How senior HR leaders achieved a 45% confidence boost in their job search
- Renee Conklin
- Feb 20
- 3 min read
Senior HR leaders are experts at advising everyone else on their careers. But when it comes to their own job search? Most are completely stuck.
The participants in my Job Search Accelerator for Women in HR are accomplished HR professionals who've hired hundreds of people, coached executives through transitions, and built entire talent strategies.
Yet they came into the program with bare-bones LinkedIn profiles, outdated resumes, and no idea how to network at their level.
By the end of 12 weeks, their confidence increased by 45%. And 97% would recommend the program to an HR peer.
What the data tells us
Every participant came in knowing they "should" be good at job searching. They're HR professionals after all.
The irony isn't lost on anyone: we're the people who help everyone else with their careers, but we're terrible at managing our own.
Yet the data from the program wrap-up survey shows where their confidence jumped the most:
Job search strategy improved 62%. These women went from scattered, hope-based applications to having a clear, repeatable system.
Networking skills increased 54%. The introverts pushed past their comfort zones. The extroverts learned that coffee chats weren't enough. Everyone discovered that strategic networking beats endless LinkedIn applications.
LinkedIn profiles improved 58%. Most knew their profiles needed work. Few knew how to optimize for their level or what "good" actually looked like at the senior tier.
When it works
Sarah Boulton was a Head of Learning at a biopharma company. After being made redundant, she spent 18 months job searching. Zero offers. Zero traction.
She started questioning if she was "unemployable."
For 18 months, she'd been doing what most senior HR leaders do: spending 80% of her time applying to online job boards and hoping something would stick.
When she joined the Job Search Accelerator, we flipped her strategy. 50% of her time went to strategic networking. Only 30% to online applications. The rest to building her LinkedIn presence and personal brand.
After completing the program, Sarah landed a Head of Learning role at a biopharma company. Not through an application. Through a relationship she built during the program.
Her 18-month struggle wasn't about her qualifications. It was about her strategy.
Why generic career advice doesn't work for senior HR
Here's what I learned from watching these women transform their searches: They need someone who understands that HR at this level is political. That building credibility with C-suite stakeholders requires different skills than managing teams. That moving from operational HR to strategic HR requires repositioning your entire professional brand.
They need a program built for their level, their challenges, and their market realities.
The structure that worked
The Job Search Accelerator for Women in HR has six group coaching workshops over 12 weeks. Two 1:1 sessions for personalized strategy. Peer coaching between sessions. A private WhatsApp community for real-time support.
But what participants valued most about the program wasn't the content. It was the combination of expert guidance, honest feedback, and doing it alongside peers who understood their specific struggles.
One participant said: "I've gained confidence not only in applying and interviewing but most importantly in networking. I even secured interviews through those conversations."
Another said: "I do feel very energized walking away and like I am owning it and taking charge of what I want to do in the future."
The program works because it's not generic. It's built specifically for the challenges senior HR women face when they're stuck, exhausted, and don't know what to do next.
97% of participants would recommend this program
That satisfaction score isn't about me. It's about what happens when senior HR leaders stop doing what everyone else tells them to do and start executing a strategy built for where they are.
What's next
Cohort 3 starts February 23rd. Limited to 6 participants.
If you're a senior HR leader who's tired of feeling stuck, if you know you should be networking but don't know where to start, if your LinkedIn profile is gathering dust and your resume hasn't been touched in years, let's talk.
I work with female senior leaders in Human Resources who feel stuck to help them love their work or find work they love. I write about:
👂 Executive & career coaching
📄 Career development and career transition
🎯 Job search strategy
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