A few months ago, I worked with a CTO who, on paper, should have been drowning in opportunities.
He had led a team of 20 engineers.
Owned releases end to end.
Worked closely with product.
Delivered roadmap after roadmap.
Solid experience. Real responsibility. No fluff.
And yet… nothing.
No inbound messages from headhunters.
No meaningful replies when he applied.
A lot of silence where interest should have been.
If you’ve ever stared at your LinkedIn inbox wondering how this makes sense, you’re not alone.
This is one of the most common patterns I see with senior technology leaders.
The issue is almost never lack of experience.
It’s lack of clarity.
Specifically: a missing personal USP.
Experience Is Not a Positioning Strategy
When I first asked him, “What’s your superpower as a CTO?” he froze.
Not because he wasn’t good.
But because no one had ever forced him to articulate it.
He started listing responsibilities instead:
Managed the team
Owned delivery
Worked with stakeholders
Improved processes
All true. All useless for positioning.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Every decent CTO does these things.
LinkedIn doesn’t reward “solid generalist.”
Neither do headhunters scanning profiles at speed.
If your profile could describe 10,000 other people, it describes no one.
The One-Hour Conversation That Changed Everything
So we slowed down.
We looked at patterns, not titles.
What kinds of companies had he worked in?
At what stage did he usually join?
What problems kept showing up again and again?
Where did he consistently create outsized impact?
That’s when it clicked.
He wasn’t “just” a CTO.
He was a startup CTO prototype.
The kind who:
Builds MVPs from scratch
Navigates early product chaos
Drives teams toward Product-Market Fit
Knows how to scale just enough—without overengineering
Once we named it, everything else followed naturally.
This wasn’t reinvention.
It was recognition.
Rebranding Isn’t Cosmetic. It’s Strategic.
We didn’t add buzzwords for fun.
We aligned his profile with how the market actually searches and evaluates.
That meant:
Using language like MVP, PMF, early-stage scaling
Framing his experience around outcomes, not tasks
Optimizing his headline and summary for LinkedIn search
Making it obvious, in seconds, what kind of CTO he is
The goal wasn’t to impress everyone.
It was to repel the wrong opportunities and attract the right ones.
That’s real branding.
The Two Ways CTOs Get Job Offers on LinkedIn
Here’s where most senior leaders get it wrong.
They focus on one lever, not both.
In reality, there are only two reliable ways a CTO gets job offers on LinkedIn.
1. Search-driven inbound
Headhunters and internal recruiters search LinkedIn using very specific keywords.
If your profile doesn’t match how they search, you don’t exist.
Not because you’re unqualified.
Because you’re INVISIBLE.
Search optimization is about:
Clear positioning
The right keywords
Signal density, not word count
2. Network-driven visibility
Decision-makers don’t post every role.
Often, they notice people long before they need them.
They remember:
Who posts sharp insights
Who shows up in their feed
Who feels relevant to their world
This is not “spray and pray networking.”
It’s intentional, selective visibility.
Different lever. Same goal.
Why You Need Both Branding and Networking
Personal branding without networking is PASSIVE.
Networking without branding is NOISY.
When both work together, something interesting happens:
Recruiters find you and understand you
Founders recognize you when a need appears
Conversations start without applications
This is how senior roles actually get filled.
Not through job boards.
Not through endless CV tweaks.
Through clarity plus presence.
The Real Cost of an Unclear USP
The CTO I mentioned earlier wasn’t failing.
He was leaking opportunity.
Every week his profile stayed generic:
The wrong people ignored him
The right people never found him
His experience kept being undervalued
Once his positioning snapped into focus, the market had something to react to.
That’s the difference.
If You’re Planning a Career Move
If you’re a manager or senior tech leader thinking about your next role, ask yourself one honest question:
Can someone understand your superpower in 10 seconds? If the answer is no, LinkedIn will quietly punish you.
That’s exactly what we help with at CareerCrackers.
We work with experienced leaders who don’t need “more experience,” but better positioning, sharper messaging, and a network that actually works for them.
If you’re planning a career change and want to maximize opportunities (not just applications!), launch your career rebranding and networking campaign.
We’ll figure out your real USP, and how to make the market see it.