A few people sent me a LinkedIn post this week (below), which told me two things: that it clearly struck a nerve, and that you all knew I was going to have thoughts about it.

You were right. I do. And I want to preface this by saying that what follows comes entirely from a place of love for this profession and for the people in it, because I have dedicated my career to it and I am genuinely rooting for every single person who is reading this! But I would not be doing my job if I just nodded along, so consider this a gentle but honest reframe from someone who has seen both sides of this conversation more times than she can count.

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There was a post making the rounds on LinkedIn this week that got a very large number of EAs and admins extremely fired up, and honestly, fair. Companies are slapping "Senior" on job titles without the compensation to back it up, the ranges are offensive, and recruiters are sometimes genuinely out of touch. Nearly a thousand reactions and 88 comments later, the EA community had a lot of feelings about it, which, same.

I read all 88 comments. Every single one. And I want to be careful here because a lot of those people are speaking from real exhaustion and real experience and I am not here to minimize that. The job search is f*cking brutal. However, I must say this as someone who genuinely cares about this profession (seeing as how I’ve dedicated my entire career to it as well): it was a lot. A really impressive, sustained, deeply committed amount of venting.

But here is the thing nobody seemed to be thinking about: if you are actively on the market right now, hiring teams are looking at your LinkedIn activity. That is just how this works. And a public comment where you are visibly frustrated with the very people who are hiring for the exact kind of role you are trying to land is, to put it kindly, not the move. People talk, and the recruiter you just commiserated against on a viral post might be the one reviewing your resume next week. The discretion that makes a great EA or chief of staff genuinely exceptional applies to your job search too.

I also grew up recruiting in other industries and I promise you that software engineers/ operations managers/ scientists/ finance people are not on LinkedIn right now posting about what the market thinks they are worth. And before anyone replies to this saying that those fields are different or that EAs have a uniquely difficult time with lowball salary ranges, I would just gently push back on that. Companies are broadly, consistently, almost impressively out of touch with market salaries across every title and every function. This is not a phenomenon unique to the EA profession. The difference is that the candidates who command higher salaries have decided, collectively and without much discussion, that the posted range is just the opening bid, and they show up accordingly.

Because here is what I know from sitting on the other side of this: I can count on one hand the number of times a client has not raised their budget significantly for the right candidate. Someone comes to me with a $70-80k range and more often than not we are closing at $125k or more, because the right person walked in and made the original number very hard to defend. Budgets are not sacred. They are a starting point that somebody typed into a spreadsheet, probably a while ago, probably without much context about what the hire actually needed to look like. That is the whole game.

The frustration is valid. The experience of being underbid is real. But it is not unique to you, and I think it actually matters to name that because it means the solution is not unique to you either. It is just a skill, and it is a very learnable one. So let’s talk about that instead.

The actual problem

Most EAs are positioning themselves as support functions. And the market prices support functions like support functions.

Here is what I mean in actual practice.

The version that gets you the posted range: "I've spent six years supporting C-suite executives. Complex calendars, international travel, board prep, stakeholder communications. I'm very organized and comfortable in fast-paced environments." All true. None of it tells the company what actually changes when you walk through their door.

The version that makes them go back to get a new budget approved: "I've been researching where the company is right now and it looks like you're about eight months into a significant scaling period on the west coast. In my last role I came into a similar moment and noticed the executive team was hemorrhaging time and budget across about fourteen different vendor relationships that nobody had audited in two years. I consolidated them down to six, renegotiated three of the contracts, and freed up something like $200k that got redirected into the actual expansion. I'd love to understand where the biggest operational drag on your executive's time is right now, because that's usually where I start."

Same job, but entirely different conversation!!

And while we are here I need to say something that has been living rent free in my head for a while because I hear it constantly and it is costing people.

Stop being so aggressively humble about your skill set in interviews. I mean it. I had someone tell me they did not have experience with Notion because their last company used Asana. These are project management tools. They have the same bones. If you have lived inside one of them for three years you can figure out the other one by end of day on your first week, and everyone in that interview room knows it. Lead with what you have and draw the line to what they are asking about. That is not stretching the truth, that is just not unnecessarily talking yourself out of a job.

The broader point is that when someone asks you about a skill or a tool or a type of experience you are not completely sure you have, the answer is almost never "I don't really have experience with that." The answer is to draw on the closest, most relevant thing you do have and bridge from there. You are not lying. You are not overstating. You are doing the thing that is the entire point of an interview, which is presenting yourself in the most capable and confident light possible and figuring out the rest as you go.

This profession already fights an uphill battle against being underestimated. Do not walk into an interview and do it to yourself.

The research that helps you win the interview is what actually gets you in the door in the first place

This research is not just useful once you are sitting across from someone. It is how the best candidates are getting in the door before a role is even posted, before they are one of two hundred applications nobody is excited to sort through.

If you are a founder and someone reaches out telling you clearly and specifically that they understand what you are building and where you are probably feeling the friction, that is a very different experience than a generic "I'd love to be considered for any EA opportunities you may have." One gets ignored. The other gets a response, sometimes even without an open role, because now you are in their head.

Apollo.io will surface direct emails for founders and senior leaders at companies you are targeting for free. LinkedIn offers a free trial of premium so you can send InMails.

A cold message to an executive done well: "Hi [Name], I've been following [Company] and am really interested in what you're building, particularly the West Coast expansion. I'm a senior EA who has supported founders through exactly these kinds of scaling moments and I have specific ideas about how I could help. I know you may not be hiring an EA at this moment, but I'd love fifteen minutes if you're open to it."

So where does that leave us

The frustration in that LinkedIn post is real, and I am not dismissing it. There are absolutely companies out there undervaluing this role and posting ranges that make no sense for the scope of work being described.

But 88 comments of people agreeing with each other has not historically moved any needles. What moves things is showing up already knowing more about the business than they expected with real concrete ideas about how to make an impact and carrying yourself like someone who knows what their expertise is worth and is not nervous about saying so.

The market is not just happening to you. You have more leverage in it than that comment section was giving you credit for.

Stuck in your job search? Not sure how to handle a tricky interview question or navigate the hiring process? Submit your question anonymously, and I’ll answer it in an upcoming newsletter.

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