Why Specificity and Evidence Define Your Career Value in 2025
"If you don't know where you are sailing, there are no favorable winds." - Seneca
This 2,000-year-old Stoic wisdom hits harder today than ever before.
I work with high performers every week who feel stuck despite being objectively successful. They're not lacking talent, experience, or credentials.
They're lacking specificity and conviction. And in 2025, that's a career killer.
Remaining a Generalist Is Not Conducive to Standing Out
Here's the uncomfortable truth most career coaches won't tell you: broad positioning is economic suicide.
"I'm an AI product manager taking products from 0-1." Great—so are 50,000 other people applying for the same role.
"I'm a Software Engineering Director specializing in LLM, GenAI Solutions." Cool—what does that actually mean?
The modern job market doesn't reward ambiguity. It punishes it.
What Specificity Actually Looks Like
Let me be direct. If you can't answer these questions with precision and evidence, it could be a leading reason why you're not getting the responses you'd like in your job search or networking approach.
For Engineers/Technical Leaders:
What's your exact tech stack? (Don't just say "cloud infrastructure")
What was the POC? What problem were you solving?
What was YOUR specific role—not the team's, YOURS?
What critical decisions did you make? What trade-offs did you navigate?
What was the measurable outcome? (Performance improvement? Cost reduction? User adoption?)
What did you learn that changed how you approach similar problems now?
For Executives:
What specific company? What specific industry?
What larger business objective were you hired to impact? (Acquisition prep? Exit strategy? Market expansion? Financial turnaround?)
What was the baseline when you arrived? What was it when you left/now?
How did your decisions directly tie to revenue, market position, or enterprise value?
What would have happened if you hadn't made those specific moves?
Research shows that 44% of hiring managers cite lack of measurable achievements as a resume dealbreaker. But here's what that stat doesn't tell you: it's not just about having numbers. It's about having the right numbers with the right context.
Why This Matters More Now
We're in an era of AI cognitive offload. ChatGPT can write your resume. It can generate your cover letter. It can even coach you through behavioral interview questions.
What AI can't do? Articulate the nuanced, evidence-based narrative of YOUR specific impact.
Most professionals are outsourcing the exact thinking that would give them clarity and credibility. They're letting AI flatten their experience into generic templates that sound impressive but say nothing.
Meanwhile, hiring managers are drowning in applications from people who "led cross-functional teams," "drove strategic initiatives," and "delivered results."
You cannot afford to be vague anymore.
The professionals who win in this market are the ones who slow down, reverse engineer their own impact, and build a foundation of credibility rooted in objective truth.
Reverse Engineering Your Economic Value
Here's the process I walk executives through:
1. Identify Your Niche Within the Niche, Then Go a Step Further
Don't tell me you're "in fintech." Tell me you specialize in payment infrastructure for embedded finance platforms serving vertical SaaS companies in healthcare.
Don't tell me you're "a growth marketer." Tell me you scale acquisition channels for B2B SaaS companies transitioning from PLG to enterprise sales motion. You've built the playbook for companies in their Series C looking to scale into enterprise growth, carry the network and relational value with the team members who helped you achieve this.
2. Build Your Evidence Foundation
For every major accomplishment, document:
The Problem Statement: What was broken? What was the cost of inaction?
Your Exact Role: Not what the team did. What YOU did.
The Critical Decisions: What choices did you make? What did you say no to?
The Measurable Outcome: Revenue impact? Cost reduction? Time saved? Market share gained?
The Learning Lesson: What would you do differently? What did this teach you?
This is building a knowledge base of your own economic value that you can deploy in networking conversations, interviews, and negotiations.
3. Know Your Market Benchmark—Get Training on How to Leverage Deep Research to Do This
You should be able to answer:
What's the typical compensation range for someone with your specific expertise in your target market?
How do your outcomes compare to industry averages?
What does "good" look like in your domain, and how do your results stack up?
This isn't arrogance. It's homework. And it transforms how you show up in every professional interaction.
How This Changes Everything
When you have absolute clarity on your niche within the niche, backed by objective evidence and market awareness, here's what shifts:
Your Demeanor Changes You stop performing. You start conversing. Because you're not trying to convince anyone—you're sharing what you've proven.
Comparison Traps Lose Power When someone announces their promotion on LinkedIn, you don't spiral. You know your value isn't relative to their timeline.
Negotiation Happens from Conviction You're not hoping they see your worth. You're presenting evidence and asking them to match market rate for your specific expertise.
Networking Becomes Generous You stop hoarding connections because you're operating from scarcity. You can be genuinely helpful because you're clear on what you bring.
Interviews Become Peer Conversations You're not auditioning. You're assessing mutual fit. Because you know exactly what problems you solve and who benefits most from that.
The Path Forward
If this resonates, here's what I'd challenge you to do:
1. Stop the Motion All that activity—applications, networking coffee chats, LinkedIn optimization—pause it. None of it works if you can't clearly articulate your economic value.
2. Reverse Engineer Your Last 3 Major Wins Not what the team accomplished. What YOU specifically contributed, with measurable outcomes.
3. Define Your Niche Within the Niche Get uncomfortably specific. If you can still describe 10,000 other people with your positioning statement, it's too broad.
4. Build Your Evidence Foundation Problem statements. Critical decisions. Measurable outcomes. Learning lessons. Document it all.
5. Know Your Market Benchmark Research compensation. Study industry standards. Know what "good" looks like in your domain.
The rest of the market will continue operating from urgency—sprinting toward "what's next" without defining what "next" actually means for them.
You don't have to play that game.
Clarity beats speed. Specificity beats versatility. Evidence beats hope.
Figure out your niche within the niche. Build your evidence foundation. Know your market value.
Then every wind becomes favorable.
BTW, sometimes it's helpful having a sounding board in navigating your distinctive value. If you are interested in partnering together, let's explore what that could look like.
