Career Positioning

Career Positioning

Child of career-coach. This skill handles positioning strategy — what to emphasize and how you're seen by external and internal audiences. It owns strategy and emphasis; the actual document and your off-platform presence live in sibling skills.

Siblings: career-coach (parent), career-application-writer (writes the CV/letter), career-online-presence (website/GitHub/social/AI findability), other career-* skills.

When NOT to Use

Use this skill when the deliverable is positioning strategy (what to emphasize, brand narrative, LinkedIn strategy, visibility plan, recruiter approach, speaking strategy, network map).

HARD RULES

1. Always read user profile first — tailor every recommendation to their actual seniority, domain, and goals.
2. Emphasize business outcomes, not technology names — "reduced manual processing by 73%" beats "built Python automation." (Document construction of these bullets lives in career-application-writer.)
3. LinkedIn content must reinforce target positioning, not scatter across random topics.
4. Apply the right vertical lens — banking/finance dynamics when the user is in that world; generalize the principle otherwise (the worked examples here use banking).
5. PDF default for CVs — PDF is the safe default for semantic ATS (the older "ATS can't read PDF" caution has largely reversed; see ~/.claude/skills/career-coach/references/market-snapshot-2026-06.md). Document format details live in career-application-writer.
6. Use "professional development" / "competency", not "skills development" for the user's growth.

Structured Interaction Flow

1. What is the positioning need? — Job search? Internal visibility? Thought leadership? All of the above?
2. Assess current positioning — Review LinkedIn profile and/or CV if the user can share them.
3. Define target positioning narrative — Who are you, for whom, solving what?
4. Create or optimize specific assets — CV, LinkedIn, brand document, recruiter brief, speaking abstract.
5. Build a 90-day visibility plan — Concrete weekly/monthly actions with accountability checkpoints.

1. CV / Résumé Strategy (what to emphasize)

Generation lives in career-application-writer. This section is the strategic skeleton — what to foreground. To actually write or tailor the document, route to the writer.

• Lead with outcomes, not tools — every bullet answers "what business outcome did this produce?" "Reduced manual processing by 73% with auditable exception handling" beats "built Python automation." Outcome before tool.
• Make scope legible — team size (direct + dotted-line), budget, data/transaction scale, number of business lines, and the regulatory frameworks you operated within (banking worked example: MiFID II, Basel III/IV, BCBS 239, SOX, GDPR, PRA/FCA, DORA).
• Title + grade — where banking grade and functional title differ, show both ("Vice President — Head of AI Engineering"); note equivalences across institutions.
• Emphasis maps to the scorecard — foreground the competencies the target role actually evaluates against (semantic-ATS rewards concept alignment, not keyword repetition).

Semantic ATS (strategy summary)

Modern ATS uses semantic (vector-embedding) matching, not keyword counting — so keyword-stuffing lowers scores, and the real automated filter is the eligibility/knockout gate, not content scoring (see market-snapshot-2026-06.md). For how matching works and how to align a document to it, see career-application-writer's ATS section.

Digital-Footprint Consistency

Your CV, LinkedIn, and public footprint are increasingly cross-checked by screening tools — titles, dates, and headline metrics must agree across all of them. Authoring the consistent documents lives in career-application-writer; building the off-platform footprint lives in career-online-presence. (Current screening figures: market-snapshot-2026-06.md.)

2. LinkedIn Optimization

How LinkedIn Ranks Content Now

LinkedIn's feed and search appear to be driven by an LLM ranking engine ("360Brew", LIKELY — hedge this) over an Interest Graph rather than a simple chronological/engagement feed (see ~/.claude/skills/career-coach/references/market-snapshot-2026-06.md). Practical implications:

• Write in your own voice — AI-generated posts appear to be de-rewarded. Author genuinely; if you draft with assistance, run a voice pass (see ~/.claude/skills/career-coach/references/ai-tells-catalog.md). Never optimize against a detector — write to sound like you because that is what reads as credible.
• Saves and Sends are high-weight signals — content people save or DM to a colleague outranks content that just gets a like. Write things worth keeping.
• Carousels (document posts) and newsletters are favored formats — use them where the content fits.
• Profile ↔ posts topic consistency matters — the Interest Graph reads your profile and your posting as one entity; keep them on the same few topics.
• AI people-search implications — your profile copy is also read by AI answer engines resolving "who is "; write it as the canonical statement of what you do (off-LinkedIn findability lives in career-online-presence).

Profile Sections

• Headline — a value proposition, not a job title. "Engineering Director | Building Resilient Trading Platforms for Tier-1 Banks", not "VP at Bank X".
• About — a strategic positioning document, not a biography: open with the business problem you solve, include 2-3 quantified impact statements, close with what you want (if searching) or care about; first person, under 2,000 characters.
• Experience — mirror your CV's outcome-focused bullets (3-5 per role, measurable). "Led 45-person AI engineering team delivering $12M annual savings across 3 business lines", not "Managed team."
• Featured — pin your best evidence: published articles, conference recordings, case studies, media mentions.
• Recommendations — target 8-12 from diverse sources (direct reports, peers, managers, business stakeholders); request specific ones ("Could you speak to the impact of the X programme?"), not generic.

Content Strategy — 5 Durable Pillars

All LinkedIn content should map to one of these pillars:

1. Industry Interpretation — Your take on news, regulations, trends in financial services technology. Shows you understand the landscape.
2. Operating Principles — How you lead, build teams, make decisions, run programmes. Shows your leadership philosophy.
3. Market Reality — What you observe on the ground: adoption challenges, vendor hype vs. reality, what actually works. Shows practical credibility.
4. Talent & Culture — Hiring, retention, team building, diversity, engineering culture in financial services. Shows you build organisations, not just systems.
5. Responsible Innovation — AI governance, ethical automation, risk-aware technology adoption. Shows you are a safe pair of hands for regulators and boards.

Cadence: 1 post per week minimum. Consistency matters more than volume.

3. Personal Brand Architecture

Boundary: this section covers brand strategy (narrative, topic ownership). Building the off-platform surface that carries the brand — personal site, GitHub, newsletters, AI findability — lives in career-online-presence. Cadence figures here are a strategic guide; current platform-specific mechanics live in career-online-presence and the market snapshot.

• Target narrative — one sentence that captures your professional identity; specific enough to be memorable and credible enough to withstand scrutiny. "Credible operator who makes AI safe, useful, and commercially meaningful in regulated finance" — not "AI enthusiast" / "passionate about innovation."
• Topic ownership — pick 2-3 sharp topics, not broad categories: "AI governance in regulated financial services", not "AI".
• Cadence (strategic guide) — LinkedIn posts ~1-2/week; long-form ~1/month; speaking ~2-4/year. Consistency over volume.
• Engagement — comment substantively (add insight, respectfully challenge — "Great post!" does nothing); engage with people you want to be associated with; add commentary rather than resharing silently.

4. Recruiter Relationships

Key Recruitment Firms for Finance IT

Specialist (VP / Director level — contingency and retained):

• Selby Jennings
• Huxley
• Cititec Talent
• Oliver James
• Robert Walters
• Robert Half
• Harvey Nash

Executive Search (ED / MD / C-suite — retained):

• Korn Ferry
• Heidrick & Struggles
• Egon Zehnder
• Spencer Stuart

Retained vs Contingency — Know the Difference

The named firms are a banking worked example. The general principle — build relationships with 3–5 specialist recruiters in your sector before you need them — applies everywhere.

Apply-early under the flood. Application volume is at record highs and cold-application response is very low; applying early in a posting's window measurably helps, and referrals + direct outreach beat the cold-apply channel by a wide margin (see ~/.claude/skills/career-coach/references/market-snapshot-2026-06.md; full job-search strategy in career-transition).

Relationship Rules

1. Build relationships BEFORE you need them. Connect with 3-5 specialists in finance IT recruitment now, while you are not looking.
2. Be clear about what you want. Vague briefs waste everyone's time. Know your target title, compensation range, geography, and deal-breakers.
3. Be responsive. Even if a role is not right, reply within 48 hours. Recruiters remember who ghosts them.
4. Be honest. About your situation, your timeline, your competing offers.
5. Be a connector. Refer good candidates to recruiters. The best recruiter relationships are bidirectional.
6. Understand the dynamic. The recruiter works for the hiring company, not for you. They are paid by the employer. Your interests are aligned but not identical.

5. Internal Visibility Strategy

• Cross-functional exposure — say yes to cross-silo projects (steering committees, working groups, transformation programmes); offer to brief Risk / Compliance / Operations / Front Office; join or create communities of practice. Bridge-building is rare and valued.
• Internal content — monthly team updates visible to leadership; conference takeaways written up for internal distribution; knowledge-sharing sessions (lunch-and-learns, tech talks, demo days).
• Relationship architecture — build 2 levels up (skip-level + peers, who discuss your promotion in calibration) and 2 levels down (shows you develop talent); become the cultural broker connecting IT and business silos (disproportionately valued in banking).

6. Conference Speaking & Thought Leadership

Scope = positioning only (which stages to target, how to progress, how to pitch). Drafting the article/abstract/talk → content-writer (+ human-voice-writing for voice). Choosing/running distribution channels (newsletter, YouTube, social) → career-online-presence.

• Progression path — internal (tech forums, demos) → semi-external (vendor roundtables, practitioner groups) → external (meetups, webinars, podcasts, panels) → keynote-track (industry conferences, published research, advisory boards).
• Write first, speak second — published material is the best conference application; organisers want speakers who have demonstrably articulated ideas clearly. Build the written portfolio before pitching.
• Key finance-tech conferences (banking worked example) — Sibos, Money20/20, Innovate Finance, Finextra, Risk.net, TradeTech, AI & Big Data Expo.
• Proposal tips — propose specific outcomes, not broad topics: "How We Cut False-Positive Fraud Alerts by 60% Using ML", not "AI in Banking".

7. Network Mapping

Three-Circle Model

Mapping Dimensions

Map each contact against two axes:

1. Power to help your career goals — Can they open doors, make introductions, provide references, sponsor you?
2. Domain diversity — Tech, business, risk, compliance, operations, external industry, academia, regulation?

Common Pathology for Senior IT Professionals

Senior technologists typically have networks that are:

• Too homogeneous — all technologists, no business/risk/compliance contacts
• Too internal — strong within current employer, weak externally
• Too passive — contacts exist but are never activated or maintained

The 90-day visibility plan should explicitly address whichever of these applies.

Output Artefacts

Depending on the positioning need, this skill produces:

• Optimized CV/resume (formatted document or structured content)
• LinkedIn profile rewrite (headline, about, experience bullets, featured section recommendations)
• Personal brand narrative (one-pager: target narrative, topic pillars, content calendar)
• Recruiter engagement brief (target firms, outreach templates, talking points)
• 90-day visibility plan (weekly actions across internal visibility, external content, network building)
• Conference speaking abstract (title, summary, 3 learning outcomes, speaker bio)
• Network map (three-circle model with gap analysis and action items)

Anti-Patterns