To get a six-figure job, you need to do five things well, in order: prove your impact on your CV, target the right companies, get on the hiring manager's radar before the role is posted, win the interview by showing how you make decisions, and negotiate the offer with questions. Most people only do one of those things, sending applications, and then wonder why nothing happens.
This guide walks you through all five, using the same process my clients have used to get hired and paid more.
In 11 years of executive search, I've sat across the table in more than 10,000 interviews, helped 250+ professionals get hired into six-figure roles, and helped clients earn more than $30M in new salaries.
And the pattern never changes. The people who land six-figure roles aren't always the most qualified. They're the ones who follow a process.
What are the steps to getting a six-figure job?
Everything I know about getting hired and paid more fits into a five-step process I call BUILD.
BUILD is Daniel Langley's five-step process for landing a six-figure job: Brand, Unlock, Influence, Land and Deal.
- B for Brand: how you position yourself on your CV and online.
- U for Unlock: targeting the right companies instead of spraying applications at any job you can find.
- I for Influence: getting on the radar before the role is even posted.
- L for Land: winning the interview.
- D for Deal: negotiating the money and getting the best deal for you.
Each step feeds the next. A strong CV with no targeting still lands in the pile.
Great outreach with a weak CV plants doubt the moment they click through to it. And a brilliant interview with no negotiation leaves serious money on the table.
Want the whole process as a plan you can follow? Get the free BUILD framework here.
How do I make my CV good enough for six-figure roles?
Your CV gets you six-figure interviews when it proves your impact instead of describing your job. Your brand lives or dies on that one document.
I reviewed a CV from a head of operations, let's call her Rachel, who wanted to move up to a director of operations role.
On first view it looked fine. She had a strong career narrative, moving from team leader to ops manager to head of ops. But almost every line read like a job description written in the first person.
"Responsible for overseeing teams and managing the day-to-day running of operational functions."
Her job title already tells me that. It says you were there. It doesn't say you were good.
The same went for "15 years of experience across multiple sectors" (which sectors?) and "I am looking for a new challenge" (obviously, why else would you be sending your CV?).
Here's the thing. When a hiring manager has to guess how good you are, they never guess positively. They flag you as a maybe, or worse, a no.
The fix is the same three moves every time:
- Kill the passive, job-description-esque language, like "responsible for managing operations".
- Cut the adjectives you can't prove, like hardworking, motivated and results-driven.
- Replace them with data: budgets, team sizes, cost savings and results. Proof, not claims.
After the rebuild, Rachel's summary opened like this:
"Operational leader who turns underperforming functions into commercial assets. 15 years scaling ops across warehouse, logistics and customer service, most recently running a £24M function of 140 people and delivering £2.1M in annual savings."
That one sentence now tells the reader her years of experience, where she's led teams, the size of the budget and the size of the team. Add lines like "cut order cycle time by 31%" and "built and promoted a four-strong management team", and it stops reading like a job description and starts reading like a director of operations.
One more thing Rachel had to watch. She'd been in the same role for nearly eight years.
Around five years is enough to get settled and prove your success more than once. Stay much longer and companies start to wonder whether you've got the fire in your belly to be the new kid at school again, so your CV has to show you're still growing.
Does my LinkedIn profile need to match my CV?
Yes. The moment a hiring manager or recruiter is interested in your CV, they check your LinkedIn, and if the two don't match, you've planted doubt. And doubt reads as risk.
The fixes are simple:
- A professional photo. A clean, well-lit headshot in smart clothes against a neutral background. It's your digital handshake.
- A headline that says what you deliver. "Operations leader driving efficiency and cost savings in global supply chains" beats "Operations manager at ABC Corp".
- Standard job titles and keywords. Recruiters search for "finance manager", not "wizard of spreadsheets".
- Results in every role. Not "responsible for managing projects" but "led 12 cross-functional projects delivering $2M in cost savings within 18 months".
- Some activity. If your last post was in 2019, people notice. An inactive profile looks like an inactive professional.
One candidate I worked with never posted or engaged on LinkedIn and wondered why recruiters never reached out. Within two months of commenting weekly and sharing at least one post, he had three interviews.
Which companies should I target for a six-figure job?
You find them by building a Dream 100, a list of companies where your experience is genuinely valuable, and then getting known to them before a role exists.
Most people think more applications mean more chances. So they hit Easy Apply on 30, 40, 50 jobs. But every time you apply like that, you join a queue of hundreds of people with similar experience and similar CVs.
You're no longer being judged on whether you're a strong candidate. You're being judged on whether you're stronger than the other 100 people in the pile, and even if you're great, that's impossible to win consistently.
You don't need more applications. You need less competition.
Most people's job search is like a machine gun, spraying applications everywhere and hoping something hits. At six-figure level, you need to move like a sniper. To build your list, look for:
- Companies in your industry where your experience transfers. Start with the competitors of your current employer and your last two or three. Every company has at least five to 10.
- Companies in adjacent industries where your skills still apply.
- Realistic geographies, or remote if that suits you.
- The size or stage you want: startup, scale-up, enterprise or corporate.
- Companies where you have a personal edge, because you've solved their exact problem before.
For example, if you've led software implementations in manufacturing, you're not only targeting manufacturers. You're targeting engineering firms, consultancies that serve manufacturing, and software companies that deploy into it. You can use AI to turn this into a filtered list in 10 to 15 minutes.
Then pick 10 or 15 and go deep, not wide.
My client JC did exactly this. Instead of applying to 50 companies, he targeted 10 from his Dream 100. Within six weeks, he had conversations open with three of them, and one turned into an offer before the role was even posted.
The free Dream 100 guide has the AI prompts to build your list fast.
What should I say when I message a hiring manager?
Message the person one level above the role you want, and make it sound like value, not a job request. The goal isn't to ask for a job. It's to start a conversation and get on their radar.
Start with who. HR and internal talent teams manage the process, but the hiring manager feels the pain of the empty seat.
One client messaged 25 people at one company, mostly HR and recruiters, and got zero replies. His CV wasn't the problem. His targeting was.
On LinkedIn, go to the company page, click the People tab and search for "Director of", "Head of" or "VP of" in your function.
Then what to say. Keep it to four parts: a personal opener that shows you've done your homework, one sentence on who you are, your value anchored to what they need now, and a soft call to action.
"Hi John, I noticed your team recently expanded into a new region. I've helped similar firms improve forecasting and client delivery models. Would love to connect and exchange perspectives."
Then follow up. Wait five to seven business days, follow up once with something useful, and maybe once more a few weeks later. Three thoughtful touches are plenty, and never send "just checking in".
I worked with a senior project manager who heard nothing for a week after his first message to a VP. Instead of giving up, he shared an article on digital adoption trends with one line: "Thought this might resonate given your focus on operational efficiency." The VP replied the next day, and two weeks later he was in an interview.
In between, stay visible. Comment on their posts with something specific, not "great post".
A senior engineer I worked with kept doing this for a VP who never replied to his first message. Three months later, the VP messaged him: "We're opening a new role. Would you be open to a conversation?"
That's micro-familiarity, built over time with a few light touches.
How do I answer interview questions like a senior candidate?
Answer by showing how you make decisions, not just what you did. An interview isn't a performance. It's a risk assessment, and every answer tells them whether you're safe to hire.
Get the basics right first. Listen before you answer, and ask a qualifying question if you're not sure what they mean. Keep answers under 90 seconds.
Treat it like a conversation, not a pitch. And if you haven't used a tool they ask about, say so, then explain how you'd get up to speed.
Then use CALM.
CALM is Daniel Langley's four-part interview answer structure: Context, Analysis, Leadership and Measurement.
Mid-level candidates talk about tasks. Senior professionals talk about decisions.
Take "Tell me about a time you led an important project." The average answer is "I led the rollout of a new internal platform across multiple departments." It isn't wrong. It just doesn't signal senior.
Here's the same experience with CALM:
Context: We were launching a new internal platform that would change how multiple departments worked day to day. Analysis: We had two options, launch to everyone at once and risk disrupting workflows, or roll out in phases. Leadership: I chose a phased rollout to protect day-to-day operations, even though it meant a slower launch. Measurement: We avoided operational disruption, hit 75% adoption within six weeks and cut cross-team handover time by 20%.
Same experience, completely different signal. The first answer describes work. The second describes judgment.
Skip the analysis and you sound impulsive. Skip the measurement and you sound unproven.
How do I negotiate a six-figure job offer?
Negotiate with questions, not statements, and start gathering leverage during the interviews, not when the offer arrives.
Companies rarely have a single number. They have a range, and where you land depends on the profile they believe you are. So during the interview process, ask:
- "Could you share the salary range the company has in mind for this role?"
- "What typically determines where someone lands within that range?"
- "What would someone need to demonstrate to be considered at the top of that range?"
That last one tells you exactly what to prove for the rest of the interview. Then, when the offer arrives, say at $120K, don't ask "Is there any chance it could be a bit higher?" Ask a calibrated question:
"Thank you, I really appreciate the offer. How could we get closer to $135K?"
If they say the budget's tight, ask "What would it take to move the offer closer to $135K?" If the base salary is fixed, ask what flexibility exists around an earlier salary review, or which other parts of the package are flexible, like a signing bonus, equity or extra holiday. Then close with "How could we structure the package so it works for both sides?"
One client of mine increased his offer by nearly $18,000 simply by changing how he handled that conversation. The person asking the questions controls the conversation.
What mistakes stop people landing six-figure jobs?
- Sending more applications. Build a Dream 100 and go deep on 10 to 15 companies instead.
- A CV that reads like a job description. Replace every "responsible for" with what changed because of you, with a number.
- Messaging HR instead of the hiring manager. Go one level above the role you want, to the person with the problem.
- Answering interview questions with tasks. Use CALM and show the decision behind the work.
- Waiting for the offer to negotiate. Ask about the range, and what wins the top of it, during the interviews.
The bottom line
Landing a six-figure job isn't about luck or timing. It's a process: prove your impact, pick your targets, get on their radar, show your judgment in the interview and negotiate with questions. That's the name of the game.
What's your next step?
If you want to see how your CV holds up before your next interview, try the free Six Figure CV tool. Upload your CV and get an instant score with specific fixes.
And if you want to work on this with me directly, here's where to start.