Your Credentials Are Impressive. But Who Are You Impressing?

After 35+ years writing for PARW and PARWCC’s Spotlight (since 1990), I will conclude my contributions at the end of 2026. This is the second of three departing articles.

I have a suggestion for résumé writers, career coaches, LinkedIn experts, employment strategists, and everyone else who earns a living helping people find work.

For a few minutes  or, hopefully, longer – stop looking at your website. Stop looking at your credentials, certifications, awards, and testimonials. Stop focusing on proprietary processes, résumé samples, LinkedIn statistics, acronyms, algorithms, AI prompts, branding statements, and the 17 reasons somebody should work with you.

Instead, take a deep look at the person on the other side of the screen: the job seeker.  Because many practitioners have lost sight of them – at least at a deep emotional level.

This may sound ridiculous, even a bit condescending. But hear me out. Then decide whether there is something important here – or whether I should head out to pasture at a faster rate.

Your Entire Profession Exists to Serve Job Seekers

Here is the challenge: Invest 30 minutes and take an open-minded tour through the career services marketplace –  LinkedIn, Facebook, websites, videos, and articles – and do it as an unemployed person, not as an industry practitioner.

You may find it exhausting.

One résumé writer tells you your résumé must be one page. Another says two. Another says length doesn’t matter. One expert says never use an objective. Another says you need a branding statement. Then someone else says personal branding has become overwhelming for job seekers.

One source says keywords are critical, while another insists they are overrated. Networking is the key to success, say many. Algorithmic matching is the future, say the futurists.

Apparently, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that whatever job seekers are doing, it is wrong – or at least inadequate. Which, when you think about it, is a rather ingenious business model.

Meanwhile, the people you are trying to attract may be sitting at the kitchen table at 11:30 at night thinking: “Could somebody please just help me get a job?”

That is the person your marketing has to reach. Not your colleagues. Not the awards committee. Not the people who already know what all those letters after your name mean.

The job seeker. Start there.

“I know that,” you say.

“Yes,” I reply. But please, take the free 30-minute tour.

Welcome to the Trophy Case

Now let’s talk about how our industry markets itself.

Visit enough career professional websites and LinkedIn profiles and you will encounter an impressive display of credentials, certifications, affiliations, awards, speaking engagements, media appearances, accomplishments – and, of course, the inspirational quote of the day.

I understand why. You worked hard for those credentials. Your colleagues respect them. Professional associations recognize them. They can establish credibility.

But here is an uncomfortable question: How much does the frightened 52-year-old operations manager who was laid off last Tuesday care?  Or a 22 year old graduating from college, with a debt-load of debt and no job prospects lined up yet?

Probably less than you think. They may not know what the acronyms mean. They may not know the certifying organization. And if they encounter six practitioners with a gazillion initials after their names, they may wonder whether they accidentally wandered into an eye chart.

Credentials can matter. They can reassure. They can support credibility. But credentials are not the same thing as relevance. And when virtually everyone leads with them, they stop differentiating you anyway.

The point is not that credentials are worthless. The point is that job seekers should not have to decode your profession, its lingo, and your professional philosophy before they can determine whether you understand their problem – and can help solve it.

They are not shopping for a résumé.

They are not shopping for coaching.

They are shopping for a better future – and hoping you can help them get there.

This distinction matters. Yet much industry marketing still begins with: “Look at me: Here are my qualifications, my methodology, my experience, why I am different, and look – here are some pics of me speaking.”

Borrowing From Covey

Stephen Covey famously taught two of his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that belong together: “Begin with the end in mind” and “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Career professionals might borrow both and adapt them:

Begin with the job seeker in mind.

Before writing a website, LinkedIn post, advertisement, newsletter, email campaign, or sales page, ask: What is this person experiencing emotionally? What are they afraid of? What are they confused about? What do they desperately want to know? What problem, if solved, could substantially improve their life?

And most importantly: What do they need from me right now?

Those questions produce very different marketing. When you seek first to understand job seekers from their emotional perspective – not yours – you earn the right to be heard. And keep in mind: buying decisions are often emotional before they are rationalized intellectually.

Instead of:

I am an award-winning, nationally certified résumé pro with expertise in ATS optimization and executive branding…

Try:

You have good experience. You know you’ve contributed. But right now, you’re having trouble explaining your value in a way employers understand. That’s easily fixable.

Now the job seeker is listening.

The first statement tells them what you know. The second tells them that you know them.

That is more than a marketing distinction. It is a human one.

Job Seekers Don’t Enter Your World – You Enter Theirs

Professionals naturally think in professional language. Our industry talks about value propositions, personal branding, transferable competencies, ATS optimization, networking strategies, digital footprints, interview narratives, and career transition methodologies.

Fine.

Those terms may be useful to practitioners. But nobody wakes up at 3:00 in the morning thinking: “My God, I need a more compelling value proposition.”  And if they do, they probably need a different kind of professional.

They think: What if I don’t find something? How long can I afford this? Am I too old? Why aren’t employers responding? Was I really as valuable as I thought I was? What am I supposed to do next?

That is the conversation already taking place in the job seeker’s head.

Enter that conversation.

Remember the scene in My Cousin Vinny where Lisa is concerned about getting married and Vinny explodes under the weight of everything he is dealing with? He has a judge threatening to throw him in jail, somebody trying to fight him for $200, slaughtered pigs, loud whistles, no sleep, no money, a dress-code problem, two innocent kids charged with murder – and now Lisa wants to discuss their biological clocks and marriage.

His basic message is: Could we possibly pile one more thing on top of everything I am already dealing with?

That is often what job seekers are experiencing. 

Their résumé may be only one problem. Their real problem may be fear, uncertainty, identity, money, rejection, family pressure, age, technology, confidence – and not knowing what to do next.

Try the Stranger Test

Here is a simple experiment that most people probably will not do.

Show your website to six to eight people who know absolutely nothing about the career services profession.

Don’t explain anything. Give them 60 seconds – no more. Then ask:

“If you had suddenly lost your job, what on this page would make you feel that this person understands what you’re going through and could help you?”

Notice I did not ask: “Were you impressed?” or “What did you like about it?”

Those are very different questions.

A professional website can be extremely impressive and yet completely unpersuasive. A LinkedIn post can demonstrate enormous expertise and provide little comfort, clarity, or direction to a prospective client.

Less Noise. More Humanity.

The job search has never been emotionally easy. Now AI, changing hiring practices, and an avalanche of conflicting advice have made it even noisier.

And the Internet has ensured that for every career expert confidently telling job seekers what they absolutely must do, another expert is confidently telling them the opposite.

Perhaps your contribution should not be more noise.  Perhaps it should be clarity.  Maybe your marketing should make people feel less overwhelmed rather than more impressed.

Maybe the first objective of a résumé writer’s website, LinkedIn profile, or post should not be proving that the practitioner understands résumés. And career coach marketing should not begin by showcasing the coach.

Both should begin by demonstrating that the practitioner understands the human being who needs help – the person who may be frightened, frustrated, hurting, embarrassed, angry, confused, or simply tired of trying to figure it all out alone.

In an increasingly noisy, automated, AI-driven marketplace, where job seekers will have more free and inexpensive tools than ever, understanding the human being on the other side of the screen, and clearly demonstrating why your help is worth paying for, may become one of the most powerful competitive advantages you have.

So before you show them your credentials, methodology, certifications, expertise, awards, or philosophies, show them something far more important:

That you understand them.

Because in a world where expertise is increasingly available everywhere –  and increasingly available free – being understood may become more valuable than being impressed.

Begin with the job seeker in mind.