Is It a Clarity Problem or a Positioning Problem?
If you’ve updated your resume in the last year or two, the document itself probably isn’t the issue.
And yet, here you are.
You’ve tweaked your LinkedIn headline.
Reworded your summary.
Applied to roles that look right on paper.
But something feels off.Either nothing is landing.
Or it is landing, and it still doesn’t feel right.
When the resume is technically fine, I usually see one of two things happening:
It’s either a clarity problem.
Or it’s a positioning problem.
Most women treat both as a resume problem.
And that’s where things stall.
What a Clarity Problem Actually Is
A clarity problem means you don’t yet know what direction truly fits.
You might say:
“I know I don’t want this anymore.”
But you cannot confidently answer:
“What do I want instead?”
You’re scanning job descriptions, hoping something sparks.
You’re trying to reverse engineer your next move from titles and salary ranges.
You’re rewriting bullets without knowing what story you’re trying to tell.
That isn’t a resume issue.
That’s a direction issue.
And no amount of keyword optimization can fix that.
Clarity requires stepping back and looking at the whole picture:
Your strengths
Your personality
Your values
Your lifestyle
The season you’re in
The kind of problems you actually want to solve
Until that foundation is solid, every application will feel slightly misaligned.
What a Positioning Problem Actually Is
A positioning problem is different.
You know what you want.
You may even know exactly what kind of role you’re aiming for.
But when you try to explain how your experience connects, it sounds scattered.
Or junior.
Or like a stretch.
You struggle to translate your past into a cohesive narrative for where you’re going next.
You’re not confused about direction.
You’re unclear on the story.
This is where strategy matters.
Positioning is about identifying the through line in your experience and aligning it to your next move in a way that makes sense to the market.
Not exaggerating.
Not starting over.
Not pretending to be someone you’re not.
Just clarity and translation.
Why This Distinction Matters
You’re not stuck because you lack ability.
You’re not behind.
And you’re not incapable of making a smart next move.
Most of the women I work with are thoughtful, experienced, and incredibly competent.
They’re just solving the wrong problem.
When you treat a clarity problem like a positioning problem, you keep rewriting your resume in circles.
When you treat a positioning problem like a clarity problem, you overanalyze and delay decisions that are actually ready to be made.
Both are exhausting.
But when you diagnose it correctly, something shifts.
You stop scrambling.
You stop second guessing every bullet point.
You stop wondering what’s wrong with you.
And instead, you start making grounded decisions from a place of alignment and strategy.
That’s when things move.
Not because you forced them.
But because you finally addressed the real issue.
Your Next Step
Before you update your resume again, pause and ask yourself:
Do I not know what I want?
Or do I not know how to explain it?
That answer determines your next move.
If it’s clarity, the work is internal first. We need to evaluate what fits your whole self, not just what looks good on paper.
If it’s positioning, we refine your narrative so your experience clearly supports where you’re headed.
I created a guide to help you tell the difference and decide what kind of support you actually need.
And if you’d rather talk it through, you can schedule a 30-minute consultation, and we’ll figure out your next step together.
Because you probably don’t need another resume edit.
You need the right diagnosis.