Salty Dog Talent Talks

  🌊 Salty Truth Friday Networking Isn’t Begging. It’s Building Relevance. By Christine Sharma Founder, Salty Dog Talent Consulting Somewhere along the way, networking got rebranded as: “Cold messaging strangers asking for favors.” No wonder people hate it. No wonder it feels awkward. No wonder it feels desperate. But here’s the truth: Networking isn’t begging. It’s positioning. And when done well, it doesn’t feel transactional at all. 🧠 Why Networking Feels Gross Most people approach networking with one goal: “I need something.” A job. A referral. An introduction. An opportunity. That energy shifts the entire dynamic. When your first move is: “Hi, I saw you work at X. Can you refer me?” You’ve skipped the relationship part entirely. And humans are wired to respond to relevance — not requests. 📊 How Hiring Actually Works Let me pull back the curtain a bit. When hiring managers receive a referral, they’re not thinking: “Oh good, someone asked.” They’re thinking: Does this person a...

  🌊 Salty Career Moves – Part 2 Your Resume Is Not a Biography. It’s a Business Case. By Christine Sharma Founder, Salty Dog Talent Consulting Most resumes fail for one simple reason: They read like a life story. A hiring manager is not looking for your autobiography. They’re looking for evidence. And if your resume feels like a chronological diary of everything you’ve ever done, you’re making them work too hard to figure out whether you’re valuable. Hiring teams don’t have time for that. 📚 The Biography Problem A biography says: Here’s where I worked. Here’s what I was responsible for. Here are my tasks. Here is my career timeline. It focuses on activity. But hiring decisions are not made on activity. They’re made on impact. 📊 A Business Case Looks Different A business case answers three questions: What problem did you solve? What did you actually do? What changed because of it? That’s it. When I’ve worked with hiring teams and reviewed thousands of resumes through applicant...