQ for Individuals

Before we break out the craftsmanship, make sure we’re a fit

When I’m looking for an expert where I don’t have as much experience as I’d like, I appreciate not only their skill level, but also their work style and how that will fit with my needs. Sure, cost is part of the decision, but so is expertise and the process we’ll follow to reach my goals.

While 30-40% of my work today comprises returning clients, this FAQ page is designed to help potential new clients decide if I might be the right resources for them.

Jump to: Before we meet | Getting started

Before we meet

There’s a right resource for everyone, which means I may or may not be the right resource for you. Or he might not be the right resource right now.

For instance:

• Looking for low-budget data entry guy? Not me.

• Looking for a career strategist who memorializes in writing the decisions that I guide you through making? That’s me.

• Looking for a quick fix to hide career blunders? Not me.

• Looking for a strategically positioned story that finds the silver lining where you’d learned from mistakes? That’s me.

• Looking for a quick turnaround. Not me. Looking for an in-depth, no-stone-left-unturned experience? That’s me.

I also bring an outside perspective.

Powerful writing is only as good as the content, and after working with personal-professional brands for so many years, I’ve found that many people are too close to the subject they’re writing about: themselves. With proximity-to-self in the way, coupled with inexperience developing one’s own personal-professional brand, people end up not fully realizing what could happen if they told their stories strategically.

This is especially true when matters of reality and consequence collide with matters of the heart.

I usually come along when people need to take stock of themselves to see what they can do to architect their future. First-time engagements usually turn into lifelong partnerships with clients as they cultivate and grow their careers.

I share considerable detail about each of my three primary offerings across the steps that begin on this page. There, you’ll find more detail about my writing process, timelines, and costs.

Meanwhile, here are crib notes prepared for this FAQ page:

Writing process:

In my role as a career coach, I use the executive résumé writing process as a core tool for career coaching, planning, and development. This means intense discovery, collaborative / iterative writing, and deep consultative work.

The intake-to-completion project life-cycle depends on client seniority and goals, as well as career history and complexity. Interviews and my various written tools (e.g., workbooks, questionnaires, and ad hoc customized assignments) are deployed based on client interests, needs, and personalities.

Timeline:

• Résumé Readiness Package: 3-5 weeks

• Career Integration Program: 2-3 months

• Career Explorer Program: 3+ months

Rate sheet:

• $325/hour: For one-off, no commitment appointments.

• $280/hour: Standard rate for work with returning clients or for appointments types that may be repeated

• $250/hour: For packages and programs. Enables commitment to a single project, as well as continuity of thought and calendar prioritization (the calendar is booked for an entire package or program upon engagement).

I've developed a hybrid approach to the development of written content that augments creative thinking and critical judgment.

Here's the nuance:

If a person's career story is fungible, they likely don't need me to help. Said more plainly, cashiers, drivers, distribution warehouse packers, and other workers are unlikely to need the complex decision-making, positioning strategies, and advising that my firm provides.

However, if a professional's career story is non-fungible—meaning they are, or will be, highly compensated for expertise and skills that increase and become increasingly complex and refined as their career advances—then a partnership with a career strategist makes sense. I presently use a paid instance of Perplexity to accelerate research, pull previously untapped market insights from the web, and ultimately help clients make decisions with greater precision and in less time than previously possible.

When first discovering me, a lot of clients say, “Dang, I wish I’d known something like this was available before I was at such a breaking point.”

For those clients, I have two offerings:

• “Burst” sessions may be supportive as you write your own résumé.

• The Résumé Readiness Package is the next quickest way to get your resume ready for an active job search.

If you still want to do intensive work after the immediate need is addressed, we can discuss a more expansive program, whether it’s on the heels of your short-term work, or years into the future. Either way, we’ll re-purpose whatever work we’ve already done together.

As with most professional services—where a wide range of variables influence the completion of a project—deliverables are not bound to the time estimate you receive for your project.

Deliverables are delivered when the work has been completed.

In roughly 20% of cases, that means deliverables are sent after overtime.

Since my work is performed while you observe my screen via Zoom, and actively contribute to your story development, you will be aware of the time and effort it takes to prepare your materials.

If you decide that you do not want to go into overtime, you can take the materials as they stand at the end of the estimated time, to complete them on your own.

Be clear that I don’t work for free. While most people understand this, some folks don’t, hence the clarity of this sentence.

I can't write about you without getting to know you, and you can't plan for the future if you don't know where you're going.

The act of writing meaningful content means that we must look into the future and into the past. The farther you get in your career, and the more experience, seniority, and specialized you become, the more difficult the future becomes.

So the writing process necessitates that I get to know you by asking a lot of questions, and the answering of those questions almost always results in a lot of little ahas for you.

Indeed, the questions I ask frequently provoke a certain struggle for clients, but always result in greater clarity for having considered their answers. In the months following projects, I frequently hear that clients' professional brands—as well as their new knowledge and perspective of themselves and their industries—not only showed up in predictable places like career copy and formal job interviews, but unpredictable places like every day professional meetings and conversations. 

Findings and discoveries are as unique as the people themselves, but here are two examples: 

• The head of product development of a Fortune 100 cloud applications and platform services company relayed after several months of stealth job searching that his experience facing my questions had turned him into an "interviewing machine." Indeed, some of the "too heavy for a résumé" content we'd uncovered began showing up as talking points during networking meetings and interviews, and he was soon hired as the GM for a widely-known global enterprise cloud division.

• The head of global brand development for a retail conglomerate shared midway through her project that the relevance of some of my questions she'd answered in my digital workbook were vexing at first. She was even downright frustrated by them. That is, until she found those details showing up in every day business conversations. Her finding: "I realized that *I* had to gather and internalize that information. For now and for later."

Sometimes I miss meeting in person, but the benefits of sharing screens via Zoom overshadow the limitations.

Background:

For many years my office was located in The Mechanics Building at 57 Post Street in San Francisco. My office looked into the offices of the McKesson building. (Small world; I conducted an AGC search for McKesson in the early 2000s.)

The pandemic disrupted everyone’s work lives, but the truth is that I was meeting clients online from my Nob Hill condo long before remote work was a mandate.

I’ve spent much of the last 20+ years helping shape careers from quiet spots overlooking San Francisco and the Bay of Banderas in Puerto Vallarta. Today, I still spend a fair bit of time in those locations but I’m primarily based in Rancho Mirage, a quiet part of Southern California’s Coachella Valley, where I spend my days virtually zoomed into client stories.

I began my career in midtown Manhattan and San Francisco's financial district.

Not camera ready?

Don’t worry, I’m not camera ready either unless I’m doing a webinar. There’s no need to share cameras, so I usually don’t.

• A supportive coaching style

• A critical recruiter’s eye

• A reality- and research-based approach

• A strategic writing partner

• A deep interest in your professional success

• A fresh perspective on your career

• A direct line to my desk

Will my new résumé be customizable?

Yes, with clarification.

If you’re aiming for a single target, as in the Resume Readiness Package, your need to customize will likely be restricted to editing specific words and phrases. For example, based on a single job submission, you may want to customize our use of “partnership development and management” to a job posting’s use of “alliance development and management.”

If you’re undertaking one of the two programs that integrates and elevates many ideas into a single branded story, you will (or may) have the option of more customization elements. In those cases, I like to build a client’s story around modular elements. For example, we may “bucket” your story under main categories or skills (e.g., Vision, Strategy & Growth; Partnership Development & Management; Finance / M&A). In those cases, you can include or exclude entire sections of your story based on the needs of a single submission.

You could simply think about this concept as a mix-and-match design approach.

In some cases, a client may have a “skill bucket” that s/he sees as attractive to the end reader, even if that skill isn’t requested in the job spec.

How will my new résumé be delivered?

Your master drafts will be delivered by email as Microsoft Word documents. If you request an ASCII version (to use with online submissions / text boxes), I will include text-only files. I strongly encourage you to keep master versions backed up and intact, creating customized résumés for each targeted submission. I will keep your files backed up, as well. I have never been asked for hard copies, but am happy to provide them upon request.

In short, no.

I’ve considered bringing on other coaches and writers, but to date I haven’t found a way to transplant the expertise and neuroplasticity I bring into someone else’s brain.

If we work together, you’ll have the full weight of my experience at your back and we’ll work side-by-side for the duration of your project or program.

After more than two decades, I’ve worked with clients across every professional career level and nearly every industry.

Also, as a retained executive search recruiter, I was trained to quickly identify the critical points of role in any industry, so it isn’t necessary for me to be familiar with every industry to write a strategic résumé.

That said, my work usually focuses on a cross-section of the following industries, including all of their sectors, sub-sectors, and permutations:

• Technology

• Consumer

• Financial

• Industrial

• Nonprofit / Higher Education

Staying industry current over time

A critical component of my work is the use of live job descriptions, as well as industry published thought pieces (e.g., HBR’s article on “The Rise of the Marketing Technologist”). While never perfect—after all an article or a job description is only a window into a broader picture—those resources allow my clients and me to make sure we’re using timely, market-ready ideas, copy, and best practices.

Beyond those early-project resources, we will combine our expertise during your project. You are the best resource when it comes to your story, and I’ve done this work for countless people over 20+ years. It’s that combination that makes it all work so beautifully.

Not in my work with private clients. The decision-making we do together is too critical and nuanced, and the work is done far better and more efficiently together.

This approach has the added benefit of a client holding full authority around their story, both in terms of why certain decisions were made, and when the time comes to discuss or defend their written stories.

The approach pulls double duty as interview prep, because many of the questions an interviewer will ask will have already been discussed with me. (Excluding questions like, “How many M&Ms are in that jar?”)

Yes.

Getting Started

Prior to booking, you’ll review the three steps that begin on this page.

• Step 1 of 3 lets you choose the path (project or program) that best describes your need state (one job target, multiple career paths, career curious).

• Step 2 of 3 lets you review package and program details, including timeline, pricing, methodologies, and tools.

• If it makes sense to talk about potentially working together, Step 3 of 3 lets you compare all three paths in grid form, and then book a New Client Orientation.

If you’re considering an investment of time and resources, I want you to be aware of what to expect and how we’ll work to achieve your goals.

That detail is nuanced, and it isn’t for everyone, so the details I provide on this site let you prepare thoughtfully for our initial call. Also, if you decide that my approach isn’t right for you, you’ll leave the spot open for someone else and be free to go search alternative resources.

• Zoom: I’ll share my screen via Zoom across your entire project, whether you’re next door or across the globe.

• Microsoft Word and Excel: No matter how much I love other tools by Google and Apple, the highly formatted work I do requires good ol’ Microsoft tools. This is true of some applicant tracking systems (ATS), too, which struggle to accurately populate their ATS fields when ingesting a Pages file (even when it’s been PDFd).

• Acuity Scheduling (now a Squarespace company): I’ve used four calendaring systems over the last decade, and Acuity is the winner for me, hands down.

• Stripe: Payment processing made easy. It’s also integrated with Acuity.

About twenty percent of my clients go into overtime; meaning they exceed the original project estimate and begin paying for my time on an appointment-by-appointment basis.

There are many reasons a client might go into overtime. Here are a few of the more common ones:

The client:

• needs to process their thoughts

• isn’t actually ready and needs coaching

• is undertaking a significant career transition, whether up, down, or laterally

• sees unexpected value in this unique process

• goes into their own state of self-examination, introspection, or iteration, and needs more time than expected

When booking any appointment, you’ll have the choice to be placed on my waitlist.

Here’s how that works:

When a client needs to reschedule an appointment, my assistant or I will email waitlist members to offer the newly opened spot. Everyone is BCC’d for confidentiality.

The first person to reply gets the spot.

Learn about who I work with.