Obvious Hire — Quiz - Emily Julia Coaching

Where Are You Selling Yourself Short?

12 questions to uncover where your experience, value and credibility may be getting lost.

THE OBVIOUS HIRE™ DIAGNOSTIC

There is one thing I see consistently across every client I work with, and I did it myself when I was made redundant:

We sell ourselves short.

We get so used to our own experience that we stop seeing what is valuable about it. We leave important things out, play down significant work and expect hiring managers to join the dots.

The penalty for doing that is high. The reward for fixing it is even higher.

Take The Obvious Hire™ Diagnostic to discover whether you have the key fundamentals in place, or where you may be unintentionally selling yourself short.

12 questions • Less than 5 minutes • Detailed results by email

Please enter your email address to get started.

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QUESTION 1

When you decide to look for a new role, where do you start?

Think about the very first thing you usually do when it’s time to look for your next role.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I start with my existing CV. I add my latest experience, update the wording and begin looking for roles.

B. I update my CV and LinkedIn profile together, but I mainly work from what I have already written about myself.

C. I think about the roles I want and tailor my CV towards them, but my existing CV is still the main source I use to understand and describe my experience.

D. I start by stepping back from my CV and examining the strongest evidence from across my career. I then use that clearer career story to strengthen my CV, LinkedIn profile, interview answers and networking conversations.

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QUESTION 2

Do you look at a role through the hiring manager’s eyes?

Think about what you focus on when you consider a role:
what it offers you and how well you match it, or what the hiring manager needs to see to choose you.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I mainly focus on whether the role is right for me. I look at the responsibilities, salary, location and whether it feels like something I would like to do.

B. I compare my experience with the requirements in the job description, mainly to work out whether I am qualified enough to apply.

C. I sometimes think about what the hiring manager is looking for, but I do not consistently use their perspective when deciding how to present my experience.

D. I deliberately look at the role from the hiring manager’s perspective. I think about the skills, experience and evidence they need to see in the person they hire, then make sure I show the most relevant and credible parts of my experience.

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QUESTION 3

Have you researched how roles like yours are described in the wider market?

Think about whether you have looked beyond your own current or previous organisations to understand how similar work, responsibilities and levels of seniority are described elsewhere.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I have not researched how roles like mine are described elsewhere. I mainly rely on my employer’s title and job description.

B. I have looked at some job advertisements, but mostly to decide whether I should apply

C. I have compared my role with similar positions in other organisations, but I am still unclear about where my experience fits in the wider market.

D. Yes, thoroughly. I have reviewed a range of comparable roles and understand how experience like mine is typically described in the market. For example, I discovered that work called Business Change inside my organisation was more commonly described externally as Programme Management.

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QUESTION 4

How broadly do you understand what you bring professionally?

Think about whether your view of yourself is mainly shaped by your employer — your job description, objectives, promotions and performance reviews — or whether you have stepped back and looked more broadly at everything your experience has equipped you to do.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I mainly understand what I bring through the lens of my current or previous employer. I tend to focus on my job description, responsibilities and the things I was measured or recognised for.

B. I know there is probably more to my experience than my employer formally recognised, but I have not really explored what that might be.

C. I have started to look more broadly at what my experience has given me, beyond my formal role and performance objectives, but I am not yet sure I have uncovered the full picture.

D. I have deliberately looked beyond how my employer defined and assessed me. I understand the wider skills, judgement and experience I have built through my career, including strengths and capabilities that may never have appeared in a job description, promotion case or performance review.

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QUESTION 5

Have you used feedback from other people to understand what you bring professionally?

Think about whether you have deliberately looked across feedback from managers, colleagues, clients and others to identify patterns in what people value, trust and rely on you for.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I tend to avoid or dismiss feedback about myself. I feel uncomfortable reading it or find it difficult to believe the positive things people have said.

B. I remember some positive comments, but I have not collected them or looked at them properly.

C. I have reviewed some feedback and identified a few recurring strengths, but I still find it difficult to fully recognise or use what it reveals.

D. Yes. I have gathered feedback from managers, colleagues, clients and other people I have worked with and looked for repeated patterns. For example, I noticed that people across several roles consistently relied on me to bring clear direction when situations became difficult.

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QUESTION 6

Can you clearly explain what you personally contributed to the results you achieved?

Think about whether you can separate your own contribution from the work of the team, the organisation or the circumstances around you.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I tend to describe what the team or organisation achieved, but I find it difficult to explain clearly what I personally contributed.

B. I know I made an important contribution, but I often fall back on words like “we”, “supported” or “was involved in” rather than being specific about my role.

C. I can explain my personal contribution in some examples, but I do not do it consistently or always make clear what was different because of me.

D. Yes. I can clearly separate the overall result from my own contribution. I can explain the decisions I made, the problems I solved, what I influenced or changed, and what I personally brought that helped create the outcome.

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QUESTION 7

Do you recognise how significant your experience really is?

Think about whether you have stepped back from what you did and examined its true weight, the scale and scope involved, the level you were operating at, the complexity you handled, the people you influenced and the business or strategic impact.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I tend to think of most of my experience as “just part of the job.” I rarely stop to consider what it might actually demonstrate about my level, capability or experience.

B. I suspect I underplay some of my experience, but I find it difficult to work out which examples are genuinely significant or why.

C. I can recognise some of the significance behind my experience, such as greater responsibility, complexity or impact, but I have not assessed it systematically or considered everything it demonstrates.

D. I deliberately examine my experience to understand how significant it really was. For example, covering for my director demonstrated seniority and trust; leading work across five countries demonstrated scale and scope; and getting several senior stakeholders to agree a difficult way forward demonstrated influence and complexity.

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QUESTION 8

Has anyone ever seriously challenged you to bring out the full value of your experience?

Think about whether someone has gone beyond reviewing your CV and questioned your assumptions about what is important, significant or worth talking about, asking enough questions to uncover experience you had dismissed, normalised or simply thought was “just part of the job.”

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. 1. No. I have mainly decided for myself what is important in my experience. Other people may have reviewed my CV or given me advice, but no one has really challenged the way I see my own career.

B. 2. People have asked me questions about my experience, but usually to understand what I did or help me improve how I describe it. They have not really challenged what I consider important or significant.

C. 3. Someone has challenged my thinking about parts of my experience and helped me recognise examples or strengths I had underestimated, but we have not explored my experience in this way in any depth.

D. 4. Yes. Someone has seriously challenged my assumptions about my experience. They have questioned examples I thought were ordinary, asked why I was trusted with particular work, explored the level, complexity or influence involved, and helped me recognise significant evidence I had previously overlooked or played down.

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QUESTION 9

Does the same clear career story come through wherever someone encounters you?

Think about whether your CV, LinkedIn profile, networking conversations and interview answers all draw from the same clear understanding of your strengths, experience and professional value.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I treat each part of my job search separately. My CV, LinkedIn profile and interview preparation have developed at different times.

B. There are some consistent themes, but I describe myself differently depending on the situation.

C. I have a reasonably clear career story, but my strongest evidence does not come through consistently everywhere.

D. Yes. Everything draws from the same clear and evidence-based career story. I adapt what I emphasise, but the value I bring remains consistent across my CV, LinkedIn profile, networking conversations and interview answers.

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QUESTION 10

Are you relying on an already shortened version of your experience?

Think about whether the CV you use for applications is built from a full record of your career evidence, or whether you are repeatedly tailoring from a document that has already had valuable experience removed.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I usually tailor from my current CV. I add, remove or rewrite things for each role, but I am working from a document that has already been shortened over time.

B. I have several versions of my CV and other documents I can refer back to, but my strongest examples are spread across different places and I sometimes have to rely on memory.

C. I have a fairly detailed record of my experience to draw from, but it is not completely up to date or comprehensive, so I may still miss strong evidence when tailoring.

D. I have a detailed, up-to-date Master CV that captures the strongest evidence from across my career. I use it as my source document, then select the most relevant and credible examples for each position rather than repeatedly tailoring from an already shortened CV.

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QUESTION 11

Does the title at the top of your CV clearly show what kind and level of professional you are?

Think about whether the title directly beneath your name uses language the wider market will understand and accurately reflects the type and level of work you can credibly demonstrate.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I do not have a professional title at the top of my CV.

B. I use my current or previous job title, even though it may be based on internal language or may not fully reflect the work I can do.

C. I have a professional title at the top of my CV, but I am not completely confident that it positions me accurately in terms of the type or level of work I can credibly do.

D. Yes. I have a clear professional title in bold directly beneath my name that accurately positions me in the wider market. For example, although my internal title was Business Change Lead, my experience was leading complex projects across several countries, so I use GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGER.

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QUESTION 12

Does your professional summary contain the best of the best from your career?

Think about whether the summary at the top of your CV brings together the strongest and most relevant evidence from across your career, rather than simply giving a general overview of your experience.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

A. I do not have a professional summary. My CV moves straight into my employment history.

B. I have a professional summary, but it mainly describes my experience, responsibilities and personal qualities.

C. I think it contains my strongest evidence, but I am not completely sure because my experience has never been seriously challenged.

D. Yes. I write my summary for the specific position using my Master CV. I select the most relevant and credible evidence from across my career, then distil the strongest points from the rest of my CV into the top section.