Leland+ for Career Coaching

Interview Insider: Decode the Hiring Manager

You landed the interview—now, how do you secure the offer? Most candidates focus on what to say, but successful professionals focus on how to think like the person doing the hiring. Join this free, dynamic workshop to gain the ultimate edge in any interview setting. Leveraging my experience as a former Finance Recruiter and Sourcer, I'll reveal the simple, repeatable strategies you need to master behavioral questions and confidently approach the final salary negotiation. This workshop is essential for you if: - You struggle to talk about your weaknesses or past failures. - You freeze up when asked tough, unpredictable behavioral questions. - You don't know your market value and feel anxious about negotiating salary. What you'll get out of this event: - The STAR Method Masterclass: Learn the clear, reliable framework for telling compelling stories that answer any behavioral question with precision. - Recruiter Mindset: Gain insider perspective on the real goal behind tricky questions (and how to deliver the answer the hiring manager is actually looking for). - Negotiation Foundations: Get practical, step-by-step guidance on researching your worth and approaching the salary discussion with confidence. Stop guessing what they want to hear and start interviewing like an insider!

Resume Best Practices: Tips to Take Your CV From Meh to Magnifico!

After 15+ years of reviewing more applicant resumes than I care to count as a recruiter/hiring manager/talent leader at McKinsey and Bain, these are the core tips I coach my clients to always consider when crafting their CV.

The Interview Narrative Toolkit

Interviews aren't a memory test. They're a communication test. The Interview Narrative Toolkit gives you a repeatable method for answering behavioral questions in a way that's specific, credible, and actually interesting to listen to. It's built around the CARL framework — not because frameworks are magic, but because most people ramble without one. What's inside: You'll learn how to isolate your actual contribution from the team's work, which is the thing most candidates blur and most interviewers notice. You'll get a breakdown of the phrases that feel safe but quietly tank your signal — the "we wore many hats" answers, the "great learning experience" deflections — and what to say instead interview-narra...it (1).pdf . And you'll walk away with a method you can apply to any story, not just the ones you prepped. The goal isn't a perfect answer. It's a demo-able one. Concrete. Under two minutes. Yours. One story rewritten using this method is enough to see the difference. Most people find they've been underselling themselves for years — not because their work wasn't good, but because they never learned how to make it visible.

Quick Leadership Reset

This exercise helps you identify where your leadership approach may be unintentionally slowing your team’s performance, especially during times of uncertainty.

SWE Recruiting Quick Start

A practical companion to “How Engineers Avoid Burnout During Recruiting Cycles,” this quick start guide helps you turn insights into action—structuring your search, preparing impactful examples, and managing your time and energy throughout the recruiting process.

A Tactical Playbook for Breaking Into VC

VC isn't hired; it's hunted. The "Right" background is a myth. This playbook gives you the exact scripts, artifacts, and networking systems to prove you can do the job before you even have the title. Transition from aspirant to investor in 30 days.

LinkedIn Launchpad: Profile to Profit

Is your LinkedIn profile a forgotten resume or a powerful asset? In today's competitive job market, your professional brand is more crucial than ever. Join us for this free, dynamic workshop to learn the insider strategies for maximizing your visibility. We'll reveal the secrets to transforming your profile from overlooked to outstanding by focusing on the three pillars of success: 1. Discoverability: Master the strategic keywords recruiters search for to ensure your profile ranks high. 2. Impact: Learn how to craft a magnetic headline and an "About" section that turns profile views into opportunities. 3. Networking: Acquire techniques for building a genuine professional network that expands your career reach. Whether you're job searching, looking to advance, or aiming to establish yourself as an industry expert, this workshop will give you the practical, actionable steps you need to leverage LinkedIn to its fullest potential. Elevate your professional presence and open doors to new opportunities!

The $100K H-1B Pathway: Landing Your Role in BigTech

Breaking into Big Tech on an H-1B can feel overwhelming, but the right strategy can dramatically increase your odds. In this session, we’ll break down how candidates successfully land six-figure roles at top tech companies while navigating visa considerations, recruiting timelines, and employer sponsorship realities. You’ll learn how to position your skills for high-impact roles, target companies and teams that regularly sponsor, and avoid common mistakes that limit international candidates’ opportunities. Whether you’re early in your search or actively recruiting, this session will give you a clearer roadmap to securing a Big Tech role that supports long-term career growth in the U.S.

Starting Strong Without Burning Out: Thriving in Your New Role

Starting a new role can feel exciting and overwhelming at the same time. This session explores how to build momentum, navigate expectations, and establish a strong foundation for long-term success, without falling into patterns that lead to burnout. Audience Fit: • Professionals starting new roles, or plan to start a new role in the future • Early career talent, lateral hires, and leaders transitioning into new positions

Land an Interview at Any Tech Company

Land an Interview at Any Tech Company — Free Live Session with Ethan Does this sound like you? You've applied to roles at your dream tech companies. You've spent countless hours sending your résumé into the void of company websites. You've wasted days writing custom cover letters. Only to come up short and never hear anything back — or worse, get the dreaded automated rejection email from a no-reply address. Let me be clear: it's not because you're under-qualified. It's because you're not playing the game. In this free 30-minute session, I'm going to walk you through the exact system I've used to break into top tech companies — including how I entered the DoorDash interview process at the Associate level and walked out with an offer for Senior Manager. No referral required. No luck involved. Just a repeatable process that works. Here's what we'll cover: • The résumé problem nobody talks about: 75% of résumés are rejected before a human ever reads them. I'll show you a live before-and-after demonstration of how to use AI to transform a losing résumé into a résumé that will land on the hiring manager's desk. • The LinkedIn settings that most candidates skip. A handful of profile changes that dramatically increase how often recruiters find you and make your application stand out once you've submitted it. • How to properly go about proactive outreach. I'll give you the exact message template I used to secure interviews at every tech company I've landed an offer at. • A simple bonus strategy that most people would never think to try, guaranteed to get you in the door. At the end of the session, I'll be sharing an exclusive offer for attendees that you won't want to miss out on! This session is for you if: • You're employed but quietly looking for something better • You're actively job searching and not getting any traction • You work in a slow, bureaucratic industry and want to break into tech • You want to understand how the hiring process actually works from the inside

The Unwritten Rules of Getting Promoted

This pdf offers 3 rules of getting promoted that most often get missed when people find themselves stuck in their careers. It also offers some powerful questions you can ask your boss to help you understand what might be going on when you are feeling stuck in your career.

How to Lead the Room with Executive Presence

Executive presence is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in leadership conversations. You've probably heard it. You may have even been told you need more of it. But here's the problem: most people can't tell you what it actually means. It's not charisma. It's not being the loudest person in the room. It's not even being the most polished. Executive presence is the ability to make people feel — in your presence — that things are under control, that someone capable is leading, and that their time and attention is being respected. It's a signal. And like any signal, it can be developed, sharpened, and directed. This guide is built around three pillars that I've seen transform how executives show up: Clarity, Credibility, and Confidence. They're related — and yes, they overlap. But they each do distinct work, and understanding the difference matters.

Home for Ambition #2 — Weekly Live Show [3/25/2026] (Recording)

Home for Ambition is a weekly live show, by Leland, for people trying to stay ahead as work, learning, and opportunity keep changing. Each episode tackles a handful of timely, high-signal topics across AI, careers, education, and the future of work. We expect thoughtful debate, unique perspectives, and practical takeaways you can actually use. It is not a typical interview show or a generic news recap. It is a live roundtable built to help ambitious people make sense of what is changing, understand what matters, and leave with a sharper point of view on how to navigate what comes next.

Home for Ambition #3 — Weekly Live Show [4/1/2026] (Recording)

Home for Ambition is a weekly live show, by Leland, for people trying to stay ahead as work, learning, and opportunity keep changing. Each episode tackles a handful of timely, high-signal topics across AI, careers, education, and the future of work. We expect thoughtful debate, unique perspectives, and practical takeaways you can actually use. It is not a typical interview show or a generic news recap. It is a live roundtable built to help ambitious people make sense of what is changing, understand what matters, and leave with a sharper point of view on how to navigate what comes next.

Big 10 to MBB + Big Tech: Positioning Yourself to Get Offers

This guide was written by a former Bain & Company Associate Consultant, now in a Strategy and Operations role at LinkedIn, who went through the full MBB recruiting process out of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. It covers everything that actually matters when you are trying to break into a top consulting firm or land a Big Tech strategy role from a non-target school. Inside you will find a no-nonsense breakdown of how MBB firms actually differ, what a competitive application looks like, how to build a resume that passes the ten-second scan, and the networking approach that moves the needle versus the one that wastes your time. The guide goes deep on case interview preparation, including the pyramid framework approach and what interviewers are genuinely evaluating in the room, and covers the behavioral and fit interview with the same level of honesty. The final chapter covers what transfers from consulting to Big Tech, how that recruiting process works, and how to negotiate an offer once you have one. This is not generic advice. It is based on having gone through the process recently, having sat on the other side of the table at Bain, and having made the transition to Big Tech firsthand.

Real MBB + Big Tech Resume: Bain AC to LinkedIn Strategy & Operations

This is a real resume from someone who successfully recruited into Bain & Company out of a Big 10 non-target school and subsequently landed a Strategy and Operations role at LinkedIn. It is not a template or a fabricated example. It is the exact resume used to secure these offers, formatted and structured the way MBB recruiters expect to see. Use it to understand how to frame internships and experiences with quantifiable impact, how to structure bullet points that signal analytical ability, how to present a non-linear background in a way that reads as an asset rather than a liability, and what a clean, one-page consulting resume actually looks like in practice. Whether you are preparing your application for MBB firms or targeting Big Tech strategy roles, this resource gives you a concrete, real-world benchmark to pressure test your own resume against.

Experienced Resume Template | Landed Roles at F500 Companies

My most commonly used 2-page resume template for professionals with a wide range of experience. Includes a polished PDF example of a strong resume plus an editable Word version with detailed comments explaining structure, formatting, and content decisions. This resume template is flexible and can be a 1-page resume depending on client goals/preference.

Home for Ambition #4 — Weekly Live Show [4/8/2026] (Recording)

Home for Ambition is a weekly live show, by Leland, for people trying to stay ahead as work, learning, and opportunity keep changing. Each episode tackles a handful of timely, high-signal topics across AI, careers, education, and the future of work. We expect thoughtful debate, unique perspectives, and practical takeaways you can actually use. It is not a typical interview show or a generic news recap. It is a live roundtable built to help ambitious people make sense of what is changing, understand what matters, and leave with a sharper point of view on how to navigate what comes next.

Land your Job or Study in ... Germany

Germany is not just beer, efficiency, and engineering heritage. It is one of the most accessible countries in the world right now for ambitious non-EU graduates and young professionals who want to build something serious. Over 600,000 skilled positions go unfilled every year. The government rewrote its immigration law in 2023 specifically to bring international talent in. Public universities charge close to nothing. Tech companies, global pharma, and the entire renewable energy sector are actively hiring people with your profile. This session cuts through the noise. We cover the study path and the direct job path, side by side: visa options, living costs, language reality, workplace culture, and what a competitive application actually looks like. Two real cases show how people with no German, applying from abroad, made it work. Germany rewards preparation and specificity. This Thursday, we provide both. New episodes in this series cover a different European country every Thursday.

How Korean Professionals Can Break Into Global Careers

Are you a Korean professional looking to break into global careers and make your mark on the international stage? Join me, Caolan, for an insightful session on navigating high-stakes career transitions and unlocking global opportunities. With a rich background in strategic communication and storytelling, I've helped ambitious professionals like you step into leadership roles and land positions at top companies. This session shows Korean professionals exactly how to transition into global roles with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to navigate English interviews, position your experience for international companies, and overcome the cultural barriers that often block career moves abroad. By the end, you’ll know the steps to take, how to present yourself to global employers, and what it really takes to secure your next role in the international market. With experience leading award-winning teams at On, AKQA, and Ogilvy, I bring a unique perspective on crafting compelling personal and professional narratives. During this event, we'll cover essential topics such as interview prep, skill-building, career planning, and more. Whether you're aiming to enhance your leadership skills or refine your strategic communication, this session will provide actionable guidance to turn your potential into results. Space is limited, so RSVP now to secure your spot and start your journey to global career success!