Blog Author
Salama Belghali is the founder of the AI Career Accelerator. She helps high-impact leaders and senior professionals navigate the shift from corporate roles to independent authority using AI leverage.
If you have been looking for a senior role for six, twelve, or even eighteen months, I want to start with a very clear message:
It is not you. It is the market.
Recently, I had the privilege of addressing the Swiss Association of MBAs (SwissMBAs). We created a "safe space" to discuss the elephant in the room: The "Perfect Storm" currently hitting the Swiss job market.
We are seeing a convergence of factors, from the UBS/CS consolidation prioritizing a $13 billion cost-saving target, to Pharma giants moving high-value roles out of Switzerland, to the defensive posture of exporters facing new tariffs.
The result? The "container" of the traditional corporate job is shrinking.
If you are hearing silence from headhunters or being told you are "overqualified" (code for: "we don't want to pay for your experience"), you aren't unemployable. You are simply trying to fit a 2025 skill set into a market structure that is disappearing.
Whether you are happily employed but worried, or you’ve been out of a role for a year, the solution isn't to polish your CV. The solution is to make the shift from Employee to Intrapreneur or even Entrepreneur.
Here is the 3-step blueprint we discussed during the session to help you package your authority and take control of your revenue.
The Identity Trap: Are You "Giving Up" or "Growing Up"?
Before we talk tactics, we have to talk about the "Identity Trap."
I recently spoke with a senior executive, let’s call him David. He’s a superstar CMO who managed billion-dollar assets. But after 14 months of job hunting, he was on the verge of tears.
He told me: "Salama, the idea of becoming an independent expert feels like admitting defeat. It feels like giving up."
This is the roadblock keeping so many brilliant professionals poor. They believe that if they aren't "Senior VP at [Big Brand]," they are nothing.
Here is the reframe: The "safe" option of waiting for a job is now the risky option. Becoming an independent expert isn't giving up. It’s growing up. It’s realizing that the only true security left is the asset you build, own, and control yourself.
The 3-Point Blueprint to Rebuild Your Income
So, how do you make this shift without becoming a "hustler" or a "salesperson"? You follow this framework.
1. Build a Speedboat, Not a Battleship (The Offer)
In corporate, you built battleships, massive projects with huge teams and 18-month timelines. Now, you are trying to sell a battleship to clients, and they are overwhelmed.
You need a Speedboat. You need to package your 20 years of experience into a single, high-value advisory offer that solves one urgent, expensive problem.
-Case Study: My client Bijan, the former spokesperson for Kofi Annan, was stuck looking for a generic communications role in a shattered NGO market.
- The Shift: We niched down. We packaged his crisis management skills into a specific advisory offer.
- The Result: He secured over $10k in contracts in his first two months, not by begging for a job, but by selling a specific solution.
2. Stop Networking, Start Signaling (The Market)
Most senior professionals think networking means having coffee and hoping someone "picks your brain" and then offers you a job. That usually leads to free consulting and frustration.
Stop chasing. Start Signaling. When you use your content to diagnose your target’s pain points better than they can, you don't have to sell. They see you as the authority.
- Case Study: Joop, a 30-year C-level executive, felt "outdated" and hated the idea of selling himself.
- The Shift: He stopped acting like an applicant. He started publishing insights that diagnosed the specific headaches of his target market.
- The Result: He realized he was the product. He started winning deals on his own terms because he signaled expertise rather than asking for a job.
3. Use AI Leverage (The System)
This is the biggest mental block: "I’m an executive, not a techie. I can't build a business alone."
The truth is, you don't need a staff. You need AI Leverage. You are the Architect; AI is your Builder.
- Case Study: Sara, a strategist with a vision for a FinTech platform but zero coding skills. She was drowning in theory.
- The Shift: We used AI to build her MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in a matter of hours, not months.
- The Result: She validated her business idea immediately without hiring a CTO or spending a fortune.
The Cost of Inaction
We ended the session with one question: What if nothing changes?
If we meet again in one year, and the market is still tight, and your severance is gone... what is the cost of that inaction?
You are not overqualified. You are just under-packaged.
If you want the exact framework I used to guide David, Bijan, Joop, and Sara, I have made my Forced Transition Blueprint available for download.
It breaks down:
- How to find your "Speedboat" offer so you can stop building battleships that don't sell.
- The "Authority Signal" method so you can attract clients instead of chasing coffee chats.
- How to use AI as your "Digital Team" so you never get stuck in admin work.
Stop waiting for a permission slip from a headhunter. Start building your own asset today.
