Services

Strategy built around the decision you're facing.

You don't need more generic advice, disconnected tactics or activity for the sake of feeling productive.

You need to understand the real problem, decide what comes next and build a strategy that fits your goals, experience and life.

Every Career Polish engagement is private, one-on-one and tailored to the situation in front of you.

For when you know something needs to change

Career Clarity

You may have outgrown the role, lost interest in the path or reached a point where continuing as you are no longer feels like a neutral decision.

But knowing that something is wrong is not the same as knowing what should replace it.

Career Clarity gives you the space, structure and outside perspective to separate frustration from fact, identify the real options and make a decision you can stand behind.

By the end of the engagement, you will have

  • A clear understanding of what is no longer working and why
  • A stronger view of the skills, strengths and differentiators you have built across your career
  • Defined priorities for what the next chapter must provide personally and professionally
  • A focused set of realistic options instead of an endless list of possibilities
  • A decision framework for evaluating those options against your goals, constraints and how much change you're ready to take on
  • A direction you can explain clearly to yourself and to other people
  • A tailored 90-day plan for testing, validating or acting on your decision

How we get there

We map the through-line of your career, identify the value you have carried across roles and examine the decisions, environments and work that have brought out your best.

We then evaluate the available paths based on more than job titles or compensation. We look at feasibility, timing, risk, values, lifestyle and what you want your work to make possible now.

Duration

Typically 2–4 months

Format

Private, bi-weekly 60-minute sessions with support between sessions

Investment

$2,500

For the move you are ready to make

Career Transition

Leadership changed. Your growth stalled. Your role no longer fits. Or you know there is another level available to you, but your experience is not translating into the right opportunities.

A career transition is not simply a job search.

It is a positioning decision, a market strategy and a series of conversations in which people need to quickly understand what you can do next — not only what you have done before.

By the end of the engagement, you will have

  • A defined target based on the work, level, environment and opportunities you actually want
  • A clear, forward-looking narrative that connects your experience to that target
  • Language for explaining your value naturally in networking, interviews and executive conversations
  • An executive resume and LinkedIn presence aligned with the direction you are pursuing
  • A targeted networking, visibility and opportunity-creation strategy
  • A practical 90-day plan with clear priorities, actions and decision points
  • Ongoing support as opportunities, questions and decisions arise

How we get there

We examine what you have built, where your strongest value sits and how the market currently understands you.

Then we align your positioning, career materials, networking, LinkedIn activity, interview communication and search strategy around one coherent direction.

Duration

Typically 3–6 months

Format

Private, bi-weekly 60-minute sessions with support between sessions

Investment

$3,500

For when strong performance is no longer enough

Executive Presence

You are doing the work. But the people shaping your future are not consistently seeing the judgment, leadership or strategic value behind it.

Executive presence is not about becoming louder, more polished or less like yourself.

It is about making your thinking easier to follow, your contribution easier to recognize and your leadership easier to trust.

By the end of the engagement, you will have

  • A clearly defined leadership brand, presence in the rooms that matter
  • Greater control over how you communicate under pressure
  • Stronger language for advocating for your ideas, work and readiness
  • A strategy for increasing visibility with the stakeholders who matter
  • More effective approaches to influence, conflict, presentations and executive conversations
  • Real-time coaching on the situations affecting your role and reputation
  • A practical plan for building recognition without performing a version of yourself that isn't real

How we get there

We start by examining how you are currently experienced — what you are known for, where your authority lands, where it gets diluted and which decision-makers need a clearer view of your leadership.

Then we work on the real situations shaping that reputation: meetings, presentations, conflict, stakeholder conversations, self-advocacy and visibility. The goal isn't to create a different, more polished version of you. It is for the way you are seen to catch up to the level at which you are already operating.

Duration

Typically 4–8 months

Format

Private, bi-weekly 60-minute sessions with support between sessions

Investment

$4,500

For one high-stakes situation that cannot wait

Intensive

A role has opened. An interview is approaching. A promotion conversation is scheduled. An offer is on the table. Or you are facing a decision and need an experienced outside perspective before you make it.

The Intensive is a focused working session built around the immediate challenge.

By the end of the session, you will have

  • A clearer understanding of the decision or challenge
  • Direct feedback on what is working and what is getting in the way
  • Stronger language, positioning or preparation for the situation
  • A defined set of next actions
  • Any agreed-upon document, talking point or decision tool developed during the session

Duration

90 minutes

Format

Phone or Zoom

Investment

$650

How we work

Private, specific and built around your real career

No cohorts, no scripts

There are no cohorts, generic scripts or prewritten answers. We work directly on your history, goals, constraints, opportunities and decisions.

Real deliverables

You will leave sessions with more than ideas. Depending on the engagement, we will build positioning, talking points, decision tools, career materials and action plans you can use immediately.

Support between sessions

You will also have access between sessions for questions, feedback and the situations that do not wait for the next scheduled call.

Lisa McDonald holding I Just Lost My Job — Now What?

For every client

Every client receives a copy of I Just Lost My Job — Now What? What to Do When Standard Career Advice Fails.

Partly so you can see how I think about career decisions and the work we will do together.

And partly because careers keep changing. The book gives you a practical framework to return to at the next inflection point — whatever it is and whenever it comes.

Lisa McDonald

Founder, Career Polish

Not sure which engagement fits?

You do not need to diagnose the problem before you schedule.

We will talk through where you are, what you want to change and whether one of these engagements is the right next step.

Schedule Your Consultation