Have you noticed your job applications getting ignored—even when you're asking for less money? You might be in The Squeeze.

In this episode, I share a concept I’ve observed for years but only recently named: The Squeeze. It’s a silent career crisis where your value appears to shrink in the market, even though your experience is growing. It’s not just about money—it chips away at your confidence, identity, and joy at work.

You’ll hear:

• The three types of professionals most at risk
• The tell-tale signs you're being squeezed
• Why bland messaging and generic job titles are costing you interviews
• How Rory, Kieran, and Jolene turned things around (real client stories)
• Three powerful ways to avoid—or recover from—The Squeeze

If you’re feeling overlooked, underpaid, or unsure how to position your value in your 40s, 50s, or 60s—this episode is for you.

🎁 Mentioned in This Episode

• Download the Superpower Starter Kit
• The Fierce Accelerator Programme
• The Fierce Emporium
• Jolene’s Story
• How to Stay Highly Paid in Your 40s, 50s, and 60s

🛠️ Curious what joy might look like for you?

Download the Superpower Starter Kit to begin identifying what makes you truly brilliant—and how to talk about it so people get it.

I am Lucia Knight and this is the Joy At Work podcast.

Here's this week's question from a listener.

After some time job hunting, I'm now finding myself applying for roles

that pay less than my previous salary.

Sometimes substantially less, and I'm still not getting

selected for an interview.

What's going on?

Firstly, let me take you back to the summer

of 1986 Northern Ireland.

I was about 15 bored wearing endlessly damp school jumpers

from the almost constant rainfall.

Feisty, moody, angsty pop songs.

And then boom, Madonna's La Isla Bonita hit the airwaves.

Bongo beats, salsa rhythms, acoustic guitar, sultry, Spanish

perfume drifting over the airwaves.

That song jolted me awake.

Now, why am I talking about 1980s music on a podcast about career and work life

happiness because that's what your career story needs to do, especially in midlife.

It needs to be a bit more La Isla Bonita.

It needs to jolt people awake because if it doesn't, you risk becoming part

of the bland samey background noise.

And I call this phenomenon and I've been noticing it for years, the squeeze.

It's something that quietly dampens your impact at work and your

attractiveness for future work.

You don't notice it at first, but over time your work gets seen as less unique

and less urgent and less valuable.

And if that goes on for long, it hits yourself worth.

Here's how I define it.

The squeeze happens when your skills or talents become commoditized by the market,

which means your earning power shrinks.

The decrease in earnings usually occurs slowly at first, so slowly.

It's hard to notice until you wake up one day and you're applying

for roles at half your salary and you are still not getting picked.

If this sounds familiar, you might be experiencing the squeeze.

Here are a few signs I've been noticing for decades, even

before I named it the squeeze.

You are using generic language to describe what you do.

Consulting, strategy, marketing, finance, or worse leadership, but you're not

describing the actual magic of your work.

Your CVS, proposals, pitches, they don't lift anybody's eyebrows

in curiosity because they feel the same as all the others.

You are applying for jobs or work that pays less than you used to earn.

You are starting to wonder if all those years of experience even matter anymore.

And if you're being honest, it might feel like your career is

slip sliding quietly, painfully.

And here's the most dangerous thing.

The squeeze doesn't just affect your wallet.

It affects your mood, your inner confidence, your identity.

It messes with your sense of self, which then messes with your

relationships and how you show up in the world and left unchecked.

It leads to shame.

And shame as an emotion shuts us down.

It leads to less and less action towards change and action

towards change is necessary.

If you want to keep earning well until you choose to stop working.

Now let's talk about who gets squeezed.

My research shows me that without a doubt, this isn't just happening in one sector.

I've seen the squeeze happen in pharma, tech, law, academia, banking, finance.

I can't guarantee it, but my research suggests that it's

happening in most sectors.

But it's the most brutal for these three groups of people.

The first is small business owners who haven't nailed the specific problem

they solve, or gotten uber clear on who exactly needs their talents.

That means it's hard to differentiate them from every Tom, Dick, and

Sarah, so they end up undercharging and or being overlooked.

The second group that the squeeze impacts brutally are generalists.

So if they're offering generic services, for example, I do

marketing for anybody, they're blend.

They blend into a beige crowd.

The world doesn't need more people who can do everything.

It needs more people who can solve specific and valuable problems

in specific and valuable ways.

The third group that the Squeeze Impacts brutally are leaders who let their

sharp technical edges become blunt.

They've climbed the ladder, but they've left behind the specialist

skills, knowledge, or talent that made them stand out from the crowd.

Now when it's time to reposition, they can't point to specific

and tangible personal wins.

Their offer becomes vague and they find it hard to convince potential new employers

of their unique fit for the unique problems that that company is facing.

So let me make this even more real.

Uh, let's talk about real human examples.

Let's talk about Rory.

Rory was a strategy consultant.

He was smart and experienced and doing really well until he wasn't.

He started losing roles to people 20 years younger with flashier LinkedIn

profiles and lower rates, not because he was worse than them, but because

he wasn't different enough to stand out and to warrant his higher rates.

He, we work together to uncover the three or four things that he does

better than anyone else, and to reposition his offer so that he stands

out again, no more competing on price.

He then secured a role in a smaller company than he had worked for previously,

where his gray hairs and his wisdom gained from success and sometimes

deep pain was exactly what the company was prepared to pay a premium for.

Then there's Kieran.

He's white male, and in his fifties, and he was directly but confidentially

informed that companies weren't prioritizing his demographic.

Brutal maybe, but he could handle the truth.

Instead of shrinking, he deliberately redefined his offering.

He sharpened his value proposition, repackaged his experience, making

sure he was seen for the real value he brings, and to whom.

It's four years since we worked together and he's had four years of

highly paid, mostly satisfying work.

And then there's Jolene.

Jolene left her first career in media and started a small business that

worked when her children were young, but by the time they were at secondary

school, she was bored out of her skull.

We reworked her positioning to highlight her actual brilliance, and suddenly she

was working with people who got her.

Earning more, way more than before in half the time.

In a newly created portfolio career that kept her big brain challenged for

the three days a week that she worked.

Then in her spare time, she and an ex colleague created a new business

that has now gone global and has given her more satisfaction, intellectual

challenge, and fun at work.

Then she ever thought possible.

When we caught out recently, her whispered financial projections

were eye watering in a good way.

You can read about these and other case studies on my

website, I'll include a link.

So now to the important part, if you are still listening, you'll want

to know how to avoid the squeeze.

I will not pretend this is easy.

Career redesign after 40 isn't a three simple steps to work

life bliss kind of journey.

But there are three core strategies that are proven to work.

Number one, discover your superpowers.

What are the three or four things you do uniquely well, not general things, not

leadership or communication or finance.

I mean, tangible, specific floor wiping skills, the kind

that set you apart instantly.

Said in your language, not boring CV resumes, search keyword language.

This is your uniqueness, so it's got to be, you guessed it unique to you.

Number two, become obsessed with a specific problem.

What kind of ultra specific problems light you up?

What challenges do you actually care about solving?

Who specifically experiences those problems?

Don't guess.

Analyze.

Be deliberate.

Choose your space for the next decade.

That focus actually opens more doors than keeping all the doors open and

hoping someone will walk through.

Number three, work really hard on your communication.

You need to communicate your uniqueness until it lands.

Can you describe your value in a sentence that makes people lean

in and ask, hi, do you do that?

If not, it's time to work on your messaging, because no matter how

brilliant you are, if people don't get it, they just won't buy it.

No matter how much you charge.

We work through all of these and more in the Fierce Emporium with one full year of

support to ask questions, to compare how others do it, to get loads of feedback, to

design experiments, to get your messaging reviewed and to refine your positioning

so that you can earn what you want or need to earn for the rest of your working life.

And if you want more personalized help, consider the Fierce Accelerator Program.

I'll include links in the show notes.

Here's what I want for our listener who is finding themselves applying

for jobs that pay less than they're worth and still not getting chosen.

I want you not just to keep earning, but to earn your value to work less.

And earn more to do meaningful work that lights you up and pays you properly.

To stand out like Madonna's La Isla Bonita, in a world of noise.

You're not done.

It's not too late, and you are not too expensive.

You just need a clearer, sharper, and more specific pitch about your potential

value, more specific than you've ever needed in your career to date.

You need to stop blending in and start standing out as the unique superpower

and truly fierce human that you are.

And that sounds like joy at work to me.