Jacob was making effort and getting nothing back. He had the resume, the experience, the credentials. He’d managed people. He’d supervised others. And when he went back into the job market, he got silence. Total silence. That silence started to break him.
The Problem Nobody Told Him About
He wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t unqualified. He wasn’t asking for too much.
He was doing everything he’d been told to do — building his resume, applying online, targeting positions that matched his background. And the results? Nothing. Not even a rejection. Just a black hole where feedback should have been.
The worst part wasn’t the silence. It was what the silence did to him. Jacob had always considered himself a high-action, high-confidence person. He knew who he was. He knew what he was good at. But after enough applications to jobs held by people he’d previously managed came back with zero response, something shifted.
“I kind of felt like the person who, like the religious believer who finds — questions God, and then that causes them to be like, oh my God, I’m questioning everything,” Jacob told me. “And it put me into a place of non-action. And just kind of fear.”
He was depressed. He was using video games to escape. He’d stalled on his CFA Level III exam. And he was doing the thing that fear-based job searching always produces: more of exactly what wasn’t working.
“I have never been depressed before in my life until getting rejected so much for jobs. I was like — I can do this job easily. That is the reason why I was like, I need some help immediately — because it was so miserable last time.”
— Jacob P., Financial Advisor
What He Was Up Against
- Applied to positions held by people he’d previously managed — and heard nothing back
- Shifted from his normal high-action orientation into fear-based paralysis, unsure what he was doing wrong
- Was applying to every role online, convinced the resume was the problem — when it wasn’t
- His wife was pushing back against the direction that actually excited him, adding pressure from every angle
The Question That Broke the Pattern
Before working with Dylan, Jacob had already tried the standard job search help. He’d paid sixty to a hundred dollars for a resume review. The verdict: “Oh, this is fine. This should work great.” It didn’t.
“I’m going to be frank — this has been much better than I expected. I had such a sour taste after doing the resume help. You are not an idiot. And not only are you not an idiot — I feel like you are giving me information that I should know, but I don’t.”
— Jacob P., Financial Advisor
When Jacob and I started working together, the first thing we did wasn’t the resume.
It was targeting. Not targeting in the “narrow your job titles to three and only apply to those” sense. Targeting in the “what do you actually want, separate from what your family wants, separate from what sounds reasonable on paper?” sense.
That’s where everything broke open.
There was a role Jacob was excited about — a commission-only financial advisor position — that his wife hated. His friends thought it was a mistake. The income risk was real, and people weren’t shy about saying so. His instinct was to talk himself out of it.
We kept coming back to the question: Is this what you want? Not what’s safe. Not what other people will approve of. What do you want?
“The targeting we did that was so helpful was you being like, hey man, you have to listen to yourself,” Jacob said. “Because my wife was very anti this job. And I think us kind of having those conversations allowed me to be like, no, this is it. This is the one I want. This is everything I want.”
“I trusted you in the sense of, like, hey, we’re in this together. My wife, my friends, my mom — they want to help, but they have other motivating factors, whereas you don’t. Your motivation is, hey, I want to help you get what you want, and I want to help you want what is best for you.”
— Jacob P., Financial Advisor
What Changed
- Targeting clarity: Identified what Jacob actually wanted — not what looked safest or what others approved of — and built the confidence to act on it despite family opposition
- Networking strategy: Shifted from blasting applications online to going deeper into his network than he’d ever gone — reaching friend-of-a-friend connections he’d never have considered
- Accountability with no agenda: Consistent support from someone who wasn’t invested in which job he picked — just invested in him figuring out the right one
The Job That Found Him
Jacob never submitted a resume for the role he accepted.
He found it through a connection that most people would have considered too distant to reach: a friend from high school basketball, and that friend’s father. Someone he hadn’t spoken to often. Someone who knew Jacob was a good person and wanted to help.
“It’s a very random connection,” Jacob said. “I do not speak to this man very often. But like, you know, we’ve talked, he knows I’m a good person, he wants to help. And so it was able to kind of go to the next level of my network, as opposed to just calling the people that I talk to on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.”
That’s the shift. Not the resume. Not the applications. The willingness to go deeper, reach further, and commit to doing whatever it takes — once he was clear on what “it” was.
Are you making effort and getting nothing back? Let’s figure out why — and fix it.
Book a Free Clarity Call →What Life Looks Like Now
Jacob accepted an offer as a financial advisor. It’s 100% commission, and a lot of people in his life think he’s making a mistake. He doesn’t care.
“I think there’s a level of like completeness that I’ve not had before. Like, honestly, my expectation is that this is the last job I’m ever going to take. And it’s like, that is not something I’ve ever said before.”
The career clarity didn’t just fix the job. It unlocked everything else.
He’s studying again — CFA Level III, with a motivation he didn’t have before. He’s working out consistently and losing weight he’d been stuck at for months. He stopped using video games as an escape. His wife, who initially pushed back hard, is coming around as she watches his enthusiasm hold steady week after week.
“I am the most motivated I’ve been in a really long time,” he said.
Financial advisor offer accepted — found through networking, not a single resume submitted
“The most motivated I’ve been in a really long time” — CFA studies resumed
Lost 10+ pounds, working out consistently, stopped using video games as escape
“My expectation is that this is the last job I’m ever going to take” — first time he’s said that
Where He Landed
- Accepted an offer as a financial advisor — a role he genuinely loves — with no resume submitted
- Reconnected with his CFA Level III studies with motivation he couldn’t manufacture before
- Lost weight, working out consistently, stopped the escapism that comes with being stuck
- Wife is “coming on board” — sustained enthusiasm told her more than any argument could
- Described his life as “really good” — a level of completeness he’s never felt about a career choice before
“You are on my team. I can tell you whatever I want. You do not care. I could be like, hey, man, I want to go set up a hot dog stand in downtown Austin. And you’d be like, great, let’s figure out how to do it.”
— Jacob P., Financial Advisor
What This Actually Takes
Jacob’s story isn’t about finding a magic job board or writing the perfect LinkedIn headline. It’s about something harder and more important: getting clear on what you actually want, finding the nerve to pursue it even when the people around you think it’s a mistake, and reaching into parts of your network you’d never have thought to reach into on your own.
The resume work we did together helped. The compensation conversations helped. But Jacob will tell you himself — the job didn’t come from any of that. It came from going deeper.
That’s what happens when you stop searching from fear and start moving from clarity.
Is This Your Story Too?
If you’re doing everything right and still getting nothing back — the problem probably isn’t what you think it is. A free Clarity Call is where we figure out what’s actually going on and what to do about it.
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