You’re a great Product Manager.

You know you’ll be an even better Product Leader. But...

Why is it so hard to make the leap from PM → Product Leader?

Hard Truth #1:
Opportunities for advancement in product management are scarce. Product teams are typically smaller, and when leadership roles open, the competition is fierce. You need to be primed and ready for when your chance comes.

Hard Truth #2:
The skills that make you a stellar PM won't necessarily make you a stellar Product Leader. Leading 100 people isn't the same as leading 10; it requires a significant evolution of your skill set.

So, what skills do you need? How do you acquire them?

That's where I come in!

I’ve been building products for over 25 years, and have grown from leading a small team of 5 to leading a 300+ org at a top-tier company. I became a Product Leader by navigating the very same obstacles facing you today.  

My mission is to help great PMs like yourself transform into outstanding Product Leaders.

You can do it! There are immediate steps you can take starting today to set yourself on this path.

Follow me here on LinkedIn to discover how.


- - - - -
🔥 If you *really* want to fast-track your career, visit: amplifypm.com/transform

Roshan Gupta

I have been a PM at Meta and a Group PM at Google, and if you think I had it all figured out. I would disagree.

What experience really gives you is not certainty.
It gives you scar tissue.

You learn some things late.
Often after you’ve shipped the wrong thing, said yes too many times, or lost trust you had to earn back.

Looking back over my career, these are the product-building principles I wish I had internalized earlier.

Not because I didn’t know them. But because I didn’t practice them consistently.

1. Outcomes over output.
I spent years celebrating launches before I learned to celebrate impact.

2. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.
Most early mistakes came from defending ideas instead of understanding pain.

3. The art of “no” defines your strategy.
Every yes I regretted was a painful, future no I could have avoided.

4. Data informs. Intuition guides.
Data matters, but don’t ignore intuition. Intuition is rooted in data acquired over years.

5. Manage stakeholders, don’t appease them.
You don’t need their approval. You need their respect. Deliver value, not “yes”.

6. Empower with “why,” not “how.”
Micromanagement feels productive. It quietly kills velocity.

7. Perfect is the enemy of shipped.
Speed of learning beats elegance in almost every real system.

8. Your team is your best product.
You can fix a roadmap. You can’t outrun a broken team dynamic.

None of this is taught cleanly.

You absorb it slowly
- Through tension
- Through missed promotions
- Through meetings that don’t land

This is what senior PM growth actually looks like.

Making mistakes. Learning. Honing your judgement.

If you are earlier in your PM journey, save this.
If you are a senior, you probably recognized yourself in at least two of these.

Share this if you found it relatable.

P.S. If you are a PM who’s struggling to be heard and noticed, I have designed the live “Persuading People: The PM's Edge in the Age of AI” cohort to help you learn how to communicate decisions so clearly that leadership trusts your judgment, and your team follows you.

More than 100 PMs have used it to accelerate their growth. 

Register now if you're ready to be seen as the leader you are: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

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PST (Maven)

Master the persuasion system I used to secure 9-digit budgets & Fortune 50 partnerships: amplifypm.com/maven

One-Off - 2026-01-29

amplifypm

Follow me to go from PM → Product Leader 🪜 | Founder of AmplifyPM (ex-Google, Meta, Yahoo, startups) | I grew from leading a team of 5 to leading a 300+ org. I'll show you how to do the same.

A Product Manager (IC4) at Meta can make around $242K.
A Senior PM (IC5) can make $449K+.
A Staff PM (IC6) can make $622K+.

If you want to close that gap, stop thinking the next level is “more scope.”
It’s a different skill.

At IC4, you get rewarded for being dependable. You keep the train moving.
At IC5 and IC6, you get rewarded for making other people confident in your judgment.

That is what changes comp and promotions.

Here is the practical difference.

When a roadmap review gets tense, IC4 PMs try to be thorough. They add context, show charts, and explain the process.

IC5 PMs do something else. They frame the decision first, then the details.

They walk into the room already knowing:
→ What decision needs to be made.
→ What the tradeoffs are.
→ What they recommend.
→ What they are willing to give up to get it.

IC6 PMs go one step further. They don’t just answer the question. They simplify the entire debate so it does not keep coming back.
They turn a one-time decision into a reusable principle.

If you want to excel and move up faster, practice these three habits.
Start meetings with the decision, not the backstory.

Replace “here is the data” with “here is what the data means and what I recommend.”

After every big call, write down the tradeoff you made so leadership can retell your reasoning when you are not in the room.

That’s how you become the PM people trust with bigger bets.

And that’s what you are paid for.

P.S. I have designed the live Persuasive Storytelling for PMs course to help you learn how to communicate decisions so clearly that leadership trusts your judgment.

More than 100 PMs have used it to accelerate their growth. Early-bird enrollment is open for a short window. Register here and save 33%: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

At Google, Meta, and Yahoo, I have worked with enough PMs to notice something interesting.

High-performing PMs don’t stand out because they do radically different work.
Most of them are doing roughly the same things as everyone else.

What separates them shows up in quieter moments.

→ In how they frame a decision when the data is incomplete.
→ In how they say no without creating friction.
→ In how they help a room move forward instead of getting stuck debating details.

You rarely notice it at first. It just feels easier to work with them.

Meetings end with clarity.
Teams leave knowing what matters.
Leadership trusts that if something changes, this PM will adapt without drama.

And the opposite is also true.

When a PM struggles, it’s almost never because they lack effort, intelligence, or frameworks. It’s because their thinking does not travel well.

People hear the work, but not the judgment behind it. 
They see activity, but not direction.

Over time, that gap compounds.

→ The PM who can make tradeoffs legible earns trust faster.
→ The PM who can connect data to meaning gets more room to operate.
→ The PM who owns outcomes without over-explaining becomes the one leaders lean on.

Those are not flashy skills. But they are the ones that quietly shape careers.

P.S. If you are a PM who wants to build those skills deliberately, Persuasive Storytelling for PMs is designed around exactly this shift.

Over 100 PMs have already used it to grow their influence, trust, and trajectory. 

Early-bird enrollment is open for a short window. 
Register here and save 33%: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

Google

Yahoo

When you present to senior stakeholders, the first 20 seconds matter more than the next 20 slides.

The biggest mistake I see PMs make: they assume their audience will pay attention.

That their audience cares as much as they do.
They’re wrong.

That's not how it works. 

You must learn to make people WANT to hear you.

Next time – instead of starting with slides, background, or the solution – I’d start like this:

“Right now, 18% of users who start this flow drop off before step three. If we do nothing, that’s a $12M annual loss.”

Then I’d stop talking.

Because now I have something far more valuable than airtime.
I have attention.

Only after that would I explain:

→ Why this problem exists
→ What we’ve tried so far
→ What decision I’m asking for

Most PMs do the opposite.

They start with: “Let me walk you through some background…”

By the time they reach the actual problem, the room is already gone.
And once attention is gone, you don’t get it back with more slides.

You get interrupted.
You get pulled into edge cases.
You end up defending details that don’t matter.
The meeting turns into a debate instead of a decision.

That’s why the first 20 seconds matter more than the next 20 slides.

Senior stakeholders don’t need the full download.

They need a sharp frame:
What’s at stake?
Why now?
What do you need from them?

Do that well, and the rest of your story becomes easier to land.

Repost this if it resonated.

P.S. I have designed the live “Persuading People: The PM's Edge in the Age of AI” cohort to help you learn how to communicate decisions so clearly that leadership trusts your judgment so you get seen and rewarded.

More than 100 PMs have already used it to accelerate their growth. Register now: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

Bumped into this thread today, and it took me straight back to my time at Google when I turned a $20M budget into $120M.

A Staff PM admits they spend 20% of their time on strategy and 80% on storytelling.
Because strategy without narrative doesn’t move people.

For a long time, I believed the same thing many PMs do: “If the thinking is solid, the data will speak for itself.”

So I showed up with decks, perfect charts, clean assumptions, and a clear logic.

My proposals got approved. But they rarely got momentum.
This is exactly what this thread talks about, and it’s a painful kind of approval.
You get the “sure, sounds fine” approval.
Not the “this is the priority” approval.

The thread nails why. The Staff PM:

→ Walked into exec reviews with 20 slides of immaculate charts.
→ The VP looked at their phone.
→ The initiative technically passed, but it wasn’t championed.

Then they watched a peer pitch a weaker idea with fewer charts.
But the peer told a story.

→ A specific user in distress.
→ A villain, the current broken process.
→ A hero, the proposed change.
→ A cost of doing nothing.

Execs leaned in. They got double the funding.

That’s the difference between being correct and being compelling.

Being correct gets you approval.

Being compelling gets you attention.

Data proves, but story persuades.

And at senior levels, persuasion IS the job.

If you want your work to move faster, get prioritized, and get real backing, the lever is rarely another chart. It’s narrative structure.

P.S. When stakeholders understand your narrative, they trust your judgment even if they disagree. This is the kind of storytelling PMs build inside “Persuading People: The PM’s Edge in the Age of AI”.

If you want a repeatable system to turn feedback into alignment to get seen and rewarded as the leader you are register here: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

If I wanted to grow my career as a Product Manager in 2026, I would stop blindly following most of the advice that gets recycled on LinkedIn.

Because a lot of the loudest PM advice comes from people who have barely done the job.

→ They have never been the ones trying to get engineering time when every team is understaffed.

→ They have never had to kill a feature users loved because the data quietly said it was the wrong bet.

→ They have never stood in front of skeptical stakeholders defending a roadmap that was already starting to crack.

→ They have never owned a launch that didn’t go the way the deck promised.

Yet they sell frameworks. Playbooks. “Proven systems”.
And the irony is they're teaching a job they just started learning themselves.

I see it constantly.
People who have never been PMs, but aspire to be one.
People who are one year into their first PM role.

They package theory as experience.

And PMs eat it up because we are desperate for guidance in a role that's different at every company.

I'm not calling anyone out, but I cannot watch as PMs fall for everything they see online and then blame themselves when it doesn't work.

You can never learn Product management from templates.

You can learn it from:
→ Shipping features that flop
→ Making trade-offs that upset everyone
→ Building trust with engineers who don't report to you
→ Saying no to your CEO's pet projects

Before you follow PM advice on LinkedIn, ask one question:
Have they done the job?
And have they done it long enough?

If not, keep scrolling.

Today, I’m going to give away a big part of what actually helped me grow as a PM at Meta, and then GPM at Google, so read this carefully.

Like every PM earlier in my career, I thought growth was about getting better at the craft.

→ Better PRDs
→ Cleaner metrics
→ More structured thinking

And to be fair, that’s what gets you promoted the first few times.

But at some point, that stopped being the bottleneck.

When I moved into more senior PM roles, including at Meta and later at Google, I noticed something uncomfortable.

→ My work was solid.
→ The thinking was sound.
→ The analysis held up.

Yet some initiatives moved fast and got real backing, while others stalled despite being “approved”.

No one said anything explicitly. There was no negative feedback.
Just a quiet difference in energy.

Over time, I realized what was missing.

I wasn’t failing at product.
I was failing to carry the thinking through the room.

I was explaining instead of leading.
Answering instead of framing.
Providing context instead of anchoring decisions.

In senior rooms, that distinction matters more than people admit.

People aren’t just listening to what you’re saying.
They’re paying attention to what happens after you speak.

→ Do you drift into the background when challenged, or do you come back to the core trade-off?
→ Do your answers tighten the narrative, or scatter it?
→ Does the room feel clearer after you speak, or more complicated?

That’s when I learned something that sounds obvious but took years to internalize.

👉🏽 There’s a difference between getting your message out and getting your message across.

Getting it out means the words were spoken.
Getting it across means the room moved.

That shift didn’t happen overnight for me.
It came from sitting in enough rooms, missing enough signals, and slowly realizing why some conversations moved the room, and others didn’t.

If you’re a PM who feels like your work is good but your impact isn’t compounding the way it should, this might be the gap you’re feeling, too.

Not a lack of ability. A lack of narrative.
And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

This is the work I focus on now – helping PMs turn solid thinking into clear, persuasive narratives that actually move people.

If you want to build that skill intentionally, register for my live class “Persuading People: The PM’s Edge in the Age of AI”.

An exclusive system that helps PMs get seen and rewarded. 

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

The PM job is really 2 jobs. And I bet you’re only doing 1 of them.


1. Operator - keep things moving.
2. Strategist - choose what matters.

Most PMs only schedule time for the first.
So the second gets squeezed into “when things slow down.”

And that’s why so many PMs feel like they’re shipping a lot, but influencing less.

Because when strategy is constantly interrupted, you don’t just lose time.
You lose the thread.

The narrative that answers:

→ What are we solving?
→ Why now?
→ What are we NOT doing?
→ What does success look like?
→ What tradeoff are we willing to own?

Without that story, the org defaults to:

→ Opinions over priorities
→ Loudest stakeholder over clearest direction
→ “Quick wins” over meaningful bets

This is why I don’t think the next PM superpower is another framework. It’s storytelling.

Not presentation skills or being charismatic.
The real skill is turning messy inputs into a clear, repeatable narrative that:

→ Gets buy-in when you’re not in the room
→ Protects the roadmap from constant re-litigation
→ Gives your team confidence in the why, not just the what

And yes, storytelling is also how you protect mindspace.

Because when the story is clear, you stop re-explaining decisions 20 times a week and focus on what matters the most.

PMs who leverage storytelling get noticed, rewarded, and promoted fast, and I've seen that happening at Google and Meta.

P.S. I have designed the live Persuasive Storytelling for PMs course to help you learn how to communicate decisions so clearly that leadership trusts your judgment.

More than 100 PMs have used it to accelerate their growth. Early-bird discount ends today, register now and save 33%: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

Today I want to admit something I avoided for a long time. For many years, I was a “good PM”...

..But not an influential one.

Like most PMs, I lived in Line 1 and Line 2, because they feel safe.

Line 1: To report
Weekly updates. Status decks. “Quick sync?” calls.
I was responsive, available, and always “on top of things.”

Line 2: To collect frameworks
I could name every prioritization model.
I had templates for discovery, strategy, roadmaps, OKRs, you name it.

And yet, something kept happening.

→ My roadmap would get questioned every time.
→ Decisions would get reopened again.
→ Stakeholders would “align” in meetings, then push back in Slack.

I thought I needed more data, slides, and frameworks.
What I actually needed was something simpler.

A story people could believe.

Because here’s what no one tells you:

In most companies, you don’t win with the best idea.
You win with the idea that can be understood, repeated, and defended when you’re not in the room.

That’s when it clicked for me.

There are four lines PMs stand in:

1. To report - easy to be busy, hard to create movement
2. To collect frameworks - feels like growth, often becomes hiding
3. To prioritize - where tradeoffs begin
4. To persuade - where careers accelerate

The shift for me happened the day I stopped sending “updates", and started sending a narrative.

A narrative that told:

→ Here’s what changed
→ Here’s the tension we can’t ignore
→ Here are the options (and the tradeoffs)
→ Here’s the decision I recommend
→ Here’s what I need from you

Suddenly, I wasn’t fighting for attention.

People were pulling clarity out of my message.

If you feel stuck right now - busy but not advancing - ask yourself:

Are you standing in the lines that keep you safe, or the line that makes you effective?

P.S. I have designed the live Persuasive Storytelling for PMs course to help you learn how to communicate decisions so clearly that leadership trusts your judgment.

More than 100 PMs have used it to accelerate their growth. Register now if you're ready to be seen as the leader you are: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

I can usually tell in 30 seconds whether a PM will lose the room.


By how much they tried to fit on the first slide.

The slide is packed.
↳ Context paragraph at the top
↳ Two charts side by side
↳ A roadmap snapshot squeezed in
↳ Three footnotes “just in case.”
↳ And somewhere in the corner, a tiny line that says “Decision needed.”

The PM thinks they’re being thorough, even I thought the same when I started as a PM.

But senior stakeholders read something very different.
They read hesitation.

Because when a slide is doing everything, it usually means the PM hasn’t yet decided what matters most.

At senior levels, slides are not about conveying information. They are about conveying judgment.

Judgment shows up in:
→ What you choose to leave out.
→ What you choose to highlight.
→ What you repeat.
→ And what you are asking the room to decide right now.

Most PMs overload slides because they are trying to protect themselves.
→ From questions
→ From pushback
→ From being wrong

Ironically, that does the opposite.

→ Crowded slides invite interruptions.
→ They pull the conversation into details.
→ They turn a decision meeting into a debate.

Clear slides signal confidence.
They say, “I’ve thought this through, and this is the part that matters.”

I have a simple mantra that fixes a lot of this.
"When in doubt, leave it out."

Not because details are unimportant. But because timing is.
And clarity is not a design skill. It’s a leadership skill.

P.S. If you want your ideas to land and your decisions to stick, persuasive storytelling is the lever to build. More than 100 PMs have joined my live cohort - Persuading People: The PM's Edge in the Age of AI- to master storytelling to get seen and rewarded. 

Register here if you are ready: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

The fastest way PMs lose credibility is trying to act on every piece of feedback.

Here’s what it looks like in real life.
- Monday: you present a crisp PRD.
- By Friday: it becomes a “kitchen sink” doc.

Because everyone left feedback.

1. Design: “Can we make it more delightful?”
2. Eng: “We can’t support this edge case this quarter.”
3. Sales: “A customer asked for this last week, can we add it?”
4. And the worst one: “I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel right.”

So you do what many PMs do to be seen as “easy to work with”.

You accept all of it.

→ You add two screens.
→ You expand scope “just a bit”.
→ You rewrite the narrative to please each person.

And then in the next review, something painful happens:
People don’t argue about the product. They question your judgment.

“What are we actually shipping?”
“Why are we solving this now?”
“Didn’t we decide last week?”

That’s the credibility leak.
Not because you listened. Because you stopped being the decision owner.

When I was a PM, what changed for me was treating feedback like a decision input.

Every time I got feedback, I asked myself:

👉🏽 Is it clear and specific?
If someone says “this is confusing”,
I ask: “Which part exactly? What did you expect to happen instead?”
If they can’t answer, I don’t change anything yet.

👉🏽 Is it backed by evidence?
If Sales says “customers want X”,
I ask: “How many accounts? Is it churn risk or nice-to-have?”
If it’s one loud request, it goes to discovery, not the sprint.

👉🏽 Does it further our objectives?
If someone says, “This would be nice to have”,
I ask: “Which OKR does this move, and how will we know?”
If it doesn’t map to a goal we agreed on, I politely disregard.

👉🏽 Is it feasible?
If someone says, “We should do this now”,
I ask: “What would we drop to make that true?”
If the trade-off isn’t worth it, I park it to protect focus.

Then I communicate one of three calls, explicitly:

1. Do it: it aligns with evidence and objectives.
2. Park it: good idea, but the timing is wrong.
3. Kill it: it’s preference, not evidence.

The leadership move is not saying YES louder.
It’s being able to say, calmly: “I heard you. Here’s what we’re doing, and here’s why”.
That’s what senior PM credibility looks like.

Share this if you agree.

P.S. When stakeholders understand your narrative, they trust your judgment even if they disagree. This is the kind of storytelling PMs learn inside Persuading People: The PM's Edge in the Age of AI.

If you want to communicate like a senior PM in high-stakes rooms, register here: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

Give me 15 seconds, and I will tell you what storytelling for PMs actually is, and why it is quietly deciding who gets promoted, and who stays stuck.

Most PMs I speak to still think storytelling means slides, polish, or sounding confident in a room.

Yes, how you deliver your message matters.
But that’s not what holds people back.

Delivering your message ≠ getting your message across.

What actually breaks PM careers is this moment: you have the data, the work is solid, but different people walk away with different interpretations of what you just said.

→ Engineering hears effort.
→ Leadership hears risk.
→ Design hears ambiguity.
→ And somehow none of them hear a clear decision.

That’s where storytelling shows up, even if you never call it that.

Real storytelling for PMs is the ability to take one messy situation and explain it in a way that resonates differently for each audience, without changing the core truth.

→ To engineering, it makes tradeoffs feel intentional instead of reactive.
→ To leadership, it clarifies what matters now and what does not.
→ To design, it gives direction instead of noise.
→ To the team, it creates momentum instead of churn.

When PMs struggle, it’s rarely because they lack insight.
It’s because their thinking comes out tangled, fragmented, or one-size-fits-all.

You can feel it in meetings.
Long explanations.
Too much context.
People tuning out.

The PMs who grow fastest help people understand why a path makes sense, to THEM.

That is the quiet skill behind executive presence, trust, and promotions.
It is not about telling stories. It is about making your thinking legible to other humans.

And once people can follow your thinking, once you convince them to care, they start backing your decisions.

That’s when your career starts to move.

P.S. If you want to get better at making your thinking land so you get seen as the leader you are, Persuasive Storytelling for PMs is built for exactly that. More than 100 PMs have already used it to grow their career, and comp.

Early-bird enrollment is open for a short window. Register here and save 33%: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

Stop thinking AI is going to 10x your PM career.

If you think using ChatGPT to write better PRDs or analyze data faster is your competitive advantage, you’re missing the point.

AI is making execution cheap.
It’s making “good content” a commodity.

In a world where every PM has the same tools to generate output, the value of output drops to zero.

So what actually matters?
The one thing AI cannot do.

Persuasion.

AI can generate a strategy document in seconds.
But it cannot look a skeptical VP in the eye and make them BELIEVE in it.

It can summarize a meeting.
But it cannot read the room, sense the hesitation, and pivot the narrative to save a deal.

We are entering an era where “doing the work” is the baseline.
”Selling the work” is the differentiator.

If you want to survive the AI shift, you don't need to get better at prompting.
You need to get better at influencing.

It’s not about being charismatic.
It’s not about being louder.
It’s about making your message irresistible to your audience.

This is the exact skill set I teach in my upcoming Maven cohort.

You’ll walk away with the persuasion system I used at Google to secure 9-digit budgets and land Fortune 50 partnerships.

🚨 Early enrollment is open right now (33% off).
🚨 This is the ONLY time the course is discounted.

If you’re tired of doing great work that never quite lands –
this is how you change that.

👉 Enroll here: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

Hurry – early enrollment closes soon.

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When I went from leading small teams to helping lead a 300+ org at Google, one pattern kept showing up in promotion conversations.

The PMs who got promoted weren’t always the smartest in the room.
They weren’t even always the highest-output.

They were the ones who stopped being known as “reliable” and started being known as the person who could move the organization.

Because “You’re a reliable PM” is just a compliment.
It means you ship, you unblock, you keep things stable, you handle stakeholders, and you make chaos look manageable.

The problem is what that label signals upstairs.

Reliable often gets interpreted as: “I trust them to execute what we already decided.”

Promotion tends to go to: “I trust them to shape what we decide next.”

That’s the shift no one explains clearly, and it’s why PMs feel confused when they’re doing great work and still hearing vague feedback about “leadership” and “strategy.”

At higher levels, your work is judged less by how well you run your lane and more by how much you reduce everyone else’s confusion.

That shows up in very specific behaviors:

→ You don’t just share updates; you bring a decision with options, tradeoffs, and a recommendation
→ You don’t just manage stakeholders; you align incentives before they turn into escalations
→ You don’t just deliver roadmaps; you create a narrative people repeat when you’re not in the room

If you become the org’s safety net, you will get more responsibility.
But it’s often responsibility that keeps you anchored in execution.

To go to the next level, you need reliability plus leverage.

P.S. If you’ve been labeled “reliable” and feel stuck, I’m hosting a free Maven Lightning Lesson on how PM promotion expectations change as you move into leadership.

More than 1,000 PMs are already attending. Register here for free: https://lnkd.in/eVckANk9

The skills that made me a great PM held me back as a leader. (And until I fixed it, my career was on hold.)

Here’s what changes when you scale:

→ As a PM, you solve problems.
↳ As a leader, you build problem-solvers.

→ As a PM, you own the roadmap.
↳ As a leader, you own the narrative.

→ As a PM, you manage details.
↳ As a leader, you manage risk.

The transition isn’t about doing more of what made you successful.
It’s about letting go of what got you here.

When I led 10 people, I could be in every meeting, review every spec, and influence every decision. That felt like leadership.
When I started leading a 100+ people org, that same approach nearly broke me.

Because you become the bottleneck, without realizing it.
Decisions slow down. Escalations go up. Your calendar fills, but progress gets weirdly sluggish.

The shift that changed everything for me was simple:

I stopped being the answer. I became the frame.

Instead of “here’s what we should do,”
I moved to:
→ “What are we optimizing for?”
→ “What tradeoff are we accepting?”
→ “Who owns this decision?”

Those three questions did more than any framework.

They built judgment in the org.
They made decisions travel without me.
They kept me out of the weeds without losing control of direction.

The hardest part was trusting others to make decisions I used to make myself.
But that’s exactly what separates Good PMs from Great Leaders.

P.S. If you’re stepping into a bigger scope and feeling this shift, register for my live cohort "Persuading People: The PM’s Edge in the Age of AI". 

I help PMs turn solid thinking into clear, persuasive narratives that actually move people, so they get seen as the leader they already are.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

I’ve been seeing a lot of PMs add “AI PM” to their LinkedIn headline lately. I get it. No one wants to feel left behind.

But the moment someone asks, “So how are you actually an AI PM?” – most answers fall apart.

Not because the PM is incompetent. Because they don’t have a story.

They give tool lists.
They mention ChatGPT.
They say “I’m exploring AI.”

And the listener is still thinking: ok, but what did AI change in your product work?

That’s the gap.

“AI PM” isn’t a label. It’s meant to be a narrative.

If you can’t clearly explain:
→ what AI made possible
→ what tradeoff you accepted
→ what you measured differently
→ what new risks you introduced

Then the headline looks like trend-chasing.

The PMs who stand out do one thing well.

They can tell a tight story like this:

→ Here was the user problem.
→ Here’s why traditional approaches broke.
→ Here’s why AI was the right bet.
→ Here’s what new risks showed up (quality, latency, hallucinations, privacy).
→ Here’s how we shipped safely.
→ Here’s how we measured success using AI.

Same PM. Same work. But now it lands.

Recruiters don’t reward labels. They reward substance.
And a clear narrative is what gets you ahead in your career.

P.S. If you want to be the PM who can explain your work with confidence and win trust fast, persuasive storytelling is the skill that gets you there. That’s exactly what we practice inside Persuading People: The PM’s Edge in the Age of AI.

More than 120 PMs have already learned the art of telling stories to lead in their career. Enrollment for the next cohort closes soon! If you are ready, register here: https://lnkd.in/dB7xfrvr

If you’re a PM who feels stuck, this is for you.

You’re doing good work.
Your projects ship.
Your stakeholders trust you.

And yet...nothing changes.

No bigger scope.
No stronger signal.
No clear path into leadership.

That’s the most frustrating part:
You’re working hard – but you don’t actually know what to change.

Most PMs assume the answer is:
→ More execution
→ More ownership
→ More hours

But that’s why so many talented PMs plateau.

The leap from Senior PM to Product Leader isn’t about doing more.

It’s about operating differently.

I just wrapped a free Maven Lightning Lesson where I broke down:

→ What actually changes as you move up the PM ladder

→ Why the skills that got you here stop working

→ The 5 concrete shifts leaders expect – but rarely explain

Good news – the full recording is now available 🔥

If you’ve ever wondered:
“Why am I not being seen as a leader yet?”
or
“What am I missing that others seem to get?”

You can get clarity in under 30 minutes.

Watch the free recording here:
👉 https://lnkd.in/eVckANk9

Stop guessing and start operating at the next level.

graphical user interface, application, website

One week only → 33% off 🔥
This is the ONLY time I ever discount tuition.

Early enrollment for my next live “Persuading People: The PM's Edge in the Age of AI” Maven cohort (Feb 2) is now open.

Take this course if you want to become known as the PM who:

→ Rallies a room around a clear narrative
→ Persuades senior leaders when the stakes are high
→ Shapes strategy through influence – not just good ideas

This week is the only time I ever discount tuition – to reward those who commit early.

And to make this a no-brainer:

→ If your plans change, you can move to a later cohort at the same locked-in rate.
→ If you don’t see results, I offer a 100% tuition-back guarantee. After running multiple cohorts, I *know* the transformation this class delivers.

In other words: high upside, zero risk.

👉🏽 Enroll now to save 33% off tuition: https://lnkd.in/d7STtuG8

. . .
P.S. Once early enrollment closes, I won’t be offering this discount again.

Over 2300+ PMs have signed up for my free Maven Lightning Lesson. 

If you feel like you’re doing great work but keep getting passed up for leadership positions…

I’m here to tell you that you’re not imagining things, and you’re not alone.

The rules change, and no one ever tells you how. I will.

Don’t miss out – RSVP for free! Even if you can’t attend live, you’ll get the recording afterwards.

I’ve heard EVERY excuse in the book for why a PM isn’t getting promoted.

See if any of these sound familiar:

→ “Promotions feel random.”

→ “I don’t have the right relationships.”

→ “One person’s feedback held me back.”

→ “My results are strong, but my scope is too small.”

→ “I’ve done everything right, but the system is rigged.”

→ “I’m in the wrong company – there’s no growth here.”

→ “I’m not the self-promoting type. I just focus on my work.”

→ “My peer got promoted, and I’m clearly better than them.”

→ “I’m overworked – I don’t even have time to think about this.”

→ “I’ve been in this role for X years. It should’ve happened by now.”

If you’ve used one of these excuses –
you’re not broken.
I’ve said many of them myself.

These excuses aren’t the reason you’re stuck.
They’re the symptom.

The real issue is this:
As you move up, the rules change – and no one explains the new game.

The skills that made you a strong PM will NOT get you promoted into leadership.

The leap from Senior PM to Product Leader requires a completely different operating system.

That’s exactly what I’m teaching in 3 days.

- - - - - -
💬 Move Up the PM Career Ladder, FAST!
📅 Tuesday, January 27
⏱ 30 minutes
💸 Free (recording included)

I’ll break down:
• What actually changes as you move up
• Why great PMs plateau
• 5 concrete techniques you can apply immediately to start operating like a Product Leader
- - - - - -

This is the last call.

Even if you can't attend live, register to get access to the recording.

If you’ve been stuck, frustrated, or quietly wondering “what am I missing?” – this session is for you.

👉 Register free: https://lnkd.in/eVckANk9

There is a specific trap that kills PM careers.

It happens to the best of us.

You are good at your job. You ship features. You manage the backlog. You keep engineering happy. Management loves you. But they don’t promote you.

They keep you exactly where you are.

Why? Because they trust you to execute, but they don’t trust you to lead.

Execution is about managing certainty. Leadership is about managing ambiguity.

To break free from this trap, you have to stop reporting on “here’s what we’re doing” and start selling “here’s where we’re going.”

That requires one specific skill: Persuasion.

It’s the ability to walk into a room of conflicting opinions and walk out with a unified direction. It is the only skill that matters for the jump from Senior PM to Director/VP.

I am teaching this exact skill set starting Monday, Feb 2nd.

This isn't about "presenting better". It’s about learning how to: → Explain your thinking when the answer isn’t obvious → Frame trade-offs so leaders trust your judgment → Turn messy inputs into decisions people align behind

⚠️ Enrollment closes in 72 hours.

Don't let another Monday go by stuck in the execution trap.

👉 Enroll here: https://lnkd.in/gWc7t4sc

P.S. Careers don’t stall because of lack of talent. They stall because of delayed decisions. If you're telling yourself "now isn't the perfect time," remember: next Monday will look exactly like this Monday unless you do something different. The only real risk is staying where you are.

Before I tell you about myself, here’s what I do:

I’ve built Sareen Career Coaching to help ambitious tech professionals in the US land $120k–$300k roles at top companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon - without wasting months on endless networking or sending out hundreds of applications.

-------

In 2019, I moved to Canada as a first-generation immigrant with just a suitcase and a dream.
No family here, or a fancy job waiting. 

So, I did what most newcomers do - picked up hourly gigs, delivered pizzas, and took whatever work I could find.

But I wasn’t ready to settle.

In the summer of 2020, right at the peak of COVID lockdowns when most people couldn’t even land one interview, I got 9 interview calls from top tech companies, startups, and major banks.


That was my breakthrough.
I landed my first real tech job and finally started to feel like I belonged.
Then, on Dec 28th, 2022, I was laid off from my job as a software engineer right before New Year's Eve.

Everything I’d worked for felt shaky again.
Like everyone, I started applying everywhere, chasing every lead, hoping for a break.

All I got were rejections - or, worse, silence.
That’s when I stopped playing by the old rules.

I dug deep into how hiring really works:

 → Learned how to beat the ATS
 → Rebuilt my resume for both algorithms and people
 → Ditched mass applying
 → Put my energy into a real strategy

Within weeks, interviews rolled in. Offers followed.

Friends started asking for help, and they landed jobs as well. 
That’s when I realized this system could help others, too.

Now, I’ve coached 300+ tech professionals, immigrants, and laid-off job seekers, 
and anyone in the US or Canada feeling invisible, helping them land high-paying roles and find their confidence again.

If you’re tired of sending applications into the void, I get it. I can help.

Let’s make your next job search your last.

-----
My Expertise: Career Coaching | Resume & LinkedIn Revamp | Interview Prep | ATS & Job Search Strategy | Personal Branding

Sanyam Sareen

Even 8 years at a top company like Microsoft doesn’t guarantee interviews anymore.

Yesterday, I read a Reddit post from a Sr. Data Engineer with 8 years of U.S. experience who got rejected by Amazon, Meta, and Uber within seconds of sending his application.

And the reason was his resume didn’t use the exact keywords the system was trained to scan for.

He said:
“My resume was written for humans, not the algorithm. I assumed if I said ‘Built ETL,’ they knew I used Python. The AI didn’t.”

Here’s the reality no one prepares you for:

Your resume now goes through 3–5 layers before a human even sees it.
→ ATS filters
→ Keyword density checks
→ Score-based ranking models
→ Recruiter screens
→ Hiring manager skims (if you're lucky)

So before you apply, make sure your resume is doing two things:

1. Speaking to the machine
→ Match exact tool names (not just functions)
→ Mirror language from the job description
→ Avoid vague verbs; the ATS doesn't infer anything

2. Hooking the human
→ Highlight measurable outcomes, not task lists
→ Format for readability in under 7 seconds
→ Tell a clear story of progression and impact

Now your resume should translate your value clearly at every level. Or the ATS won't let your application pass through it.

P.S. Not getting interviews despite a solid track record and experience. I've helped 450+ professionals fit that to land interviews and high-paying roles at Amazon, Google, Meta, and more.

If your resume isn’t working, I can help you fix it, so you get more opportunities. DM me, and let’s fix this before your next application.

ATS Resume Expert | LinkedIn and FAANG+ Specialist | 450+ Clients, $41M in Offers Landed | Chief Career Strategist at Sareen Career Coaching

11 websites that tell you which U.S. employers will actually sponsor visas, so you don’t waste time on companies that won’t.

1. Migrate Mate
An AI-powered platform that helps international job seekers find jobs with visa sponsorship in the US and other countries.

URL: https://migratemate.co/

2. Jobright.ai
Uses AI to connect global talent with employers offering H-1B and other visa sponsorship opportunities, simplifying the job search process for international candidates.

URL: https://jobright.ai/

3. FrogHire.ai
A focused job search tool designed to help students and professionals on visas like H-1B find suitable jobs with sponsorship in the US.

URL: https://froghire.ai/

4. USponsor Me
A US-centric platform that lists jobs offering visa sponsorship and provides career coaching for immigrants to navigate the job market effectively.

URL: https://usponsorme.com/

5. Center for Integration and Migrant Support
Offers guidance and support services tailored to migrants in the Western Balkans region to assist with integration and legal support.

URL: https://lnkd.in/gZaPANbe

6. Jobbatical
A global platform that makes it easier for companies and employees to manage visas, permits, and relocation processes internationally.

URL: https://lnkd.in/gGFzt_vW

7. Localyze
Supports HR teams with automated immigration and relocation services to help businesses move talent across borders smoothly.

URL: https://www.localyze.com/

8. Best Migration Consultants
Global immigration consultancy providing services for work, study, and settlement across different countries with multilingual support.
URL: https://lnkd.in/gHiA2fFG

9. Centuro Global
Offers AI-powered global immigration and visa support services for businesses looking to move employees internationally.

URL: https://lnkd.in/gCpmrP-u

10. Boundless
Provides modern immigration software combined with expert legal help, simplifying complex processes like green card applications and citizenship.

URL: https://www.boundless.com/

11. SimpleCitizen
An easy-to-use online tool helping individuals complete green card and family-based immigration applications without needing a lawyer.

URL: https://lnkd.in/g8urRfVx

→ Now you can check if a company has previously sponsored visas rather than just hoping.

→ Get data: job titles, visa types, years, numbers. You can tailor your search based on realistic possibilities.

→ Raise your target accuracy: instead of applying broadly, you focus on companies with proven sponsorship experience.

Save this so you can visit the links again.

Follow Sanyam Sareen for more resources like this, job search advice, and land your dream role in the U.S.

My $450K+ Microsoft L63 offer was just revoked. 


Recently, I bumped into this Reddit thread by someone who secured:
- $450K total comp. 
- Principal Engineer role.

With 4 months of hard work. 

But all of this is gone because the company couldn’t justify the risk of a Visa lottery failure.

This isn’t just a one-off story.
It’s a reality for thousands of high-achieving professionals in tech and research every year.
They do everything right, except secure their independence.

Because no matter how good your resume or background is, if your legal status is tied to a single employer, that’s a single point of failure.

If you’re serious about building a career in the U.S., consider a different path:
The EB1A Green Card. 

And if you’ve never looked into it because it sounds “too elite”, you’re not alone.

If you’re a top contributor in your field - engineer, researcher, product leader, academic, or executive, you might already qualify. 

You just need the right guidance to present your work clearly.

That’s what EB1A Experts can help you with.

A consultancy focused exclusively on the EB1A process, helping high-impact professionals like you:

✔ Understand the criteria with honest eligibility reviews
✔ Structure and map your achievements into evidence
✔ Build a strong petition strategy with narrative clarity
✔ Get personalized guidance through every stage

If you’ve ever thought, "I don’t want my career tied to a visa stamp."
You should take the first step toward freedom.

You can book a free consultation: https://lnkd.in/gs9tBSkd

Your career is already extraordinary. Make sure your immigration path reflects that.

Repost this to help someone in your network.

Sameera landed a $205,000 offer at Meta. But just weeks before, she felt invisible in the US job market, despite having a PhD in Computer Vision.

Sameera (name changed) courageously left everything behind in India to start fresh in the US on OPT STEM.

But despite her talent and hard work, she felt invisible.
Applications went nowhere. Recruiters didn’t understand her value.
Each rejection chipped away at her confidence.

She wasn’t just fighting the job market. She was fighting the sinking fear that the American dream might not be true for her.

That’s when we went back to the basics.
We rebuilt her professional story, not just as a list of skills, but as a narrative that both recruiters and the ATS could understand.

We turned her achievements into impact.
We highlighted her journey in a way that made her stand out.
And most importantly, we gave her back a sense of control.

The result?
Within 30 days of sending her new applications, her phone started ringing.
3 interviews. 2 offers.

And a life-changing role as a Research Data Scientist at Meta in New York.
Total compensation: $205,000.
- Base pay: $145,000.
- Bonus: $20,000.
- Stock: $40,000.

When she called me after accepting the offer, she said something I’ll never forget: “You gave me back a sense of control.”

Her story is proof that even in the hardest chapters of your job search, transformation is possible.

If you’re a highly skilled professional feeling stuck, invisible, or overwhelmed by rejections, remember this:

You don’t need to apply harder. You need a strategy that works.
And that’s what I do for my clients.

So, if you’re ready to take control of your career again, my inbox is open. Or you can also check the first comment, and someone from our team will reach out to you.

🔁 Repost this post to save it for the future and to help others as well.

PS: DM me if you are targeting senior-level roles in the U.S. I've helped 450+ professionals land their dream roles in the top companies.

The U.S. job market added 64,000 jobs last month. But unemployment is still the highest in 4 years.

More people are competing for fewer opportunities than we've seen in a long time.

I talk to job seekers every day.
Some are on their 200th application with zero traction.
Others are juggling interviews at multiple top companies and negotiating offers.

Same market, but completely different outcomes.

The difference isn't luck or timing. It's strategy vs reaction.

One group is applying. The other is positioning.

One rewrites their resume after every rejection. The other repositions once and applies with clarity.

One relies on job boards and prays. The other builds warm intros before roles go live.

One sees hiring as a lottery. The other treats it as a system they can control.

If you're just applying without a strategy, you're not job searching; you're reacting to postings and hoping something sticks.

And in a market this crowded, hope won't cut it.

Here's what I've seen working for job seekers who land offers at Amazon, Meta, and more:

- Get crystal clear on the value you bring
- Target companies before they post jobs
- Align your resume, LinkedIn, and outreach with that value
- Treat interviews as two-way conversations, not auditions

This market is slower and tougher than it's been in years.

But people are still landing incredible roles because they're prepared for it.

Repost this to help others fix their job search.

P.S. DM me if you are a mid-career professional who's ready to land a high-paying job offer before the Q1 of 2026 ends.

Important update for international professionals in the U.S. Texas has ordered a freeze on NEW H‑1B petitions through May 31, 2027.

Florida is moving to end H‑1B hiring at public universities.

This isn’t an opinion; it’s a policy reality that impacts global talent planning and job search strategy in 2026–27.

If you’re:
→ On OPT / STEM OPT
→ Targeting an H‑1B employer
→ Planning to move to Texas or Florida
→ Considering U.S. job opportunities.

You must understand the implications and what you can do.

Governors don’t control federal visas, but these directives signal two things:

🔹 States are pushing back on traditional employer‑sponsored immigration pathways
🔹 Visa policy is becoming a competitive advantage risk for employers
🔹 Jobs that historically relied on H‑1B sponsorship may slow or rethink hiring

If your job plan depends on waiting for an employer to file an H‑1B petition, you may face longer waits or fewer options, especially in these states.

So what should you do now?

Here’s a strategic game plan

1. Don’t wait for H‑1B lottery; build options
Relying solely on a company to sponsor you puts all your career momentum in one basket.

Instead, explore self‑sponsored pathways
Many professionals qualify for visa categories like EB‑1A or NIW without employer sponsorship.

2. Evaluate long‑term immigration plans early
If your goal is career + stability in the U.S., immigration strategy cannot be an afterthought.

Ask yourself:
→ Are you ready to pursue a self‑sponsored path?
→ Do you know which criteria you already meet?
→ Have you mapped your achievements to immigration evidence?

3. Target companies with track records of sponsorship
Not all employers are impacted equally.

Some:

- File H‑1B petitions consistently
- Have immigration teams
- Know how to justify visas to federal authorities

https://lnkd.in/g7ngzG-2

If you genuinely want to work and build a long‑term life in the U.S., today’s market says:

📌 Don’t wait for an employer to decide your fate
📌 Don’t ignore immigration strategy until it’s urgent
📌 Don’t treat visas and job search as separate problems

They are deeply connected, and your approach should be too.

Save this post if you or someone you know is planning a U.S. move.

P.S. DM me if you are a mid-career professional who wants to land more interviews and offers in tech.

Garry landed interviews at Amazon and Tesla in under 10 days. (He even cleared the first round at Amazon.)

But rewind a few weeks.

Garry had applied to dozens of roles.
But he was not getting callbacks from recruiters and hiring managers.

And like many professionals I speak to, he started questioning if he was even qualified.

The problem wasn’t the experience.
He had 10+ years in supply chain.
He wasn’t underqualified; he was under-discovered.

That changed when he signed up for my Job Search Crash Course - a self-paced system built to help job seekers:

✅ Understand what recruiters actually search
✅ Optimize resume keywords without second-guessing
✅ Get in front of the right roles, faster

Garry went all in.
He rewrote his resume using the system.

And within 10 days
He heard from Amazon and Tesla.

Here’s what I want you to take away:

1. Your job search isn’t always about more effort.
It’s about the right positioning.

2. You don’t need “connections.”
You need clarity in how you show up.

3. And no matter where you’re stuck in silence, rejections, or burnout
You’re not alone. But you do need a system.

📌 Want to explore the same crash course Garry used to crack Amazon and Tesla?

Comment or DM “system”, I’ll send the link.

Save this for the week your confidence dips. You’re likely closer than you think.

Amazon is set to lay off 13,000–14,000 people by January. By March, that number could cross 30,000.

2026 could be the year of mass layoffs.

Layoffs are rarely random.
They don’t wait for your performance review.
They don’t warn you a quarter in advance.
They show up while you're still catching up on backlog.

You may not know your name is on the list until it is.

So the real question isn’t: “Will layoffs happen?”
It’s: “Will you be ready if they do?”

If you want to stay ahead, here’s what to do now:

1. Read the signs before they hit your inbox

These tools help you track who’s hiring, who’s cutting, and where it’s headed:

→ Layoffs.fyi — Live layoff tracker by company
→ TrueUp — Tracks tech layoffs and open roles
→ WARNTracker.com — Official U.S. WARN notices
→ Peerlist  — Layoffs + hiring intel
→ H1Bdata.info — Sponsorship trends (for international professionals)

2. Update your positioning

→ Refresh your resume with outcomes, not just tasks
→ Tailor your LinkedIn to the roles you want, not the ones you’ve outgrown
→ Make sure your skill keywords match what’s actually in current job descriptions
→ Prepare 3-4 strong stories for interview questions around business impact, pivots, and cost decisions

3. Rebuild your network before you need it

Start conversations. Add value. Reconnect with past colleagues.
Because when you do need a referral or internal sponsor, it shouldn’t be the first time they’re hearing from you.

If you’re in tech, finance, ops, or HR, this is not the time to panic. It is time to prepare before you see your name on the layoff list.

📌 Save this post if you want to be one step ahead of layoffs.
🔁 Repost to help someone who might be on that list.

P.S. DM me "READY" if you are a mid-career professional who wants to land more PM and TPM-level interviews and high-paying offers. My team and I have helped 450+ professionals land offers at their dream companies.

After 17 years at Cisco, Radhika was laid off. But she bounced back with a $500K offer from Google. 

Before she was laid off, she
 → Had grown with the company.
 → Led critical cloud platform work.
 → Managed large teams and high-stakes systems.

When she reached out to me, she wasn’t panicking. She was confused.

“How does 17 years of real work suddenly mean nothing?”

The truth was uncomfortable.
Her experience was strong, but it wasn’t showing up clearly anymore.

Her resume was long, responsibility-heavy, and built for a world that no longer hires that way. Even senior experience gets ignored when it’s not positioned right.

90 days later, she had a $500,000 offer from Google on the table and another from AMD.

Because her work finally became understandable at the level companies hire for.

This week’s edition of The Job Search Playbook breaks down what actually changed and why long tenure alone no longer protects you in today’s market.

If you’re a PM, TPM, or senior leader who’s been carrying weight quietly for years, this is worth reading before the market forces a reset.

P.S. I've helped 450+ mid-career professionals land their dream offers. Book a call (link in bio), if you want are a senior professional in the U.S. who needs help landing more interviews and offers.

For 17 years, Radhika did what most people are told is the safe thing. She stayed. She grew with the company. She took on more responsibility every ye

Open article: After 17 Years at Cisco, One Layoff Changed Everything by Sanyam Sareen • 3 min read

After 17 Years at Cisco, One Layoff Changed Everything

I’ve seen too many PMs, TPMs, and Directors do everything right and still get impacted by layoffs.

For years, stability felt like the smart move.

You stay at one company.
You grow in scope.
You become reliable.
People trust you with the hard problems.

And slowly, without realizing it, your entire career becomes optimized for one environment.

Inside the company, your value is obvious.
Outside the company, your story starts to blur.

Your resume turns into a timeline.
Your LinkedIn sounds familiar but unclear.
Your impact is real, but hard to decode quickly.

So when something changes, a reorg, a budget cut, a leadership shift, people realize they haven’t checked their external signal in years.

That’s the risk no one talks about.

Not job hopping, or ambition.
But assuming stability equals safety.

This week’s edition of The Job Search Playbook is about why stability without leverage is fragile in today’s market, and what senior professionals can do quietly to protect themselves without panicking or making reckless moves.

If you’ve been telling yourself “I’m fine where I am” without ever pressure testing it, this one will land close to home.

If you’re a PM, TPM, Director, or senior leader and your plan is to “stay put and ride it out,” you may be taking more risk than you realize. Not beca

Open article: Why Stability Is the Riskiest Career Strategy Right Now by Sanyam Sareen • 4 min read

Why Stability Is the Riskiest Career Strategy Right Now

The moment you say yes to that job offer, you lose $30K–$50K.


It rarely happens in a negotiation call.
It happens in the first 10 seconds after you hear the number.

After weeks or months of interviews, rejections, and uncertainty, an offer feels like oxygen. Your shoulders drop. Your mind goes quiet. You want it to be over.

So you accept quickly.

You skip the pause.
You skip the questions.
You skip the chance to understand the band and what’s flexible.

Most people tell themselves:
“I don’t want to risk it.”
“I’m just grateful to have something.”
“I’ll catch up after I join.”

That catch-up usually never comes.

The gap becomes your baseline.
Raises stack on top of that baseline.
Your internal level and comp band get anchored early.

A year later, people realize they left real money on the table, and it quietly shapes the next few years of their career.

This week’s edition of The Job Search Playbook is about that exact moment. 

The psychology behind why smart people accept early, and what to do so that relief doesn’t make a permanent decision for you.

If you’re interviewing right now or expecting an offer soon, read it before you say yes too fast.

P.S. I've helped 450+ mid-career professionals land high-paying offers at top companies. DM me if you're struggling to land interviews, and offers.

It usually happens at the best possible moment. The recruiter calls. They share the number. You finally breathe. After weeks or months of uncertainty,

Open article: The $30K Mistake Most Job Seekers Make by Sanyam Sareen • 3 min read

I've seen people landing interviews at Google, Amazon and Microsoft with no FAANG background, because they got this one thing right.

Their resume.

Most mid-career professionals I speak to have overcomplicated resumes. 

They use:
- Paragraphs of text
- Generic bullet points
- Buzzwords with no weight
- No real story

They they say the job market is bad.

Here’s what a high-performing resume actually does in just 5 steps:

1. Tailors every word to the role
Do not send the same resume to every job.
Match the keywords and make sure your skills are aligned, so the recruiter can see the value you bring to the table.

2. Starts every bullet with action
"Responsible for..." is dead.
Use verbs like: Led, Built, Improved, Managed, Created

3. Shows impact, not activity
Don’t just say what you did. Show what changed because of you.
“Increased sales by 30%” > “Worked on sales reporting”

4. Optimizes for the real gatekeeper: ATS
If your resume isn’t machine-readable, it won’t get seen.
Clear formatting. Right keywords. No fancy designs.

5. Highlights the right skills + portfolio
Show them you can do the job, before they even call you.
Link to your work. List what matters.

The people who follow get serious traction, even at top companies.

Stop overcomplicating your resume. Start making it work.

Save this post and use the image below as your checklist the next time you apply.

Follow Sanyam Sareen for more insights on how to get more interviews and offers. I have helped 450+ mid-careed professionals land high-paying offers.

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Roshan Gupta's LinkedIn Performance

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