What candidates are asking right now, and what it means for hiring leaders.
Recently, I had the opportunity to coach at the TeamWomen Empower Your Next Career Move event. I spent the day speaking with women navigating career transitions – some coming out of layoffs, others reassessing roles that no longer suit them, and many trying to take a step into something new.
What stood out wasn’t just the questions themselves, but how consistent they were across backgrounds, industries, and levels. Those questions are important signals about how today’s hiring market is being experienced on the candidate side. For hiring leaders, these signals matter because the way candidates are navigating the market directly impacts the quality, accessibility, and diversity of the talent you’re ultimately able to reach.
In this post, I’ll share my perspective on the answers to their questions and, more importantly, what it means to hiring leaders that they’re being asked in the first place.
Question: How do I position myself for a different industry or role?
Career advice for candidates: When you’re making a transition, your goal isn’t to prove you’ve done the exact job before. It’s to clearly connect what you HAVE done to what the role requires. Your resume should quickly communicate the seat you fill, the value you bring to that seat, and the type of environment you operate in, whether that’s high-growth, transformation, cross-functional complexity, or change management. That means focusing less on responsibilities and more on:
- Outcomes you’ve driven
- Problems you’ve solved
- Skills that transfer across environments
- What changed because of your work
Insights for hiring leaders: If candidates are struggling to position themselves, it’s often because the hiring process is optimized for direct matches. That can unintentionally filter out high-potential candidates who bring relevant experience from different industries or environments. Expanding how you define “qualifications” in your job postings can significantly widen your talent pool without lowering the bar.
Question: How do I communicate my level accurately, especially when my title or company size doesn’t translate?
Career advice for candidates: Do your best to translate how your role relates to the opportunities you’re targeting. Focus on what responsibilities, skillsets, and business challenges align with the next role. It can also help to use the opening summary on your resume to clearly identify the type of role you’re targeting next. If you’re coming from a smaller company where you held a larger title, adding context around company size, revenue, or employee count can also help employers better understand your background, and why you may be open to a role that looks different on paper.
Insights for hiring leaders: Don’t always assume candidates are looking for the “next step up.” We regularly speak with candidates who are intentionally seeking something different:
- More flexibility
- Stronger leadership or culture
- More meaningful or mission-driven work
- A healthier work-life balance
- A role that feels more engaging or aligned personally
Sometimes that means being open to a smaller company, different title, or narrower scope. Looking beyond title progression alone often opens the door to strong, highly motivated candidates.
Question: Is AI filtering me out before anyone even sees my resume?
Career advice for candidates: AI can absolutely be a helpful tool, but it shouldn’t be the final voice of your resume. Use it to brainstorm, organize, or identify relevant keywords, but make sure your resume still sounds like YOU. Authenticity and clarity matter. It’s also smart to tailor your resume using language reflected in the job description, company values, or culture, but only where it genuinely aligns with your experience. And perhaps most importantly: don’t rely exclusively on online applications. Networking still matters. Build relationships with recruiters, ask questions, and connect with people in your industry whenever possible.
Insights for hiring leaders: AI and filtering tools can create efficiency, especially for organizations managing large applicant pools. But they can also create blind spots.
Some of the strongest candidates don’t look perfect on paper. That’s why it’s important to use technology as a support tool, not a replacement for thoughtful evaluation. There is so much to consider about a candidate beyond a resume alone.
At Grey, we often encourage clients to stay open to non-traditional candidates who may not check every box on paper, but bring the experience, adaptability, and leadership qualities needed to succeed.
Question: What are recruiters actually looking for right now?
Career advice for candidates: Recruiters are looking for clear examples of impact. What did you improve? What problems did you solve? What changed because of your work? That’s important not only on your resume, but also in how you speak about your experience during interviews. For leaders especially, it’s important to clearly articulate:
- Change management experience
- Transformation or scaling efforts
- Growth initiatives
- Leadership style and influence
In a tight market, where opportunities can feel limited and competition is high, candidates need to think about differentiation. What makes you memorable? What perspective, leadership style, or experience do you bring that others may not?
Insights for hiring leaders: Some of the best hires come from candidates who weren’t initially the obvious choice. We’ve seen many situations where hiring managers were hesitant about a candidate on paper, only for that person to become the eventual hire, and a highly successful one. It’s easy to judge a book by its cover, especially in a fast-moving market. But resumes rarely tell the full story. The more flexibility and curiosity hiring teams bring into the process, the more likely they are to uncover exceptional talent.
Question: How do I tell my story clearly and concisely in an interview?
Career advice for candidates: So much comes down to the interview. Be authentic, but also concise and clear in your responses. Focus on answering the question directly, avoiding overexplaining, and using specific examples that connect back to the role. Frameworks like the STAR method can help keep your responses structured and focused.
At the same time, don’t lose your personality. The strongest interviews feel conversational and human. The goal is to strike a balance between professionalism with authenticity. And come prepared with thoughtful questions about the role, team, and organization. Strong questions show preparation, engagement, and genuine interest.
Insights for hiring leaders: It’s important to remember that not every strong candidate interviews regularly, especially someone who has been with the same organization for 15 or 20 years. Give candidates grace, and focus on evaluating overall capability and potential, not just polish. Hiring leaders should also remember that candidates are evaluating the company just as much as the company is evaluating them. Preparation, attentiveness, clarity, and engagement all shape the candidate experience. The best interviews feel less like interrogations and more like productive, two-way discussions.
Final thoughts
If there’s one thing these conversations reinforced, it’s that we continue to face a challenging and highly competitive market, made more complex by a growing gap between capabilities and consideration. Candidates must translate their experience and make a compelling case before they ever get in front of any interviewer. The organizations that recognize that gap (and adjust how they define, assess, and engage talent) are the ones that will ultimately access the strongest candidates.
