This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lindsay Mustain, a former Amazon recruiter in her 40s who lives in Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Before I began my business about intentional career design, I was a recruiter. My most recent role was at Amazon, where I led talent acquisition and employer branding strategies.
Over my career, I’ve hired thousands of people and reviewed countless résumés.
At Talent Paradigm, which I started in 2017, my small team works with thousands of clients on generating salary increases for them, based on what I call the “theory of hireability.”
Think about bottled water. You can get water from your sink for basically free; meanwhile, people are willing to pay $9 for a bottle of water at an airport. Fundamentally, they’re the same thing — H2O — but they have completely different perceived values.
The same thing happens when job searching.
The forces that determine what the market would pay for a product are the way people would pay for your candidacy. Those are rooted in the four Ps of marketing: product, promotion, place, and price.
In my theory of hireability, there’s a fifth principle that changes everything: perception. I believe the job market isn’t logical; it’s psychological, and the only thing you need to change is your perceived value.
Together, these form what I call the five Ps of career ascension.
1. Product
When I was recruiting, I’d sit with a hiring manager before a job was posted and ask what they wanted: Who are they looking for? What kind of experience? If a candidate looked like the answer to that specific problem, they were at an advantage.
Many people market themselves with facts like, “I have 10 years of experience in operations.” What actually works is marketing the benefit — what you actually can do for the company.
For example, if you’re shopping for a new vitamin C serum, you’re not going to buy it based on how much vitamin C it has; you’ll buy the one that says it reduces dark spots in two weeks.
Your résumé is basically the same thing. The commodity candidate only markets their features — tasks, duties, years, titles — while the candidate of choice markets the transformation: What did they change? What impact did they make? It’s powerful to include a percentage, a dollar sign, and numbers. Make it clear what the company gained because you were in the room.
2. Promotion
In marketing, promotion is what you do to get people to know about and purchase the product. For job candidates, the goal is for employers to want to meet with you.
A lot of times, people’s go-to move for promotion is the open-to-work banner on LinkedIn. However, from my observations, I don’t think it actually helps — and could actually hurt.
Strategic visibility is real promotion. Building your brand on LinkedIn attracts people into your world and creates referred opportunities. It can be a virtuous cycle — you share content and thought leadership, engage with others, and create visibility in your field.
When you intentionally shape that narrative, a hiring manager feels like they already know you.
3. Place
You can buy a product in-store or online; for candidates, place is where employers find you.
I asked hundreds of hiring managers what they’d think if someone applied 17 times over 12 years. The overwhelming response was that there must be something wrong with the applicant — if they were any good, the company would’ve hired them already.
Shift yourself from being active to being perceived as passive, so you don’t come across as trying too hard. The goal is to be found, or to be referred.
With active applicants, it’s very apparent they’re job searching, whether it’s the open-to-work banner on their profile or a post about how they were laid off from their last job and asking if anyone could help. They’re spamming DMs with their résumé and asking about job openings.
Passive job seekers are typically those who are employed, who recruiters source, or who are referred by others. The underlying belief is that people who are good at their jobs are usually too busy to look for other jobs.
As a recruiting leader, I aimed for at least 40% of my hires to come through employee referrals, because that’s where I consistently saw the highest quality and best hires.
4. Price
There are different ways to price products. There’s commodity pricing, like the rollback price at Walmart. In the job market, this is the job board pool of commodity candidates, and the salary floor wins.
Then, there’s asset pricing, which is paid according to the value, such as a limited release of Air Jordans. Last year, I was at the mall, and the line for the sneaker store was out the door. The competition is what’s driving up the price; the line actually increased the perceived value.
When your product is premium, has a strong brand, and is not widely available, you stop negotiating for a number; instead, you become an asset that everyone wants to have.
You don’t have to take the minimum because there’s somebody willing to pay more right behind that first person.
5. Perception
Focusing on perception is the most important thing that you can do when you’re job searching.
I’ve talked about perception in each of the other four Ps. It isn’t its own individual thing; it’s the multiplier — the difference between being the commodity candidate and the candidate of choice.
It’s why, when I was at Amazon, one of the first questions I asked candidates was, “Are you interviewing anywhere else?” I wanted to know if they were top talent, and if so, I could fast-track the process. The only time I could do so was if they had other options, because we didn’t want to lose them.
It can be the exact same candidate, exact same talent. It’s not experience. It’s not qualifications. The only thing that’s really changing is what everyone around them now believes to be true — perception.
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