Career pivots rarely fail because someone lacks talent.
They fail because the story never becomes believable.
That difference matters more than most candidates realize.
When experienced professionals attempt a career change, the friction usually appears early. Applications go quiet. Recruiter screens don’t convert. Conversations stall without clear feedback. From the candidate’s perspective, it feels confusing or unfair.
From the hiring side, it feels unresolved.
Hiring decisions are fundamentally about risk. A hiring manager is not asking whether you are capable in general. They are asking whether your background gives them enough confidence to move forward without introducing uncertainty into their team.
This is where the idea of “the story” matters.
The story is the internal logic a hiring manager uses to justify moving you forward. It answers one question clearly:
Does this person’s past make sense for what I need now?
When that logic is incomplete, the decision defaults to caution.
This is also where the Purple Squirrel – that perfect, and fictional ideal candidate quietly exerts influence.
The Purple Squirrel is not a literal expectation. It’s a mental shortcut. When a candidate’s narrative is unclear, the hiring manager subconsciously compares them to an idealized version of the role. Not because they expect perfection, but because the alternative feels uncertain.
In the absence of a strong story, gaps become louder than strengths.
This is why so many capable candidates struggle with pivots. Their experience may be relevant, but relevance is not self-executing. If the employer has to work to reconcile who you’ve been with what they need, the path of least resistance is to keep looking.
What successful career changers do differently is subtle but powerful. They don’t try to match an ideal profile. They replace it.
They give hiring managers a coherent narrative that makes trade-offs feel intentional rather than risky. Their background stops looking like a deviation and starts looking like a practical answer to a real problem.
At that point, the Purple Squirrel disappears from the equation.
The conversation shifts away from “Is this person missing something?” and toward “Can this person deliver what matters?”
That shift is not about selling yourself harder. It’s about making your experience legible to someone who is under pressure to make the right decision.
Career pivots succeed when clarity replaces comparison.
Talent is rarely the issue.
Credibility is built through narrative.
And when the story lands, the decision gets easier.
At KMR Executive Search we coach hiring teams and candidates on how to avoid that Purple Squirrel road block and think outside the box to ensure the right person is landing in the right seat.