The deal is that she loves customer-facing projects and, in her current job search, wants to focus her conversations in this direction.

I have another client who was recently promoted and is taking on a new product line that gives her wider scope and scale of projects plus a team of 100+ people across a number of time zones. She wants to bring the success that got her this promotion forward and make the connections to what she is doing now.

One of the hardest parts of changing industries, stepping into a bigger role, or suddenly finding yourself in regular conversations with the C-suite isn’t the work itself.

It’s explaining why you belong there … to recruiters, to leaders, your new team, and even, to yourself.

Most women I work with don’t lack experience. They lack a framework for telling their story in a way that makes sense to other people without diminishing themselves.

They look at their experience and think:

• “It doesn’t line up cleanly.”
• “I’ve done a lot, but it’s all over the place.”
• “I don’t know how to connect the dots.”

That’s where the idea of the Career Throughline comes in.

What a Career Throughline Really Is

A Career Throughline is the consistent value you create, regardless of:

• Industry
• Job title
• Company
• Scope

Your Career Throughline is how you frame (reframe) your career patterns and stories.

When someone understands your Career Throughline, they stop asking:

“Have you done this exact job before?”

And start thinking:

“This person knows how to operate in environments like ours.”

Why Linear Stories Are a Trap (Especially for Women)

Most hiring and promotion systems still reward linear narratives:

• Same industry
• Predictable titles
• Neat progression

But most career paths, especially for women, rarely work that way.

Women move:

• From execution to influence
• From one domain to another
• From “behind the scenes” to visible leadership
• From work to home and back again

And they need a way to talk about their careers powerfully and unapologetically!

When you don’t name your Career Throughline, other people fill in the gaps, often incorrectly.

4 Ways To Reframe and Optimize Your Career Throughline

Reframe #1: The “Job under the Job” Career Thinking

(From “I don’t have the right background” to “I understand the system this role operates in.”)

I often hear: “I’ve never worked in this industry, so I must not be qualified.”

This reframe asks a better question:

What does this role actually require at its core?

Strip away the jargon and look for fundamentals:

• Decision-making in ambiguity
• Navigating complex stakeholders
• Translating between technical and business teams
• Managing risk, scale, or change

When women do this, something clicks:

“Oh, I’ve been doing this for years. Just in a different context.”

Your Career Throughline goes below the surface.

Reframe 2: The Role Is the Map. Your Work Is the Territory.

(From “It’s not officially my job” to “This is where I create real impact.”)

Job descriptions are aspirational.

Org charts are political.

Titles are inconsistent.

The real work happens in the gaps.

Many women undersell themselves because they focus on the role as the map and find what’s lacking:

• “I’m not senior enough yet.”
• “I don’t officially own that.”
• “That’s not in my job description.”

We need to look at your career territory through a different lens by asking:

• Where did I influence decisions?
• How did I connect teams?
• When did I see around corners?
• How did I prevent problems before they escalated?

Your Career Throughline is built from the work you did in your territory not boxed in by a title or role.

Reframe #3: Big Picture Career Thinking

(From “Can I handle this?” to “Here’s how I operate at this level.”)

Limited career thinking sounds like:

• “I’m in a new role.”
• “The scope is much bigger.”
• “I suddenly have more visibility.”

Big Picture Career Thinking reframes that to:

• “What patterns from my past prepared me for this level of scope?”
• “What decisions, tradeoffs, and systems am I now responsible for?”
• “How do I want leaders to understand the value I bring at this altitude?”

This reframe is especially important for women who are described as:

“trusted,” “reliable,” and “the fixer.”

Without a clear Career Throughline, expanded scope often turns into invisible labor and a reputation of “she can handle anything” (which, we know, usually means everything).

Reframe #4: Inversion Thinking: Why This Actually Makes You a Fit

(From “I need to prove myself” to “This role needs what I have to offer.”)

Instead of asking:

“How do I prove I’m qualified?”

Ask:

“What would someone clearly unqualified struggle with here?”

They would:

• Miss system-level risks
• Fail to align stakeholders
• Struggle to translate across functions
• Optimize locally instead of globally

When women run this exercise, they usually realize:

“That’s literally what I’m good at.”

That’s not imposter syndrome.

That’s unclaimed pattern recognition.

How to Find Your Career Throughline

Here’s a simple exercise to claim your Career Throughline:

1. Look at your last 3–5 roles.

2. Ignore titles and tools.

3. Ask:

• What problems was I consistently pulled into?
• Where did people rely on my judgment?
• What kind of mess did I know how to clean up?

Now say it in one sentence:

“Across roles, I’m the person who _____.” OR

“I am known for _____.”

That Career Throughline reframe becomes the backbone for:

• Interviews
• Executive conversations
• Career pivots
• Confidence in bigger rooms

Remember:

Career growth isn’t about reinventing yourself. It’s about recognizing the patterns in your careers and learning how to articulate and connect them clearly.

When you can name your Career Throughline, you have drawn a picture that others can clearly see and align around. You at the center in your power!