Meeting Notes - Details

2026-02-18
10:30-12:00pm | Northeast library - 6801 35th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98115

Attendees & Introductions - who you are, what you were doing, what you’re looking for…  

• 4 attendees: Sharon Lynch Grey, Stuart Olson, Jon Michel Finet, and Kelly Evans

Purpose of the Session

To support marketing and advertising professionals navigating the current job market by sharing experiences, learning from one another, building connections, and identifying practical next steps.

Key Topics Discussed

Job Applications & Hiring Landscape

• High volume of applications reported across the group. We’re often seeing 300+ applicants per role on LinkedIn.

• Many participants are experiencing limited response or ghosting, particularly from smaller companies.

• Some traction reported with larger organizations and roles where referrals or networking were involved.

AI in the Job Search

• Discussion around the growing use of AI for resume tailoring, cover letters, and role-fit analysis. 

• Questions raised about how applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruiters evaluate AI-generated content.

• Debate on whether and how to include AI-related work or examples in portfolios.

  • Stuart has seen people use AI to create marketing dashboards and writing examples, and some of the work is fake but being done to work themselves into the process.

Resumes & LinkedIn Profiles

• Recruiters frequently cross-check resumes against LinkedIn profiles.

• General consensus to keep LinkedIn profiles consistent, clear, and professional.

• Discussion on how much detail to include in role descriptions in LinkedIn.

• Consideration of how titles, tenure, and seniority are interpreted by recruiters.

• Talked about combining jobs in a resume to highlight talent and experience but to reduce years shown.

Seniority, Titles, and Perceived Bias

• Concerns about age or seniority bias, particularly for candidates with 15–20+ years of experience. Not unusual to have more experience than the hiring managers. (

• Discussion around whether Director-level candidates are being filtered out of Manager or Senior Manager roles.

• Exploration of alternative paths, including fractional, contract, or consulting work.

Staffing Agencies & Contract Work

• Kelly has reached out to a few agencies – to see if they’d like to introduce themselves and meet with us: 24 Seven, Aquent, Robert Half, GeekWork.

  • ** Wendy Hellar, from Prime Time Partners and works on projects for GeekWork, is going to join our meeting next week: Feb 25th. **

• Mixed experiences shared; some connections made, limited jobs seen on their sites.

• General hesitation around short-term contract roles versus full-time positions.

• “Fractional” titles people are using that we’re seeing in LinkedIn. Are they contracting (1099 work)? Is it something they’re doing based on lack of jobs, or is it just what they prefer?

Resources Mentioned

• 2 books that have been considered helpful.

  • The 2-Hour Job Search – Steve Dalton

  • The Job Closer – Steve Dalton

• Video from Larry Asher - Job-search strategy and networking tactics. (Watch the whole thing. Link goes 45 min in.)

• The A-Team (Kelly – I think that was described as an agency that can help companies with contractors)

Action Items & Next Steps

• Kelly to explore the possibility of inviting Larry Asher to a future session.

• Group to continue sharing AI tools, portfolio examples, and job-search resources.

• Revisit staffing agencies and contract/fractional work in a future discussion.

• Kelly to share Outsource Marketing:

  • If I got The A-Team right, this is similar and had been shared with me.  

Note: These notes summarize themes and insights from the discussion; individual comments have been paraphrased.