The Yasar Ahmad Podcast

Yasar Ahmad
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Work isn’t a meritocracy and playing nice won’t get you promoted. I’m Yasar Ahmad, one of the world’s leading HR voices with over 15 years in the boardroom and 550,000+ professionals following my work. Each week, I cut through workplace noise with blunt truths, proven strategies, and unfiltered advice to help you earn more, influence faster, and build a career that actually pays off. If you’re tired of being underpaid, overlooked, or underestimated — this is your playbook to win at work.

  1. 3d ago

    BIG MISTAKES to Avoid On Your Resume

    Get my free RESUME template here: https://ovdlab.com/blog/my-resume-that-landed-me-my-vp-roleOver my entire career I rejected more than a million resumes. Almost every one failed for the same five reasons, and nobody ever told the person why.I ran hiring at companies like HelloFresh and Wipro, where we brought in thousands of people a month and sat on a database of 3 to 4 million resumes. Yours gets a 7 to 8 second look before someone decides yes or no. Most of the resumes I rejected belonged to people who could actually do the job. They were qualified. Some were brilliant. They just never showed it on the page, so they landed in the no pile and never found out why.This video walks through the five mistakes I saw most, and the exact fix for each: writing your duties instead of your results, burying your best line on page two where the 8 second scan never reaches it, sending one generic resume to every role so the screening software and the recruiter both pass, planting small cracks in your credibility that quietly kill senior candidates, and cluttering the page so a hiring manager has to hunt for the good bit. If you're great at your job but keep getting ignored, this one is for you.I built a free career diagnostic that shows you exactly where things are going wrong and where to focus to put them right. If you feel like an invisible expert at work, start there: head to https://www.ovdlab.com and click Assessment, and you'll have it within 5 minutes. Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#ResumeTips #JobSearch #CareerAdvice #Hiring #WinAtWork

  2. 4d ago

    He Was Hired to Fix FIFA. He Became the Problem.

    The man hired to clean up FIFA just ran the biggest decision in sport as one man. That is the leadership and governance failure that quietly plays out in ordinary companies every week, and almost nobody catches it until it's too late.____As mentioned in the video:Complete my free career diagnostic. Learn about the secret rules holding you back and how to fix it! 5000 people have already completed it. Dont get left behind. 👉🏽https://ovdlab.com/assessment____In 2016 Gianni Infantino took over a governing body drowning in corruption. The brief was simple: end the one-man rule, make the money visible, build checks so no single person could run the sport like it belonged to them. Ten years later he is the one being asked to resign, after a $4 billion plan his own chief operating officer found out about from the press. This is how a reformer becomes the thing he was sent to fix, and why the real failure happened in 2016, not 2026.If you lead people, or you are watching someone brilliant slowly become the only person who decides anything, this one is for you. You will get the three moves that keep power honest: stress-test the plan against the people most likely to kill it, never let your senior team read your strategy in the news, and hand anything that touches your own legacy to someone else. The best leaders don't ask to be trusted. They build the thing that means nobody has to.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work actually works, from someone who sat on the deciding side of the table. Want it in your inbox? My newsletter breaks down one lesson like this every week.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Leadership #Management #FIFA #Infantino #WinAtWork

  3. 5d ago

    WHAT to TEACH your Kids this Year! (26/27)

    School rewards your child for doing what they're told. The working world pays for the opposite, and hardly anyone closes that gap in time.____As mentioned in the video:Complete my free career diagnostic. Learn about the secret rules holding you back and how to fix it! 5000 people have already completed it. Dont get left behind. 👉🏽https://ovdlab.com/assessment____I spent years running hiring and talent, deciding who got promoted, who got paid, and who quietly left. In all that time, the most obedient person on the team never once got the job.The thing school measures is obedience, and it's the wrong thing to measure. The behaviours that earn a child a glowing report (do as you're told, don't interrupt, don't get it wrong in front of everyone) are the same behaviours that keep capable adults overlooked at work for 20 years. If you were the good kid who did everything right and then watched someone louder take the thing you wanted, you already have the evidence.This is for parents who don't want their child to inherit that. The entry-level job that used to teach all of it, being wrong and being told no near someone who knew better, is disappearing, so it gets learned at home or not at all. I go through three things you can do at the kitchen table this year: let them be wrong without rescuing them, make them ask for things directly and sometimes hear no, and let them disagree with you properly. A child who can disagree with you at 14 becomes an adult who can disagree with the chief executive at 34, and that person gets paid.If you want the working world explained the way it actually operates, not the polite version, subscribe and join the newsletter below. It's where I break down how promotion and pay really get decided, and how capable people finally get taken seriously.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#CareerAdvice #RaisingKids #FutureOfWork #WinAtWork

  4. Aug 14

    The Real Reason Calm People Get Promoted First

    Most senior leaders can't verify whether you deliver. They can only verify whether you stay calm when something goes wrong. That's why steady, well-spoken people get promoted while stronger performers wait, and it's where this Q&A starts.____As mentioned in the video:Complete my free career diagnostic. Learn about the secret rules holding you back and how to fix it! 5000 people have already completed it. Dont get left behind. 👉🏽https://ovdlab.com/assessment____After that, I answer five career questions you sent in. How to survive a toxic job when you can't afford to walk away yet. What actually works when being assertive gets you labelled bossy. Which skills survive as AI takes over analysis and drafting. And how to get a pay rise when the company keeps insisting there's no budget.This is for the capable person who's good at the job and stuck on the pay and recognition they expected by now. Watch it and you'll walk away with the exact line to use when you're told the budget is frozen, and a clearer read on what really gets you noticed.Subscribe for how work actually operates, minus the fluff. And if you want to know exactly where you're stuck right now, take the free 5-minute Career Diagnostic at ovdlab.com. It tells you where to focus.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#CareerAdvice #GetPromoted #WinAtWork #Leadership

  5. Aug 13

    How To Become Dangerously Self-Managed (Today!)

    Most people scroll past their company values as corporate mumbo jumbo on a wall. Used properly, those same values are the sharpest accountability tool you have at work, for holding yourself in check and for steering a room without ever telling someone they're wrong. Recorded from the car, so bear with me. I break down the three values I actually run my work on: relentless prioritisation, customer centricity, and data centricity, plus long-term orientation for anyone building in the age of AI. Each one is a decision filter. Prioritisation keeps you honest about what matters. Customer centricity pulls you back to the real problem when analysis paralysis sets in. Data centricity stops a good-sounding idea moving forward with nothing behind it.If you sit in meetings full of ideas and no direction, or you judge your weaknesses against everyone else's strengths and come away feeling behind, this one is for you. You will get a simple way to disagree that keeps you respected: name what you like about the idea, then anchor the decision to a shared value so the conversation moves without anyone losing face. The real question in any disagreement isn't who's right. It's what would need to be true for you to agree.

  6. Aug 13

    The SECRET INGREDIENT to mastering Executive Presence NO ONE is talking about!

    Executive presence isn't charisma you're born with. It's one learnable skill, clarity, and it's the reason some people sound senior the moment they open their mouth while sharper colleagues get overlooked for years.____As mentioned in the video:Complete my free career diagnostic. Learn about the secret rules holding you back and how to fix it! 5000 people have already completed it. Dont get left behind. 👉🏽https://ovdlab.com/assessment____For years I sat in the rooms where careers actually get decided: who gets promoted, who gets the budget, who quietly gets passed over. The same mistake comes up again and again. Smart people build their case brick by brick and save the point for the end, and the room drifts before they land it. This video gives you the fix: lead with the answer, name the one thing that matters, get specific, and frame the decision around what people stand to lose, not what they'll gain.If you do great work but struggle to be heard in meetings, this one is for you. You'll also get the move that quietly makes you the most senior voice in the room, even on a subject you know less about than anyone else: the sharpest question beats the best answer every time. Your one thing to try tomorrow is simple. Before you say anything else, open with a plain sentence that names the decision on the table, then watch the room turn towards you.Want to see where your own visibility is leaking? I built a free diagnostic at OVD Labs that shows you the single gap costing your career right now. It takes a few minutes, link below. Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work actually works.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#ExecutivePresence #CareerAdvice #Leadership #Communication #WinAtWork

  7. Aug 13

    £300K vs £3 Million: How to Frame Any Big Ask

    How you frame an idea at work decides whether it gets a yes or a wall of "why". Tell your boss "I need £300K to upgrade the platform" and watch the questions pile up. Reframe it as "can we afford to lose £3 million in our busiest period if it drops?" and the room goes quiet.____As mentioned in the video:Complete my free career diagnostic. Learn about the secret rules holding you back and how to fix it! 5000 people have already completed it. Dont get left behind. 👉🏽https://ovdlab.com/assessment____The real lesson sits underneath the word "why": framing, and loss aversion. When you feel challenged at work you start justifying yourself, and that's the moment you lose the room. The better move is to change the words and put the risk in front of people, because we feel a loss around 2.5 times harder than we feel a gain. That's Kahneman's work, and it's why a stolen £100 stings more than a found £100 ever lands. Frame the cost and people ask why. Frame the risk and they ask whether they can afford not to.I also cover the three questions I run before any messy decision: can it be automated, is it human-shaped, and can I reverse it if it's wrong. And why building real values into how you decide beats leaning on gut and memory every time. If you do brilliant work but keep getting talked past in meetings, this one is for you. You'll walk away able to reframe any pitch so leadership hears the stakes, not just the price tag.Subscribe for more on how work actually operates: the politics, and the decisions that get made about you when you're not in the room. The newsletter's below if you want it in writing each week, and there's a free 5-minute career assessment that shows you where you're stuck and what to fix first.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#CareerAdvice #Influence #Leadership #WinAtWork

  8. Aug 6

    THIS is the SECRET to staying relevant in 2027

    On the 1st of August, a computer did something no human had done. It solved ten open problems in maths. A Fields Medal winner looked at the proof and said he would send it to a top journal without hesitation.That is not the part that keeps me up at night.Everyone is bracing for a jobs recession. I am not. I spent twenty years in boardrooms signing off restructures. Jobs vanish. Jobs appear. That number always moves.What is coming is quieter. I call it the judgement recession.We are about to raise a generation of professionals who have never been wrong about anything that mattered. Because we are handing the hard bit to the machine, and the hard bit is where judgement gets made. Judgement is not taught. It is a scar. You get it by being wrong in a room where it costs you something.And we are removing the rooms.In this video I break down where we actually are in 2026, why entry level hiring is already freezing, why the real risk will not show up in a headline until 2030, and the one thing I want you to start doing this week to protect the only skill that will not be automated.Pick the hard thing. Do that bit by hand. Give the machine everything else.And if you manage anyone junior, let them be wrong. You are not being inefficient. You are building the only thing that lasts.New here? I am Yasar. Over twenty years in corporate HR, most recently a Global VP at HelloFresh, before building Win at Work. I make videos about career strategy, executive presence, and thinking clearly in a world that is automating fast. Subscribe if that is your kind of thing.Get my newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Work with me at OVD Labs: https://www.ovdlab.com#FutureOfWork #AI #CareerAdvice #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #ExecutivePresence

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About

Work isn’t a meritocracy and playing nice won’t get you promoted. I’m Yasar Ahmad, one of the world’s leading HR voices with over 15 years in the boardroom and 550,000+ professionals following my work. Each week, I cut through workplace noise with blunt truths, proven strategies, and unfiltered advice to help you earn more, influence faster, and build a career that actually pays off. If you’re tired of being underpaid, overlooked, or underestimated — this is your playbook to win at work.

Information

  • Creator
    Yasar Ahmad
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Yasar Ahmad
  • Show Website
    The Yasar Ahmad Podcast