What Top Executives Know About Career Moves

Blind spots are inevitable, whether you’re pursuing a new role, exploring opportunities through your network, positioning yourself for promotion, or contemplating a more significant career pivot.

The challenge isn’t capability, it’s perspective. Self-assessment becomes nearly impossible when you’re already fully engaged in making yourself visible, competitive, and promotable.

Successful executives understand this limitation.

The leaders who achieve the most effective career transitions don’t simply endure the process, they play a key role in architecting it, often with a partner, mentor, or team. They know their time is better spent building relationships, articulating their value, or impressing in a final interview rather than parsing resume trends, navigating job boards, or networking without purpose.

PLAN YOUR CAREER AS MUCH AS YOU PLAN AT WORK

Consider how leaders operate within their organizations. Marketing executives lead teams in testing positioning points before launching campaigns. COOs work cross-functionally to establish implementation frameworks and schedules before starting digital transformation initiatives. Product leaders at SaaS companies help the organization pivot when iterations fail to gain market traction.

Yet many of these same professionals approach their own career moves without equivalent rigor. They deserve the same level of strategic planning they bring to their work, the kind that keeps them directing their trajectory rather than feeling reactionary.

Before your next career move, assess your approach honestly:

• Do you have a mechanism to refine your own “positioning points” or “career story” and receive candid feedback?
• Is your network engagement producing substantive conversations or polite exchanges that lead nowhere?
• Is your strategy tailored to your specific objectives or borrowed from generic advice?
• Have you skipped foundational steps in favor of activities that feel more comfortable or rewarding?

If your process has yielded minimal traction, the answer isn’t just perseverance, it’s recalibration.

After this assessment, try to also acknowledge what you still can’t see and avoid the #1 mistake most people make when going through a career move: trying to do it alone. Recognizing the limits of proximity (being too close to objectively evaluate yourself), may be the most strategic and executive decision you make.

At Rose Up Coaching & Consulting, this is the partnership we provide to leaders and executives across industries — from high-profile startups to Fortune 500 companies including Amazon, Citibank, Caterpillar, Marriott, HP, Uber, SAP, and WebMD. The mission: help accomplished professionals approach their own advancement with the same strategic precision they bring to their organizations, elevating incredible people into roles where they can create lasting change.