Justin Welsh

The $10M Solopreneur | Helping 100,000+ burned-out corporate professionals build six-figure, one-person online businesses.

Over the last decade, I helped build two companies past a $1B valuation and raise over $300M in venture capital. 

Then, in 2019, I burned out.

So, I decided to walk away from my high-paying executive job.

But, before I could, I had a hypothesis.

I believed building an audience online would be an incredible asset. That attention was the new currency and would play a major part in my success as an entrepreneur.

So, I started building my brand on LinkedIn in early 2019. 

And the results were pretty phenomenal.

In just 6 months, I grew from zero followers to over 20,000.

And on August 1st of 2019, I walked away from my executive role at a fast-growing startup.

Since that day, I've spent my time building a number of one-person Internet businesses.

My results:

→ $10.3M+ in business revenue at a ~86% profit margin.
→ 750K+ people following my journey on LinkedIn
→ 535K+ people following my journey on Twitter
→ 175K+ people read my weekly newsletter
→ 900M+ impressions in the last 6 years

If you want to learn more about how I did this, you can take one of my self-guided courses.

THE CREATOR MBA DIGITAL COURSE

The Creator MBA teaches you frameworks for turning your knowledge and expertise into a quality product that people will buy. Come learn to build a lean, focused, and profitable Internet business.

→ Start watching here: learn.justinwelsh.me/creator-mba

THE OPERATING SYSTEM DIGITAL COURSE

In this 120-minute course, you will learn the complete LinkedIn operating system that I used to grow from 0 to 750K followers and earn $10M+ in income with zero advertisements. Join 40,000+ students and 70+ LinkedIn Top Voices in my LinkedIn course rated 4.98/5 stars.

→ Start watching here: learn.justinwelsh.me/linkedin

THE CONTENT OS DIGITAL COURSE

In this 85-minute course, you will learn the 8-part content creation machine behind 600M+ impressions on LinkedIn and Twitter, and building a 175,000+ subscriber newsletter. If you're looking for systems to produce 10-15 pieces of high-quality written content every single day, this is the course for you.

→ Start watching here: learn.justinwelsh.me/content

Email: support@justinwelsh.me
X: @thejustinwelsh

Founder

Join 75k+ subscribers to the Saturday Solopreneur. Every Saturday morning, you'll get 1 actionable tip on audience and revenue growth for your online business.

The smartest people I know are the most teachable.

That sounds backward.

You'd think the more you know, the less you need to learn.

But it works the opposite way.

The people who are really good at something?

They're constantly asking questions.
Admitting what they don't know.
Changing their minds when evidence changes.

The people who are stuck?

They already have all the answers.

I've been running my own business for almost 7 years now.

I still read stuff from people who are just getting started.

Still change my approach when something isn't working.

Still get things wrong every single day.

That's not a weakness.
That's part of the game of entrepreneurship.

The moment you decide you've figured it out is the moment you stop growing.

And in a world that changes this fast, standing still is the same as moving in reverse.

Be the person who's always learning.

Not because you're insecure about what you know.
Because you're curious about what you don't.

I write a weekly newsletter to 180K+ entrepreneurs who want to continuously get better.

Every week I share what's working, what's not, and what I'm still figuring out.

As a bonus, you'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn growth guide free when you sign up. 

It's the playbook I used to go from 2,000 to 815,000 followers.

Get it now → https://buff.ly/gqZIz2O

The $10M Solopreneur | Helping 100,000+ experts turn their expertise into income.

I overthought my first 100 posts.

Edited them to death.
Spent hours on each one.
Waited for the "perfect" moment to publish.

Most of them flopped anyway.

Then I started posting faster.

Rougher drafts. 
Less editing. 
Just hit publish and see what happens.

Those posts did better.

Turns out nobody cared about the stuff I was obsessing over.

They cared whether the idea landed.

Overthinking feels like effort.
But it's usually just fear.

You can't think your way to good content.
You have to publish your way there.

The feedback is in the arena, not in your drafts folder.

If you've been stuck tweaking instead of posting, stop. 

I put together a free 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide to take the guesswork out of it. 

Just follow the playbook.

It's everything I learned going from 2,000 to 820,000 followers.

You'll get it when you join my weekly newsletter for 180K+ entrepreneurs.

Get it here → https://buff.ly/44xK67t

I come from a family of employees.

Good people. 
Hard workers. 
Steady paychecks.

Nobody ever started a business.

Nobody talked about building something of their own.

That wasn’t the path.

The path was: get good grades, get a good job, work there for 30 years, retire.

So when I left a corporate CRO role to go out on my own, it didn’t make sense to anyone.

I had the good job. 
I’d done the path right.
Why would I walk away from that?

I didn’t have a good answer at the time.

I just knew I wanted to try something different.

Six years later, I run an 8-figure business by myself.

I work 3 to 4 hours a day.

I have more freedom than anyone in my family has ever had.

Simply because I gave myself permission to do it differently.

You don’t need your family’s approval.
You don’t need someone’s blueprint. 
You’re allowed to be the first.

Someone has to go first.
It might as well be you!

When I started, I had no audience, no product, and no clue.

The thing that changed everything was building in public on LinkedIn.

One platform. 
One skill. 
That’s what opened every door.

I put together a free 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide with everything I learned going from 2,000 to 820,000 followers.

You’ll get it when you join my weekly newsletter for 180K+ entrepreneurs.

Get it here → https://lnkd.in/eymFT7nF

image credit: tiffinikilgore

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You need delusion.

You need audacity.

Sanity is actually a liability.

Every entrepreneur I know was told they were being unrealistic.

"That won't work."
"You don't have the experience."
"Why would anyone pay you for that?"

The "realistic" people said all of this.

And the realistic people are still exactly where they were five years ago.

Meanwhile, the delusional ones?

They built the thing anyway.

They launched before they were ready.
They ignored people who said it wouldn't work.
They believed in something no one else could see.

Remember:

You cannot build something new while thinking like everyone else.

The timing will never be perfect.
The odds will never be in your favor.
The math will never make sense at the start.

You have to be a little delusional to hit "publish" anyway.

A little audacious to charge money for your ideas.

A little insane to bet on yourself when no one else will.

The people who play it safe don't build anything.

They just watch and wonder.

If you're ready to stop wondering and start building, I just launched a free 30-day challenge that helps you earn $1,000 from your expertise.

It's called The Expert OS.

- One short video per day. 
- All of my templates.
- All of my sequences.
- And all of my prompts. 

Everything you need to get your first paying customer in 30 days.

Start day 1→ https://lnkd.in/ezT6vcCv

Your energy doesn't lie.

When something's right for you, it gives energy.

Not because it's easy.
Not because you're good at it yet.

But because it lights something up in you.

When I started writing online, I was bad at it.

Like, really bad.

But every piece I published made me want to write the next one.

Even the ones that flopped.

That's how I knew.

Compare that to my last few years in corporate.

Every email felt super heavy.
Every meeting took something out of me.
Successful on paper, but running on empty.

Same effort.
Similar hours. 
Totally different energy.

Most people ignore this signal.

They stay in the thing that drains them because it pays well or looks impressive.

Then they wonder why they're exhausted all the time.

Your energy is telling you something.

The work that's right for you won't feel like you're constantly pushing uphill.

It'll feel like something you want to keep doing, even when it's hard.

I write a weekly newsletter to 180K+ entrepreneurs on finding and building that kind of work.

And if you're struggling to get your work in front of an audience, you'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn growth guide (advice from 2,000 to 815,000 followers) free when you sign up.

Get it now → https://buff.ly/gqZIz2O

We make terrible decisions when we're overwhelmed.

Too many projects. 
Too many priorities. 
Too much noise in our heads.

We work more hours but get less done. 
We spend days agonizing over small decisions.

The problem isn't effort.
It's a lack of focus.

When you're stressed, your brain narrows. 
You can't see options. 
You react instead of thinking.

The best thing I ever did for my business was slow down.

Fewer projects. 
Fewer priorities. 
Fewer tabs open (literally and mentally).

It felt unproductive at first.

But something really interesting happened over time.

I started making better decisions. 
And making them a lot faster. 
With less second-guessing.

Because I could actually think.

The calmer you are, the clearer you think. 

And that's worth more than hustle.

Most people build businesses that stress them out. 

I help over 180,000 entrepreneurs build businesses that are the opposite.

Lean, small, profitable.

I send out 4-minute playbooks every Saturday morning to help you start.

You'll learn:

- 6-figure frameworks that run on autopilot.
- The strategies that built my 1.5M+ audience.
- How to build wealth without ever hiring a team.
- Why "scaling" is terrible advice for most people.

BONUS: You'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide for free.

Join here: https://buff.ly/e9HmJhK

I spent 17 years building things for other people.

Their companies.
Their timelines.
Their visions.

And I was handsomely rewarded for it.

Hit my numbers.
Got the promotions.
Made some good money.

But in the back of my mind, I knew I was always one "reorganization" away from making $0.

I kept going day in and day out.

Then one day, I burned out and couldn't do it any longer.

And it hit me:

I was building someone else's asset with my time, energy, and ideas.

The system isn't broken. 
It's working exactly as designed.

It needs smart people to trade their expertise for a paycheck.

Your expertise is yours.
Your experience is yours.

The question is whether you're going to keep giving it away or finally do something with it.

I built a free course for people who are (finally) done building someone else's dream.

It's called The Expert OS.

It's a free 30-day challenge that walks you from "I know stuff" to "people pay me for what I know."

No "mindset" training.
No flimsy, fluffy nonsense.
Just my entire playbook for business building.

Here's what you'll get:

- My "bleeding neck" framework for $250K ideas.
- My $12M+ plug-and-play sales page template.
- My 10-email launch sequence that sells.
- 10+ AI prompts to speed up your build.

It's my entire framework for building my 8-figure business online.

Start Day 1 → https://lnkd.in/ezT6vcCv

Talking about your idea feels like progress.

It's not.

I spent a full year telling people about my "big plans."

At work.
At dinners.
To anyone who'd listen.

Got all the nods.
All the encouragement.
All the "you should totally do that."

Felt great.
Felt productive.

But I wasn't building anything.

I was borrowing the feeling of progress without actually making any.

Every conversation gave me just enough satisfaction to delay starting.

Eventually, I noticed a pattern:

The people who build things disappear for a while.
Then they come back with something real.

The people who talk about building things?
Usually still talking.

Ideas are free.
Everyone has them.

Execution is the whole game.

So I stopped announcing my plans.
And just started working on them.

Six years later, it's an 8-figure business.

Not because I had better ideas.
Because I finally shut up and built one.

If you're ready to stop talking and start building, I created a free 30-day course to help you.

It's called The Expert OS.

One short video per day. All of my templates, sequences, and prompts. Everything you need to get your first paying customer in 30 days.

Start day 1: https://lnkd.in/ezT6vcCv

I'm convinced: You'll never work for a better company than the one you build. 
 
When you build your own business?
 
1. You get to play every role.
2. You build an insane amount of skills.
3. You're forced to take responsibility for all.
4. You can put your family and loved ones first.
 
Is it extremely difficult? Hell yes.
 
Will every day be sunshine and rainbows? Hell no.

In fact, it will be challenging, frustrating, difficult, and painful.

But, man, is it meaningful.
 
And at the end of the day, you'll have the only boss in the universe that has your best interest in mind 100% of the time.
 
YOU.
 
It feels like it's just one decision.

But, really, it's the start of a whole new life.

If you want to start building something for YOU, I put together a free 30-day system to help.

It's called The Expert OS.

One short video per day. All of my templates, sequences, pages, and AI prompts. 

Everything you need to have paying customers in 30 days.

Start day 1 → https://buff.ly/1c87Alu

Ambition is a funny thing.

When you're starting, "more" is always the answer.

More clients, more revenue, more followers, more output.

And that's right. 
For a while.

But at some point, the game changes, and nobody tells you.

You keep optimizing for more when you should be optimizing for less.

Less stuff.
Less noise. 
Less obligation. 

The people I know who seem the most at peace?

They're not chasing the next milestone.
They're deliberately removing things from their life.

Saying no to opportunities that look good on paper.
Protecting their calendar as priority number one.

Because...it kind of is.

I spent years in a career where growth was the only metric.

More deals, more responsibility, more hours.

It worked until it didn't.

Turns out the thing I actually wanted wasn't more.

It was enough. 
Room to breathe.
Room to enjoy the day with my spouse.

It took 6+ years, but I was able to build an 8-figure business that runs mostly on autopilot and creative writing.

Now, I write a weekly newsletter to 180K+ readers on building a business that gives you your life back instead of taking it.

You'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn growth guide (2,000 to 815,000 followers) free when you sign up.

Get it now → https://buff.ly/gqZIz2O

I quit a job making $550,000 per year.

People thought that I was "very stupid."

Maybe I was.

But I'd rather be crazy than spend another decade wondering "what if I tried?"

Most people fail because they never try at all.

They talk themselves out of it before they start.

Too late.
Too risky.
Too uncertain.
Too competitive.

The excuses are endless. 
And they all sound reasonable.

But the people who win aren't the ones with the best ideas or the most talent.

They're the ones who actually do the thing.

Send the email. 
Launch the offer. 
Post the content. 
Ask for the sale.

While everyone else is waiting for permission or certainty, they just go a hundred miles an hour.

You can do whatever you want with your life.

But you have to actually believe that. 
And then you have to act like it.

I built a free 30-day course for people who are ready to stop waiting.

It's called The Expert OS.

It takes the thing you're good at and turns it into a real business. 

You'll get:

- All my templates
- All my launch emails
- All my sales page designs
- All of my AI prompts to speed you up
- Everything you need to make $1,000 in 30 days.

Start day 1→ https://buff.ly/1c87Alu

I get called lucky a lot.

And honestly? I have been lucky.

I had savings when I quit my job.
I wrote on LinkedIn before it was popular.
And a wife who supported me while I figured it out.

But here's the thing about luck:

It doesn't show up when you're sitting around.
It shows up when you're working on something.

I wrote online for 8 months before anything happened.

If I'd quit after six months, the "luck" never would've found me.

Most people aren't unlucky.

They just stopped before the luck had a chance to land.

You have to be in motion for good things to find you.

You have to be building something for opportunities to attach to.

Luck is real.
But it has a bias toward people who take action.

If you're in that silent phase right now, where you're working and nothing seems to be happening, keep going.

And if you want to shorten the timeline, I put together a free 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide with what I learned going from 2,000 to 820,000 followers.

You'll get it when you join my weekly newsletter for 180K+ entrepreneurs.

Get it here → https://buff.ly/AwBX8Ke

People confuse wealth with money.

They're related, but not the same at all.

I used to make great money at work. 

Big title and bonuses, the whole startup thing.
But my calendar always belonged to other people. 

If something came up with Jennifer or I just needed a slow morning? 

Too bad. 
The day was already 100% spoken for.

Now I make decisions based on how I want a random Tuesday to look. 

That doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize most people can't do it.

The new, modern status symbol is being able to say "I don't feel like it today" and have that actually mean something.

Most people are on a treadmill of trading their time for money so they can eventually buy their time back. 

But the math rarely works out. 

You just get used to the lifestyle and need more money to maintain it.

The goal isn't to get rich enough to stop working. 

It's to build something that doesn't require you to sacrifice your life while you're doing it.

To be able to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want.

I write a weekly newsletter to 180K+ entrepreneurs on building that kind of business so you can enjoy your life.

You'll get my 2026 LinkedIn growth guide (2,000 to 815,000 followers) free when you sign up.

Get it now → https://buff.ly/gqZIz2O

Prior to 2019, I'd never used social media. 

3 years later, I had 1 million followers.

But for the first eight months, nobody listened. 

I had no followers. 
No engagement. 
No proof it was working.

But I kept going. 

Not because I was certain it would work. 
Because I was certain it wouldn't if I didn't.

Here's what I missed:

Results aren't linear. 

You stay invisible for a long time, then suddenly you're not.

The people who win aren't more talented. 
They're still here. 
They outlasted the doubt.

Six years ago, I couldn't have imagined this life. 

Working a few hours a day from the mountains. 

No boss. 
No commute. 
No Sunday scaries. 
Jennifer and I doing whatever we want.

All because I kept writing.
Even when nobody was listening.

If you're in that invisible phase, I want to help you get through it faster.

I put everything I learned into my 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide:

• Go from "who's this guy" to "I see you everywhere."
• The 3 mistakes that kept me invisible for months.
• The simple system that finally broke through.
• The one thing all fast-growth accounts do.

Get it free when you join my newsletter.

Read it now: https://buff.ly/LtePUUO

I spent 16 years becoming a CRO, and then I quit to post on LinkedIn.

For two years, I knew I needed to leave. 

Every time I got close, I found a reason to wait. 

Not enough savings. 
Not the right time. 
Not sure it would work.

All true (but all excuses).

The thing I was most afraid of was the thing I most needed to do. 

It wasn't some anxious fear. 

It was the deep, quiet fear of doing something real. 

Putting yourself out there. 
Risking rejection.

That fear means you're close to something important.

Most people ignore it their whole lives. 

They stay in jobs they've outgrown. 
They sit on ideas they never test. 
They keep their expertise to themselves.

The move you're most scared to make is usually the one worth making.

I finally made mine. 
It changed everything.

Now I help over 180,000 entrepreneurs do it every week with 4-minute playbooks every Saturday morning.

You'll learn:

• 6-figure frameworks that run on autopilot
• The strategies that built my 1.5M+ audience
• How to build wealth without hiring a team
• Why "scaling" is terrible advice for most people

BONUS: You'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide for free.

Join here: https://buff.ly/e9HmJhK

You don't have to choose.

Make money OR help people.
Grow the business OR enjoy your life.
Build something meaningful OR have fun.

That's the trade-off everyone accepts.

And I think it's ridiculous

I've watched people build businesses that crush them.

They make great money but dread the work.
They help people but hate how they're doing it.
They scale and then spend years trying to escape.

Eight figures.
Zero joy.

They optimized for one goal and sacrificed the other two.

Here's what I've learned:

You can definitely have all three.

But you have to build for all three from day one.

Not "make money now, add fun later."
Not "grind now, enjoy life eventually."

I promise you that later never comes.

The people who win in the long term?

They build around work they love.
They refuse to trade happiness for money.
They design the business to fit their life first.

If you're building something right now, ask yourself:

Will I still want to do this in 10 years?

If the answer is no, you're building a trap.

I built a free 30-day system to help you build all three.

It's called The Expert OS.

One short video per day. All of my landing page templates, email sequences, and AI prompts. 

Everything you need to get your first paying customer in 30 days.

Start day 1: https://lnkd.in/ezT6vcCv

Time to make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun.

Freedom isn't retirement at 65.

It's a 100% free Tuesday at 2pm.

I left a corporate executive role at 38 because I was tired of asking permission to live my life.

Doctor's appointment? Check the calendar.
Long weekend? Run it by the team.

My time wasn't really mine.

Now, some days I work 8 hours.
Some days I work 2.
Some days I don't work at all.

And that's kinda the whole point.

Not to never work.
Just to choose when and how.

People think freedom means traveling the world.
But that's a vacation!

Real freedom is a lot different than that.

It's total control over your time, your energy, and your decisions.

It's not easy to build that kind of life.
It's incredibly hard.

You can't just take a Tuesday afternoon off if your income disappears when you do.

It took me over 2 years to finally figure it out.

But once I did, my life and business changed forever.

And the last 4 years have been focused on growing to an 8-figure business that runs mostly on autopilot and some creative content.

Now I show 180K+ weekly readers how to build the same kind of business each week in my newsletter.

As a bonus, you'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn growth guide (advice from 2,000 to 820,000 followers) for free when you sign up.

Get it now → https://buff.ly/gqZIz2O

Alesia Kapadia

I failed a lot (in public) over the last six years.

Offers nobody bought. 
Posts nobody read. 
Ideas that went nowhere.

It feels embarrassing at first.

But here's what I learned: 

None of those failures mattered.

They didn't hurt my reputation. 
They didn't set me back. 
They were just...attempts that didn't work.

What would have hurt is never starting.

Sitting on an idea for years. 
Watching other people build.
Wondering "what if" forever.

That's not avoiding failure. 
That literally is failure.

The only way to truly fail is to never try.
Everything else is just information.

Launch something, and nobody buys? 
You learned your offer needs work.

Post something, and nobody reads it? 
You learned your hook was off.

Send a DM and get ignored? 
You learned you need a better angle.

None of that is failure. 
It's all feedback.

But you only get feedback if you start.

Join over 180,000 entrepreneurs in my newsletter, learning to finally start businesses around their expertise.

I send 4-minute playbooks every Saturday morning to help you get started.

You'll learn:

- 6-figure frameworks that run on autopilot.
- The strategies that built my 1.5M+ audience.
- How to build wealth without ever hiring a team.
- Why "scaling" is terrible advice for most people.

BONUS: You'll also get my 2026 LinkedIn Growth Guide for free.

Join here: https://buff.ly/e9HmJhK

I told everyone about my big idea.

Then I did nothing about it for a year.

Talked about it at work.
Mentioned it to friends.

Got all of the nods, the encouragement, and the "that's awesome, you should totally do that."

It felt really great.
Felt like progress.

It wasn't.

I was borrowing the feeling of building something without actually building it.

The more I talked, the less I did.

Every little conversation gave me just enough satisfaction to delay starting.

Eventually, I saw the pattern.

The people who do things don't talk first.
They disappear for a while.
Then they come back with something real.

The ones who talk the most?
Usually still talking.

Ideas mean nothing.
Everyone has them.
Execution is the whole game.

So I stopped telling people my plans.
And just started executing on them.

Let the work speak instead of my mouth.
That's when things actually started to happen.

Six years of showing up, not talking about showing up.

That's what built an 8-figure business and an audience of 820,000.

If you're done planning and ready to start building, I put together a free guide to help you.

It's my 2026 LinkedIn Guide to LinkedIn growth.

Inside, you'll learn:

- The "silent build" for your first 10K followers
- How to "play the hits" for more tractions
- The 7:51 a.m. "siphon method" for views
- How to "prime the algorithm" to win

100% free when you join my newsletter.

Read it here → https://buff.ly/9FVcBq4

I didn't have it figured out when I started.

I still don't, honestly.

People assume that because something worked out, there was a plan.

Some moment where it all clicked and the path became clear.

That's not actually how it happened.

When I left my corporate job in 2019, I had no idea what I was doing.

Zero clue.

I just knew I couldn't keep doing what I was doing.

So I started.
Uncertain.
Confused.
Making it up as I went.

Six years later, people tell me I inspired them.

Which is funny.

Because most days I'm still figuring it out in real time.

The difference isn't getting clear on what works.

It's deciding that confusion isn't a good enough reason to stay stuck.

Everyone's waiting to feel ready.

Waiting for the moment when they finally know what to do.

That moment doesn't come.
You just start and figure it out along the way.

The people you look up to aren't less confused than you.

They just got moving while they were still uncertain.

Listen, you don't have to figure out everything from scratch.

When I started building my LinkedIn audience, I made every mistake possible.

It took me years to learn what actually works.

I put all of my learnings (including the dumb mistakes) into a free 2026 LinkedIn growth guide so you don't have to waste that time.

It's the playbook I used to go from 2,000 to 820,000 followers.

You'll get it free when you join my weekly newsletter for 180K+ entrepreneurs.

Read it here → https://lnkd.in/eiGDtKiE

I empower millennial & gen X job seekers in tech to land and pass interviews with confidence

Do you feel frustrated with the current job market?
Do you struggle to communicate in interviews?
Do you get rejected often? 
Do you get ghosted?

It usually takes a handful of interviews to warm up. 
But those handful of interviews are jobs. 
Jobs you might really want. 

For the last 20 years, I’ve been studying interviews. 
First as a candidate, then as a hiring manager. 
I’ve been in hundreds of interviews. 

I interviewed countless candidates and interviewers. 
I worked with interviewers to make hiring decisions. 
I learned what worked and didn’t work. 

And I learned that interviews aren’t about trivia. 
They’re about human connection. 
They’re about story telling. 

Interviewers want to experience working with you. 
Interviewers want to see if you’re like them. 
People want to work with people they like. 

I know what rejection feels like. I’ve been there. 
And I know what it’s like to crave feedback.
I know what it feels like to be ghosted. 

And I know what it feels like to get the offer. 
What it feels like to crush an interview. 

Today, I help people make a lasting impression. 
I help them show, not tell, how they work. 
I coach them on how to tell their story. 

I give them the feedback they crave. 
So they don’t have to warm on when it counts. 

Dozens have worked with me so far. 
And they’ve seen results in as little as 7-8 weeks. 

So what are you waiting for? I’m here to help you.

Jonathan Corrales

"How can someone with 40 years of experience in a field get no interviews or responses?"

My oldest client was 72. He struggled to get interviews. When he got them, he struggled to turn them into offers. He felt like his age was working against him.  

I'll never forget what he told me the first time we met: "I can hide my age on paper, but I can't hide my age on camera."

We only worked together for a handful of sessions. But he left an impact on me. 

Is that what's in store for everyone in the tech industry?

It's undeniable that the industry has a problem with ageism. It's not new. It's been a pain point for the last 20 years. I remember hearing about it as an undergrad. 

But job seekers are feeling it now more than ever, especially older tech workers that have been laid off and looking for a new role for months.

After working with my eldest client I kept an eye out for any sort of tactic that could be used to help older workers land more opportunities. 

Here's some of what I collected:
- reduce the amount of experience on the resume to the last 10-20
- include a statement that you have more the number of years of experience required
- remove any dates that can work against you, for example from your graduation date 
- remove labels such as seasoned from your CPR (cover, profile, resume)
- make sure recruiters know you're okay with the salary range being offered
- talk about your plans for the next 5 to 10 years, which should saying put

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#jobseekers #interviewpreparation #techjobs #seasoned

"It's really not that difficult," one recruiter said when talking about performing in an interview.

I was in a recruiter thread recently where recruiters were saying interviews are easy. "Just say what you did, who you did it for," one said.  

How hard could it be, right? It's easy. 

Everyone has the same abilities. Everyone can speak in front of a small group. Communication is everyone's strength. Everyone is assertive, confident, etc. 

Nah. Not even close. 

A couple years ago, one of my clients had a communication disability that made interviews particularly challenging for him. 

The way he described it was words arrived in his mind out of order. He had to put them in the right order before he could form a response. 

"It's like dyslexia for conversations," he said. 

Coincidentally, I saw a visual demonstration of what dyslexia looks like before our conversation. 

I can understand both disabilities, but I never experienced either. So I can only imagine how it might feel to experience them.

"Timed interviews make things worse," he said. "I have to unscramble messages and it takes time. It seems like I don't know the answer to questions because they expect a response right away."

When I helped him prepare for interviews, I showed him how to manage the time pressure. And we practiced for hours. 

He landed an offer but it was anything but easy. Especially for him. 

That's when I realized interviewing can be difficult for some and painful for others. 

I've worked with enough job seekers to say with certainty that interviewing is anything but easy. Even for the most confident, senior, job seekers out there. 

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#jobseekers #techindustry #interviewprep

"Make content. If you post to your LinkedIn you will reinforce that you are a subject matter expert." If you're a job seeker in tech, check it. 

If you want to create content, I'm all for it. But you don't have to as a job seeker. There are better ways to invest your time and energy. 

ChatGPT hit the main stage November 2022. Since then I've seen everything from prompts to run a business to prompts for building a personal brand. 

Does every job seeker need to become a content creator now? Nope. Hard no. 

Fun fact: there's no place to submit a personal brand on a job application. 

For the last two years and some change, I spoke to job seekers that tried to create content to gain visibility without success. They give up after realizing it takes work. 

Building content, an audience, authority is a long game. You can't post and ghost. It takes hours and hours of trial and error. Is that the best use of a job seeker's time? 

AI is great at helping people blend in. Whether it's resumes, social posts, or articles. The  colloquial term for obviously AI-generated content is slop. AI slop, to be more specific.

And here's the kicker, a lot of that content doesn't accurately represent the person that creates said content. 

Recruiters and hiring managers complain that candidates look great on paper because of AI but can't answer fundamental questions in interviews. 

Recruiters and hiring managers feel duped when there's a mismatch between a candidate's content (like their AI optimized resume) and their interview performance. 

Candidates can easily misrepresent themselves with AI-generated content.

There are better ways to invest your time: polish your resume, polish your profile, work on your interview skills. Build a portfolio with samples of work you'll actually do. 

Show, don't tell, employers what you can do and why they should hire you. 

I have clients with less than 200 connections, zero content published, and gainfully employed six six-figure salaries after investing their time wisely. 


-- 
 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

No AI was harmed in the making of this post. 
100% human-generated content. 🍃

#jobseekers #interviewpreparation #contentcreators #techjobs

Gearing up for a job search? Be ready to interview with people in all moods, especially bad ones.

I've been on both sides of the interviewing table for well over 20 years. 

The biggest lesson I've learned: interviewers might have had a terrible day leading up to the interview.

Bad traffic. Arguments with family members. Issues with coworkers. A bad performance eval beforehand. Some have great poker faces, and many do not. 

Still, they show up and do the interview because they have to.

If you're unfortunately in the hot seat with someone that's in a funk, you're an easy target for their ire. Here's a good way to handle it. 

If you find yourself in that sort of situation, don't recuse yourself from the interview. That'll cost you the opportunity. 

Instead say, "It seems like this isn't a good time. Should we reschedule for later?"

It'll either snap them out of it or give them an easy out so they can get back to baseline.

Neither side wants to make a bad first impression. They're incredibly difficult to overcome.

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

 #techjobs #interviewtips #gethired #jobseekers

Your resume isn't when you want to be creative or clever. It's where you need to be clear.

When it comes to resumes, boring is better. When you hit that interview, then be as creative as you want to be. 

I remember when creative resumes were everywhere.

Someone, likely a graphic designer or marketing person, decided to turn their resume into something that showed off their personal flair.

They included grids showing skill levels, like you'd find on the back of a baseball card.

There would be all sorts of colors and icons. I even remember some resumes were printed on heavy stock and colored papers to make them standout. 

Some resumes were turned into things like candy wrappers. 

The trend caught on. A lot of apps like Canva and Docs still have those creative resume templates. 

All that worked until it didn't.

Today it's more important to have a clear, boring, resume over a creative one. 

You can still show off your unique style by choosing combinations of font families, headers, and other sorts of formatting tweaks. 

But the person reading your resume has to see that you're qualified in 7 seconds or less. If they can't, you're not making it past them. 

The time to really show off your personality, your personal flair, is the interview. Or a cover letter, but I know a lot of people hate the idea of having to create one. 

In the interview you can show off your personal flair. How you dress, what you say, your mannerisms, etc. It's when you want to be creative. 

And it's when you're going to build the most leverage for your job offer and negotiation.

So if you're going to invest time and energy into any part of your job search, it should be your interview skills. Not a fancy looking resume. 

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#protips #resumetips #techjobs #interviewprep

Employers: applications can be as simple as uploading a resume. I seent it with my own eyes.

Years ago, I was at a cross road in my career. I couldn't decide if I wanted to be a technical program manager or a product manager. 

I knew it was time for me to leave engineering behind. I saw a product management position at a big company: Netflix. 

Before I applied, I assumed it would be a complicated process like some of the other big companies, and many of the smaller ones. 

I wanted to apply but the thought of sitting down for ten minutes or more to upload my resume, then copy-paste all the information into tiny boxes, didn't motivate me. 

When I clicked on apply. The application appeared. It had four or five fields and an upload resume step. 

"This can't be the whole application," I said to myself. "This is probably the first page." 

I filled out the application. Uploaded my resume. Then clicked submit. 

"Thank you for applying," showed on the screen. That was the entire application...

That's when I realized job applications could still be as simple as submitting a resume. A lot of application processes are needlessly complicated. 

I was conditioned to sit for 10-15 minutes creating an account, a profile, uploading a resume, watching the system fail to parse my resume or not try at all, then copy-pasting everything, and having no clue when the next page was the end. 

Netflix nailed the application experience. 

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

My number one priority is making job searching less frustrating for job seekers. 

That way they can perform better in their interviews.

I speak to many job seekers regularly and one frustration comes up often: how overwhelming job searching is today. 

A lot of job seekers don't know where to start, or how to start. 

The best place to start will always be deciding what you want to do next. 

But it's not always easy. Especially for folks that want to make a career change. 

If you don't have a destination in mind, creating a road map is impossible.  

So start by defining what I call your north star: 
- where do you want to work 
- when do you want to start
- what do you want to do 

Once you've got that, you can build a road map to get to your ideal destination.

--
 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#techjobs #jobseekers #wheretostart #roadmap

Here's the difference between subject matter expertise and fit: fit turns interviews into offers.

Years ago, I worked with a talented engineer. He worked hard to be a talented engineer.  He was so good, he built and maintained a critical part of our system all alone. 

This engineer was talented, no doubt. He knew all sorts of frameworks, languages, algorithms, you name it. He went to a school that consistently ranked number one for his engineering discipline. 

But there was one problem. The reason why he ran a critical application alone. 

No one got along with him. He was abrasive. He was prickly. He had little patience for anyone that knew less than he did about a particular topic. He voiced his frustration often.  

He landed the role because of his subject matter expertise. No one interviewed him for fit. 

By the time I took over the hiring process four of my five team-leads urged me to include a fit interview in our process. A vibe check, if you will, to avoid making the same hiring mistake again. 

And that's why today when I work with job seekers, I make sure they can show they're competent and pass vibe checks. Both are important, especially in a competitive market like this one. 

Here's the lesson: 
No one wants to work with a smart jerk. 

Here's the application: 
Be excellent to your interviewers, they're your future teammates.

You don't have to be best friends or 100% agreeable. But be respectful and willing to work with them. Focus on doing the right thing, not being right.

--
 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#interviewpreparation #techjobs #jobseekers #fitinterviews

In December I showed job 37 seekers how to position themselves to land interviews. Here's some Q&A.

1⃣ How do you define a brand when you are job hunting, and isn't it easier to do when employed?
Think of a personal brand simply as your reputation. It reflects how reliable and dependable you were to those who worked with you in the past. Positioning, however, is specifically about showing how you deliver value and solve an employer's problems. What sets you apart.

2⃣ How do you see AI chatbots and automated interviews shaking out in the hiring process?
Some large companies, like FedEx, are already experimenting with AI-driven interviews and chatbots for the initial screening process. While companies use these to supposedly remove bias, most job seekers say it's a terrible experience because there is no human connection. I suspect companies will continue to experiment with it. 

3⃣ Is there a danger in being too specific in a positioning statement?
No, being specific is actually better than being generic. The more specific you are about the types of companies you help and the results you deliver, the easier it is for a recruiter or interviewer to see you as a perfect fit for a role. The more specific you are, the more you'll standout from the crowd. 

4⃣ How should you position your impact if you don’t have specific quantified data?
If you lack hard numbers, you can qualify your impact by using descriptive labels. But you can ballpark your impact based on publicly available data. For example, you can research a previous company's revenue and estimate your personal contribution based on those numbers.

5⃣ How can you make a "How" or "Why" statement sound unique rather than like a cliche?
To avoid sounding cliche, go a layer deeper than your first answer. Instead of just saying you "I like building products," identify a deeper motivation, such as helping people with specific needs or a specific obsession with the customer experience. For example, "I like to build accessible products for ..." It's hard to copy someone's motivation exactly because of differences in background. 

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 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#interviewpreparation #techjobs #jobseekers #positioning

Here's how I tackle: "Are you interviewing anywhere else?" 

Spoiler: I don't always say yes. 

Recruiters and hiring managers ask this question because they want to know if they have enough time to run you through their process. 

For example, if you expect an offer in a week but their process takes a month, there's no use in starting the process. 

But if their process can be compressed into a week? Then it's game on. 

Here's how I handle it: 
If I'm interviewing somewhere else, I say yes and tell them exactly how many other companies I'm interviewing with. I don't name names.  

If I'm in the early stage (phone screen/first interview), I tell them. If I know how many rounds are left, I let them know. 

That gives them the time frame they need to make the appropriate arrangements.

If I'm in the final stages anywhere or expecting an offer, I say exactly that. Including how much time I have until I get a final decision. 

If anything changes while we're working together, I'll send them updates. Including when I accepted an offer elsewhere. I want to build a long-term, professional, relationship. 

My goal is to make their jobs easy by eliminating surprises. They don't like that. 

Because of that, I've had the recruiters share multiple opportunities on different occasions, and I've had companies rush their process to get me decisions quickly.

--
 👋 Hi, I'm Jonathan. 
 I help job seekers in the tech industry land interviews and offers.

#techjobs #jobseekers #interviewpreparation #protips #recruiters

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