As a career coach, I have worked with hundreds of executives who were seeking top-level positions. In analyzing the struggles that most of these executive job seekers had before coming to me for help, I found that there were only a handful of reasons this was happening.

But, let’s face it — landing a new executive role can be difficult. There aren’t as many of these positions available. It is difficult to find and talk with the hiring managers for these types of executive positions. Sometimes the top execs and board members can seem more guarded than Fort Knox.

The fact that executive job seekers all suffer from just a small number of the same issues in their job search may surprise you. Everyone feels that their situation is unique, and so one would think that the list of complications for the C-level job search would be endless. But, surprisingly enough, the reasons that potential candidates for executive positions were frustrated and struggling in their job searches keep coming back to just a handful of the same issues.

Your situation is really not that unique.

Many executive candidates feel that they have earned their stripes and that the rules don’t apply to them. In today’s job market, that perspective is completely wrong. You still have to sell yourself for a position just like others who have positions further down the chain of command. Talking with various recruiters uncovered that executives were coming into job interviews much less prepared because they felt their past credentials spoke for them and they didn’t need to sell themselves. As it turns out, things don’t work out so well with that mindset.

This comes down to the same problem for all executives who had this mentality: They simply mismanaged their job search. And, if you look at this from the hiring side of things, if an executive job candidate can’t manage a job search, would you hire them to manage your company?