Frequently Asked Questions

Active Career Representation is more than just finding your next job; it's a commitment to your long-term career growth. We'll help you secure your next role by acting as your execution arm.

Specifically, your program includes:

• Resume & LinkedIn Optimization: Tailored for Authority Positioning.
• Dedicated Email & Inbox Monitoring: We provision and watch a dedicated email for you daily.
• High-Volume Application Execution: 50+ applications per week, fully prepared and queued by us — a quick one-tap approval is all it takes on your end. Volume can flex higher depending on your target market, role availability, and tier.
• Managed Proxy Networking: Acting as your authorized representative, we perform direct outreach to hiring decision-makers on your behalf — and we identify ourselves as your representation, not as you.

50-80% of clients reach a final-round interview within the first one to three months — that rate climbs to 95% for clients who stay engaged over a full 6-month period. That's a final-round interview rate, not a placement guarantee: it measures whether our outreach and positioning get you deep into a real process with decision-makers, which is the part we directly control.

Our approach works because we don't just "apply." Acting as your authorized representative — and identifying ourselves as such — we use Managed Proxy Networking to bypass the black hole of ATS systems and reach decision-makers directly on your behalf.

We work in 30-day execution cycles:

• Week 1: Authority Positioning (Resume + LinkedIn overhaul).
• Week 2+: Execution Engine activates. We prepare and queue 50+ applications/week (100+ for Executive). Where a platform's terms allow submission by an authorized representative, we handle it as your rep; where a platform requires the applicant to submit personally, you review and hit submit on your own account — either way, every attestation and EEOC disclosure is completed by you, not us.
• Ongoing: We monitor your dedicated inbox in real time for interview requests and handle networking follow-ups.
• Interviews: Once you land interviews, we provide prep and negotiation support.

Yes, and we provide it for you.

For ALL plans, we set up a dedicated job search email that both you and our team have real-time access to. This is critical for two reasons: it keeps your personal inbox clean, and it means no interview request or recruiter message is ever missed by either of us — you can check it yourself any time, and we're watching it too. We act as your eyes and ears, not a wall between you and your own inbox.

To be clear: this doesn't extend to legally protected disclosures. Self-identification and veteran status questions (EEOC/VEVRAA) are voluntary and personal to you, so we never pre-fill or complete those fields — not partially, not as a default you approve. You answer that section yourself, every time.

Yes. Once we secure you interviews, you'll work with our placement team or strategist. These sessions are tailored to the exact types of roles we are placing you in, helping you refine your answers and boost your confidence.

We operate on a strictly flat-fee model for all tiers. There is NO success fee or backend percentage taken from your salary. You simply pay the flat fee to cover your execution pod's infrastructure and labor, and you keep 100% of your signing bonus.

We start optimizing your profile in Week 1. By Week 2, we start reaching out to hiring managers. Most clients start seeing interview opportunities within 2-3 weeks of the campaign launching. The typical timeframe to secure a job offer averages between 1 to 3 months, though executive roles may take longer.

Guarantees: Let's be upfront: we guarantee execution, not employment. We guarantee we will do the work — 50+ applications per week (100+ for Executive), plus direct outreach to decision-makers. We guarantee your resume and LinkedIn get rebuilt for authority. We guarantee we'll monitor your inbox daily so you never miss a recruiter. But we can't guarantee a job offer or how many interviews it generates — that's up to employers. What we can guarantee is that you won't waste 80 hours a month fighting algorithms alone, and that you'll have a team in your corner doing the work you'd rather not do.

Cancellations: Our service is month-to-month. You can pause or cancel at any time by emailing support. Refunds are available on a sliding scale only within the first 30 days of service.

We focus on high-paying roles ($100k+) across:

• Tech & Engineering: AI, Cyber, Cloud, Software, Product.
• Business & Finance: Sales, Ops, Accounting, Management.
• Healthcare: Admin, Nursing, specialized roles.
• Professional Services: Legal, HR, Marketing.

The Active Hunter is our main service, available only to candidates based in the United States. To qualify, you must have an active LinkedIn account and a completed SBM Profile.

It's $99/month, billed monthly for as long as you're active. This covers your onboarding, ATS resume alignment, and your ongoing execution pod, including a dedicated Account Manager. It also covers networking on your behalf: send us roles you've already applied to yourself, and we'll reach out to up to five hiring managers or recruiters at those companies. If our team determines your profile is unplaceable in the current market, or if you fail to engage with our process, we will cancel your representation and refund your most recent payment in full to cut our losses.

Absolutely. We are your continuous career partner. Once you are placed, you can transition to our "Career Insurance" plan or simply pause and reactivate us when you are ready for your next move.

Pricing is dynamic for new clients, but once you subscribe, your rate is locked in as long as you remain active. If you pause, you can resume at your original rate.

We work with a diverse range of multinational clients across tech, pharma, and finance. Our Executive tier specifically targets confidential transitions and high-level opportunities for professionals with $200K+ target salaries.

Every client gets a dedicated email for us to manage. Executive Search clients also receive a Custom Domain (e.g., you@yourname.com) which boosts authority and deliverability when we contact executives on your behalf.

If we haven't secured a role, we reassess the strategy (roles, industry, resume). You can always transition between tiers, or simply cancel if you feel we aren't a fit. You only pay for the representation you received.

We use a dedicated Slack Channel for all communication. This gives you direct, asynchronous access to your Execution Rep and Strategist, with your Account Manager as your main point of contact, without the need for constant Zoom calls. You also have 24/7 access to your Live Execution Dashboard (Google Sheet) to see exactly what we are doing.

First, you create a free profile and upload your current resume. Second, you place your flat fee checkout. Immediately after your payment is processed, you will be prompted to schedule a quick kickoff call with a member of our Opportunity Sourcing Team.

During this call, their strategic insights will help map out your ATS resume rewrite, your LinkedIn profile revamp, and our networking execution strategy. This ensures our agents are perfectly aligned with your target roles before we start sending applications.

Cost: $20 one-time onboarding. This covers vetting, profile setup, and access to our project pipeline.

How we earn: We take a 10-15% success fee only when you secure a project through our network. You only pay when you win work.

What you get:

• Access to enterprise consulting projects
• Client onboarding, contracting, and invoicing handled by us
• Network of former Big 4 and FAANG experts
• Cross-referral opportunities
• Partner community access (Slack, events, thought leadership)
• Choose your engagements (remote, hybrid, or on-site)

Commitment: None. Choose the projects that fit your expertise and availability. Pause or leave anytime.

Who qualifies: Independent consultants and boutique firms with 5+ years in cybersecurity, IT auditing, AI/ML, software or cloud engineering, data, or related tech fields.

Most candidates are qualified for more than one job title — you may have worn several hats across your career and could realistically apply under two, three, or more related titles. Rather than writing a brand-new resume for every individual posting, we group your target roles into "buckets": clusters of similar titles you're equally competitive for.

We then build one high-performing resume and outreach angle per bucket. You get most of the benefit of true 1:1 tailoring, without the time cost of writing a unique resume for every single posting — which is what lets us apply at volume without the quality dropping off.

Right now, we exclusively work with candidates based in the United States. If you're located outside the US, we're not a fit for your search at this time.

Absolutely. Request a call back and we'll walk you through which plan fits your search.

Yes. Creating your SBM profile and completing checkout is how you request access — it isn't automatic acceptance. Our Opportunity Sourcing Team personally reviews every application before your execution pod starts, typically within 24 hours on business days. This review happens immediately after checkout, before any applications go out on your behalf.

If we determine we're not the right fit for your search, that's not the end of it — we'll give you honest feedback on your search and pass your resume along to our network, and you get a 100% refund. This is separate from our standard cancellation policy (Q8), which covers pausing or ending an active engagement later; this one covers whether we take you on in the first place.

Most job seekers only see what's posted on a company's careers page or a job board. Sales Navigator lets us map a company's actual org chart — the real hiring managers and team leads in the function you're targeting, not just whoever posted the listing.

That does two things: it surfaces internal openings and unlisted roles that never get publicly posted (a huge share of hiring happens this way, especially for senior roles), and it tells us exactly who to reach out to, so your outreach lands with a decision-maker instead of disappearing into an ATS inbox.

It also powers our networking service. For roles you've already applied to on your own, send them to us and we'll find and contact up to five hiring managers or recruiters at that company, starting with people who share your school, a past employer, or military service.

Yes. Global Access is our sister company, and part of our account coordination team is based in Tokyo, so some outreach and follow-up comes from a @globalaccessjapan.com address rather than a SkillBasedMatching one. You're still working directly with SkillBasedMatching / Career Representation™ — it's the same team, just a different inbox.

Most reverse recruiting agencies charge $2,000–$15,000+ because they're built around a percentage of your salary or a heavy one-on-one service model for every single client. We built Career Representation around a repeatable system instead — job bucket targeting, so we group your target roles into clusters and build one strong resume per cluster instead of starting from scratch, a distributed execution team including account coordination based in Tokyo, and a Live Execution Dashboard instead of status-update calls. That's what lets us charge a flat $99/month with no percentage of your salary and no success fee.

You stay in control of who hears from us. You can block any company or person, and we won't contact them. We also never message your first-degree LinkedIn connections, so the people you already know aren't surprised by outreach.

For quality, applications are screen-recorded so we can check what was submitted on your behalf. We aim to apply within an hour of a role being posted, when possible, because early applications get seen more often.