The Career Canvas: Nine strategic moves beyond the traditional ladder
The career ladder is obsolete. Here’s how to survive and thrive through a 60-year career....
Talent
In the hidden job market, the problem is not visibility, it’s clarity
The hidden job market does not reward effort alone. It rewards executives who have done the harder internal work first – clarity about who they are and how consistently they express it.
Rapid read:
- At senior levels, positioning is not a one-time exercise but a continuous career strategy. The six dimensions of the Competitive Identity Framework need to be worked on simultaneously, not in sequence.
- Differentiation is less about what you have done and more about how you did it – and how that maps onto the specific needs of the organizations you are targeting.
- Visibility without authenticity is short-lived. Identity alignment, the connection between internal values and external expression, is both the most personal and the most powerful of the six dimensions.
There is a particular frustration that experienced executives describe when they are in transition. They know how the market works. They know that roles are filled through relationships, not job boards. And they know that at senior levels, where a single position can attract hundreds of candidates, being visible online is rarely enough. Yet, knowing all of this, they still find themselves generating conversations without gaining traction.
The reason, more often than not, is not a gap in strategy. It is a gap in clarity. In a market that is transforming faster than most organizations can write job descriptions, executives who break through the noise are not necessarily those with the strongest track records. They are the ones who are easiest to position – whose story, value, and direction are coherent enough that others can understand and advocate for them.
That internal work, knowing who you are and expressing it consistently, is what the Competitive Identity Framework is designed to address. Developed through working with senior executives navigating career transitions, this framework provides a way to understand how leaders are actually seen and interpreted in a market that increasingly relies on interpretation as much as qualification. Rather than a checklist for a single transition, it operates as a continuous framework for career ownership – one that is most effective when already in motion long before a move becomes necessary.
1 – Strategic positioning: Be a solution, not a title
Ask most senior executives how they introduce themselves, and they reach for a title and a company name. VP of Technology. Chief Operating Officer. Managing Director, EMEA. These are conditions, not value propositions. They tell the market where they have been. They say little about what they are experienced in solving.
Strategic positioning starts with a different question: what problems do you solve, at what level of expertise, and in which context does your value create the most impact? The answer – specific, repeatable, and expressible in a sentence – is what allows others to place you. Without it, even a strong executive becomes interchangeable.
The instinct is to resist this level of specificity. Staying broad feels safer; it appears to keep options open. In practice, the opposite is true. The more specific you are, the more coherent you become, and the faster, stronger reaction you get from the market. Focus does not close doors. It makes it possible for others to open them for you.
What stands out is specificity, not skills.
2 – Differentiation strength: What only you can claim
With AI making it easier than ever to generate polished CVs and rehearsed narratives, senior profiles are converging. The language is the same. The claimed capabilities are the same. Strategic terminology is overused precisely because it is familiar – and therefore no longer distinctive.
- What stands out is specificity, not skills. Skills are interchangeable – but the combination of background, trajectory, and experience brings someone to where they are today. Pasquel’s own career illustrates this clearly: he was born in Mexico, trained in a military naval academy, moved from Mexico to China, then to Denmark, later to Switzerland, and spent 25 years working exclusively for Danish companies at the center of technology innovation, working with top talents. Today, he runs an executive career management business. Each element on its own carries a limited meaning. Together, they form something no peer can replicate.
A practical way to identify differentiation is to reflect on past delivery. Map the process step by step and identify where the greatest value was created and where energy was highest. Repeated across several examples, patterns begin to emerge. That pattern often points to differentiation.
But differentiation only matters in context. Two candidates with similar profiles can be entirely different answers to different needs – one suited to execution in a high-performing environment, another to building capability where it does not yet exist. The distinction is not in the CV, but in how it is connected to the problem at hand.
LinkedIn is a starting point, not a destination.
3 – Authority capital: Make your track record findable
There is a common assumption that tenure creates authority. It does not. Time builds experience. Authority comes from visible proof of results that is accessible, findable, and relevant to where you want to go. In practice, that proof needs to be prepared and structured so it can be communicated clearly in conversations, not just documented.
LinkedIn is a starting point, not a destination. Activity increases visibility, but visibility alone does not create credibility. What matters is whether a track record can be quickly understood by someone who does not yet know the individual behind it.
Public engagements – speaking, contributing knowledge, participating in conversations that matter – build authority over time. So does being chosen: promotions, lateral moves, or mandates given because someone believed a leader could deliver.
Executives who have spent many years in one organization are particularly exposed. Their value is understood internally, but often invisible externally. Rebuilding that visibility requires translating past achievements into future relevance – not as a display of seniority, but as proof of applicability.
Most senior careers are not linear.
4 – Narrative coherence: Connect the dots before someone else does
A coherent narrative creates confidence. A confused one creates skepticism – and in a fast-moving market, skepticism often ends the conversation.
Most senior careers are not linear. Pivots, shifts in industry, expanded roles. What creates coherence is not a tidy progression, but a clear thread – a set of values, interests, or problems that reappear over time.
Often, the most compelling stories are not the most obvious. An early interest that resurfaces later, reinforced through experience, eventually shapes a new direction. These patterns, even when not dominant on a CV, are often what make a narrative credible. The same applies to gaps. A period outside the workforce, a move between countries, time taken for family, these do not need to be explained away. Positioned well, they become part of the thread itself.
The challenge lies in selecting which story to tell. A long career can generate many narratives, but more is not necessarily better. A detailed CV is only valuable to the extent that it speaks to the needs of the audience. The narrative that resonates is the one that connects past experiences to what comes next. A practical way to approach this is to think in terms of emphasis, not completeness. Pasquel’s own career could be told in many ways. He could present himself as an international technology executive with experience across many markets. He could refer to the military environment that provided a strong foundation for his leadership development and reinforced his long-standing interest in developing people.
Or he could position himself as someone who has spent decades understanding how organizations operate within a specific cultural context in Denmark.
Each version is true. But each speaks to a different need. The strength of the narrative lies in selecting the elements that are most relevant to the role you’re looking for, and leaving out what doesn’t serve that direction. The goal is not to tell the full story, but the right one.
Channels matter less than consistency.
5 – Visibility strategy: Being quiet is also a choice
Visibility is the dimension most executives rate themselves lowest on – and the one most often deferred. There is always a reason to wait. In practice, waiting is a strategy – just not a useful one.
The question is not whether to be visible, but how to be visible intentionally – not everywhere, but with the right audience. One candidate had not consciously built a visibility strategy, yet was already scheduled to speak at several conferences. Once recognized, those moments became deliberate opportunities to demonstrate expertise in a targeted way. The response from the market followed.
Channels matter less than consistency. LinkedIn, conferences, peer conversations – no single channel is sufficient on its own. What works is testing, observing what generates a response, and adjusting accordingly. The goal is not volume but being recognized by the people who matter for the roles you are targeting.
Even with strong visibility, relying solely on formal applications is rarely enough. Candidates who gain traction are often those who identify and engage people inside organizations early, ensuring they are understood before decisions are made.
This matters particularly for executives navigating age-related assumptions in automated screening. ATS systems are a reality, and tools exist to test a CV against a job description, but a more reliable counter is a person inside the organization who can move your name forward before the process filters it out.
Authenticity, in that sense, becomes a market signal.
6 – Identity alignment: The market senses what you do not say
Of all six dimensions, identity alignment is the most personal – and often the point where everything either holds together or starts to break down. Positioning, differentiation, credibility, and visibility can all be in place. But if they are not aligned – if the roles being pursued, the values communicated, and the way someone shows up in conversations point in different directions – the gap is quickly felt.
Authenticity, in that sense, becomes a market signal.
This is also the dimension most likely to be compromised under pressure. When a transition becomes urgent, the instinct is to broaden the narrative and stay open to more options. In the short term, that can create movement. Over time, it often leads to roles that do not fit – and a return to the same transition.
Alignment, in practice, cannot be constructed quickly. It is built through consistency over time – between what someone has done, what they choose to pursue next, and how they describe that direction to others. Alignment is often the result of reflection. Reflective leaders usually sense, at a deeper level, the direction they want to pursue, but creating space for reflection is essential to clarify and consciously shape that path.
Narrative coherence connects past experience to future direction. Visibility ensures it is seen. Identity alignment holds it all together.
How the six dimensions work together
The six dimensions of the Competitive Identity Framework do not operate in sequence. They work in parallel, reinforcing each other. Clarity of positioning sharpens differentiation. Authority capital gives it substance. Narrative coherence connects past experience to future direction. Visibility ensures it is seen. Identity alignment holds it all together.
Weakness in one area tends to surface in others. Alignment across them creates momentum.
The executives who gain traction in the hidden job market are the ones who are easiest to understand: clear in what they stand for, coherent in how their experience connects, and visible to the right people at the right time.
That is what turns conversations into momentum. And it is not built at the moment of transition. It is built over time.
Authors
Related
Cull or cultivate? Protecting your entry-level leadership pipeline
Protect your pipeline: actionable steps to develop leaders from entry-level roles as AI transforms junior work tasks....
Publicis Sapient on AI: A three-step guide to psychological safety
While it is normal to be nervous about AI, organizations must create a psychologically safe environment in which their employees can innovate and experiment, says Publicis Sapient’s Kameshwari Rao ...
The readiness gap: Why workforce agility will decide who wins
Workforce agility, not access to AI tools, will define competitive advantage. Here’s how leaders can close the readiness gap....
Learn Brain Circuits
Join us for daily exercises focusing on issues from team building to developing an actionable sustainability plan to personal development. Go on - they only take five minutes.
Explore Leadership
What makes a great leader? Do you need charisma? How do you inspire your team? Our experts offer actionable insights through first-person narratives, behind-the-scenes interviews and The Help Desk.
Join Membership
Log in here to join in the conversation with the I by IMD community. Your subscription grants you access to the quarterly magazine plus daily articles, videos, podcasts and learning exercises.