Episode 345
Your Experience Is Not Your Value: How to Explain What You Really Bring
Episode 345 - After decades of work, many experienced professionals can describe what they have done but struggle to explain why it matters now. This episode explores how understanding your value, rather than relying on titles, credentials and experience alone, can change the way you approach job searches, career transitions and the next stage of your working life.
One of the hardest career questions for an experienced professional should, in theory, be one of the easiest: What is your value?
After 20, 25, or 30 years of work, there is plenty of evidence to draw from. You have qualifications, projects, promotions, difficult problems solved, teams led, budgets managed, relationships built, and lessons learned the hard way. Yet in my work as a career coach, I regularly meet accomplished professionals who struggle to explain why any of this should matter to the person sitting across from them in a job interview.
The problem is rarely a lack of experience. More often, they have confused experience with value.
That distinction became the central idea in my recent conversation with Helen Palmer, creator of value(x) hub and the broader Self unLimited approach to working life. Helen argues that value is not a fixed characteristic we accumulate over a career. It is contextual, plural and dynamic. What one employer prizes, another may barely notice. What mattered enormously to us professionally at 35 may matter considerably less at 55.
“Value is in the eye of the beholder,” Helen told me.
For experienced professionals, this idea is more challenging than it first appears. It means that having impressive credentials, a senior title, or a long track record does not automatically make our contribution relevant to the next opportunity. It also means we cannot outsource the work of interpreting our experience to employers and expect them to reach the conclusion we hoped for.
Read the full Blog on the Website
Book a Free Introductory Consultation with Renata
31 Days of Action for Job Seekers
Find Your Talents: Learn About Your Strengths, and Watch Your Career Grow
Join 5,000+ Readers of The Job Hunting Newsletter: Subscribe Now
Lear More About Renata's career coaching and courses
Timestamps to guide your listening:
- 00:00 Why capable people can't describe their value
- 00:50 Twenty years of friendship, and one question about value
- 03:54 Value vs values: what value literacy means
- 06:07 Why time for money is nobody's real value exchange
- 08:33 Value you create for your employer vs value for you
- 14:10 "My boss doesn't value it": value is in the eye of the beholder
- 17:51 What your old credential tells the person reading your application
- 19:47 "I'm an accountant" is a feature, not your value
- 23:11 Why most value proposition statements fall flat
- 24:11 Months without interviews: do you still value the work?
- 26:37 You don't need passion from every job (the workscape)
- 31:11 When what you value changes in your 50s
- 32:50 The value exchange ledger, and why you time-box it
- 39:22 When your identity is welded to your job title
- 42:18 "You should stay": leaving when there's nothing left to give
- 44:53 Seeing your career in eras, and grieving the old one
- 49:54 Break the egg: Helen's advice if you're unsure what's next
- 51:21 Where to find Helen
Links mentioned in this episode:
About the host, Renata Bernarde
Hello, I'm Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I'm also an executive coach, job-hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach corporate, non-profit, and public professionals the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.
Follow Renata on Social Media:
