But you're a recruiter, not a learning professional.

No one says it that bluntly. But it's the assumption sitting behind every rejection from L&D roles you know you could do brilliantly.

After helping talent professionals pivot into learning and development, here's what I've learnt about why your applications aren't landing, even when the skills clearly overlap:

🔍 When your LinkedIn says "Talent Acquisition" or "Recruitment," L&D hiring managers keep scrolling. They're not looking for someone who fills roles. They're looking for someone who builds capability. You've done both, but your profile only shows one.

📸 When your resume lists requisitions filled and time-to-hire metrics, you sound like a recruiter. And recruiters get filed under "talent acquisition." Not "talent development." The irony is you've spent years identifying skill gaps, coaching hiring managers and improving candidate experience. That's L&D work. You just never called it that.

📲 When you describe your experience as "end-to-end recruitment," you're using language that boxes you in. Stakeholder consultation. Needs analysis. Competency frameworks. Candidate development. Onboarding design. You've touched all of it. But your materials don't make that visible.

🕐 When you assume L&D teams will connect the dots themselves, you're overestimating how much time they spend on each application. They're scanning for keywords, not potential. If they have to work to see the relevance, they won't. They'll move to the candidate who made it obvious.

💼 When you apply without translating your experience, you're competing against people who already speak the language. They might have less commercial instinct than you. Less stakeholder exposure. Less understanding of what the business actually needs. But their resume says "Learning and Development," and yours doesn't.

Here's what most talent professionals miss about making this move:

You're not starting from scratch. You're reframing what you've already built.

💚 Your experience coaching hiring managers? That's facilitation and consultation.

💚 Your work designing interview frameworks? That's competency-based assessment and capability mapping.

💚 Your focus on candidate experience? That's learner experience design.

💚 Your understanding of what makes someone succeed in a role? That's the foundation of every solid development programme.

The skills aren't the problem. The packaging is.

Because here's the truth about L&D hiring right now:

The best learning professionals understand the business. They know what capability gaps actually cost. They can connect development to performance and performance to outcomes.

That's not something you need to learn. That's something you've lived.

Recruiters sit closer to the business than most L&D teams ever do. You've seen what happens when capability isn't there. You've felt the pain of roles that stay open because the pipeline wasn't developed. You've watched new hires fail because onboarding wasn't built properly.

You don't need more qualifications. You don't need to start at the bottom of a new ladder.

You need positioning that helps L&D hiring managers see what's been obvious to you for years.

That's not a skills gap. That's a translation problem. And it's fixable.

If you're ready to move into learning and development but your applications keep getting filtered out, your materials are the barrier.

Not your experience. Not your potential. Your positioning.

Book now to start landing the roles that you really want!