Career resource library
Everything we have written, by subject
Seventy-five subjects, each written in full in Arabic and English: what to decide, what to write, what to say, and what to do next. Start with the section closest to the problem in front of you.
67 pages
Career coaching, from the start
Career coaching in Saudi Arabia for the decision in front of youCareer coaching is worth paying for when there is a real decision, transition or professional problem to work on. It is a poor purchase when the goal is…Career coach in Riyadh for one-to-one career decisionsProximity is the least interesting thing about a career coach in Riyadh. What matters is whether the coaching sharpens the decision actually in front of you —…What is career coaching — and what does a career coach actually do?Career coaching is a structured, collaborative process for making better decisions and taking more deliberate action in your working life.How to choose a career coach in Saudi Arabia using evidence, not marketingIf you already understand what career coaching is, the next question is harder:How to choose a career path that fits you — without guessing your futureChoosing a career becomes harder when you treat it as a search for the one job you were always meant to do.Career direction coaching when your next move is not obviousYou can be good at your job and still be unsure what should happen next.Career planning coaching that turns direction into evidence and actionA career direction can be clear and still go nowhere.
Executive coaching and transition
Executive coaching in Saudi Arabia for leaders carrying wider responsibilityA bigger role does not simply create more work. It changes the kind of work that matters.Executive coach in Riyadh for leaders who need challenge, not agreementFinding an executive coach in Riyadh is easy enough. Choosing one who can work credibly with the level of responsibility you carry is harder.Executive interview coaching: preparing for senior rolesBy the time you reach an executive interview, nobody is checking whether you can do the functional work. That was settled by your record before the first…Executive presence coaching: leadership communication and influence"Executive presence" is one of the least useful phrases in leadership development, because it describes an effect while pretending to describe a quality.Executive career coaching: plan your next senior moveAt executive level the difficult question is not what next. It is what for.C-suite transition coaching: prepare for executive scopeThe step into the C-suite is not a larger version of the job below it. It is the point at which you stop being responsible for a function and become…
Leadership and first-time managers
Leadership coaching in Saudi Arabia for managers who need to lead differentlyLeadership problems rarely arrive labelled as “leadership problems.”First-time manager coaching: lead your first teamThe problem with your first management job is not that you do not know what good management looks like. You have had managers. You know.First 90 days as a new manager: practical planThe first 90 days for a manager are not a ramp. They are three different jobs, and doing the third one in the first month is the classic way to start badly.Difficult conversations at work: a manager's guideDifficult conversations at work are hard for a structural reason, not a personal one: you are trying to do two things at once. Deliver a message the other…
CVs and applications
How to write a CV for Saudi Arabia: the complete processA CV is not a record of your career. It is an argument that you can do a specific job, made out of evidence from your career.ATS-friendly CV in Saudi Arabia: what actually affects parsingAn applicant tracking system is a database. It takes the file you upload, tries to pull structured fields out of it — name, employers, dates, titles, skills —…Saudi Arabia CV template: a structure you can copy todayBelow is a CV template you can copy into a blank document and fill in. It is deliberately plain: one column, standard headings, no graphics, nothing that…Cover letter for jobs in Saudi Arabia: template and examplesA cover letter has one job: to say the thing your CV cannot say, which is why this role, and why you for it.CV review in Saudi Arabia: professional feedbackA CV review is worth paying for at one specific moment: when you already know what your CV is arguing, and you need to find out whether it lands. Before that…Professional summary for a CV: examples and formulaThe professional summary for a CV is the only part of the document that gets read as prose, in full, by a human being. Everything below it is scanned. And it…How to write achievements on your CV: examples that show impactMost people do not have an achievements problem. They have a memory problem and a permission problem, and both are solvable in an evening.Executive CV review: positioning for senior leadership rolesAbove director level, a CV stops being a record of what you have been responsible for and becomes an answer to one question: what is this person for?Career change CV: show transferable skillsA career change CV fails for one reason: it presents a chronology when the reader needs an argument.English CV for Saudi Arabia: format, language and examplesThe hard part of an English CV is not the English. It is that an English CV and an Arabic CV make the same case in different registers, and a document…
Interview preparation
Job interview questions and answers in Saudi ArabiaMost interview preparation fails in the same way: people collect answers instead of building the ability to answer.English job interview for Arabic speakers: questions, answers and practiceIf you work in English but think in Arabic, the interview is harder than the job. In the job you have time, a draft, a colleague to check with. In the…Interview coaching in Saudi Arabia: one-to-one preparationMost interview problems are fixable alone. Some are not, and the difference is not how important the interview is — it is whether you can see the problem from…"Tell me about yourself": how to answer in a job interviewThis is not a question about you. It is the interviewer asking you to do their job for them: take everything on your CV and tell them which parts matter for…Strengths and weaknesses in an interview: examples and answersThe strengths question is easier than people think. The weakness question is harder than people admit, and the two are not really the same question."Why should we hire you?" — how to build a strong answerThis question is comparative, and that is the whole difficulty. Everything you might say about yourself is also true of the other three people on the shortlist."Why do you want to work here?" — how to answerNearly every answer to this question fails the same way: it describes the employer back to the employer."Why did you leave your last job?" — how to answerThe interviewer is not curious about your former employer. They are checking for two things: whether you are likely to leave them the same way, and whether you…Salary expectations in an interview: how to answerThere is no answer to this question that works without preparation, and there is no way to avoid it indefinitely. Both halves matter.Questions to ask at the end of a job interview"Do you have any questions for us?" is not the end of the interview. It is the last scored section of it.STAR interview method: structure, examples and practiceSTAR is a way of organising an answer so that the person listening can follow it. That is all it is, and that is why it works.Competency-based interview questions: how to prepareA competency-based interview is not a conversation that happens to include behavioural questions. It is an assessment against a defined list, scored, usually…Behavioral interview questions: STAR answer examplesBehavioral questions all start the same way — "tell me about a time when" — and they are asked because past behaviour is the most reliable predictor an…Mock interview coaching: practice with feedbackYou cannot hear yourself. That is the entire case for a mock interview, and it is a stronger case than it sounds.Panel interview preparation: how to handle multiple interviewersA panel interview is not a harder version of a one-to-one. It is a different task, and candidates who prepare for it as though it were the same thing tend to…Promotion interview coaching: preparing for the panelAn internal promotion interview is harder than an external one, for a reason most candidates do not anticipate: they already have an opinion of you, and you…Government job interview in Saudi Arabia: questions and preparationIn a private-sector interview, your strongest story is usually the one where you saw a problem and fixed it yourself. Bring that same story to a public-sector…Getting interviews but no offers? Diagnose your interview performanceGetting interviews and no offers is not one problem. It is at least six, and they have almost nothing in common — which is why "I need to get better at…
Job search and career decisions
Job search strategy in Saudi Arabia: a system for getting relevant interviewsA job search is a funnel with four stages, and it fails at exactly one of them at a time.Career shift in Saudi Arabia: how to change fields without starting overMost people considering a career shift imagine two options: stay, or resign and begin again at the bottom. Both are usually wrong, and the belief that those…Not getting interviews? Fix your job search funnel"I'm not getting interviews" describes an outcome, not a cause — and the cause is almost never the one people go looking for first. Everybody edits the CV.…Should I resign or stay? A career decision frameworkMost people who type should I quit my job into a search box are not actually asking whether to resign. They are asking something narrower that they have not…Moving from government to the private sector in Saudi ArabiaPeople preparing to move from government to private sector prepare for the job. What actually catches them in the first year is the operating model.Technical or management career path? How to chooseThe technical or management career decision is usually framed as a promotion question. It is not. Management is a career change, and the fact that it comes…Executive job search in Saudi Arabia: strategy and positioningAn executive job search does not work the way the searches before it worked, and the most common mistake is running the old one harder.
Pay, offers and leaving well
How to negotiate a job offer in Saudi ArabiaThe person on the other end of the call usually cannot say yes on their own.Salary increase request letter: how to write it, with a templateA salary increase request letter is not where you win the increase. It is where you make the decision easy to approve.Job offer letter: what to check before you acceptAn offer letter arrives and the instinct is to look at one number. Then you sign, and eleven months later you find out what the rest of it said.How to choose between two job offersChoosing between two job offers goes wrong in a predictable way: people compare the things that are easy to compare, and decide on the things that are not.Counter offer after resigning: accept or move on?A counter offer after resignation is not an offer in the ordinary sense. It is a retention decision, made quickly, by an employer solving a problem you have…Salary negotiation coaching in Saudi ArabiaAlmost nobody who loses a salary negotiation loses it because they did not know what to say.How to ask for a salary increase: build your caseThe ask that works is almost never "I deserve more". It is closer to: "my job changed, and the paperwork has not caught up."Resignation letter in Saudi Arabia: professional template and checklistA resignation letter has one job: to be unambiguous, and to be a document that cannot be used against you later.
LinkedIn and being found
LinkedIn profile tips: improve visibility to recruitersYour profile has two readers and they arrive in sequence. First a search result — a name, a photo and a headline in a list of results. Then, if that line…LinkedIn profile optimization in Saudi Arabia"Optimize my LinkedIn profile" describes three different jobs, and most people buy the wrong one.LinkedIn headline examples for Saudi professionalsYour LinkedIn headline is the only piece of writing you have that works while you are asleep. It is the single line of content in a search result, and it sits…LinkedIn About section: how to write a strong summaryThe LinkedIn About section is the only place on your profile where you get to speak in your own voice. Everything else is structured fields. This is the one…How recruiters find you on LinkedIn in Saudi ArabiaYou are not found by LinkedIn. You are found by a person typing a query — a role term, a location, sometimes a skill or a current title — looking at a list,…
Promotion and advancement
Promotion coaching: prepare for your next rolePromotion is three separate things, and you only control two of them.How to build a strong case for promotionA promotion case is not an argument that you deserve the next level. It is an argument that you are already operating at it, and that formalising the fact is…