About Erica Rivera — Career Strategist & Founder

Erica Rivera, Career Strategist and Founder of Career Diva Coaching

The Short Version

I understand what's at stake because I've lived it.

I became a mother at 16. While my peers were still figuring out who they were, I was responsible for someone else's survival. There was no pause button. No safety net that allowed for mistakes without consequence.

Education and work became my anchors — not because I believed they would solve everything, but because they represented independence. They were a way to build structure where there had been chaos, and options where there had been very few.

Achievement wasn't about validation or ambition. It was about security.

Inside the Machine

I followed the rules. I did everything right.

That path eventually led me into high-performance corporate environments, including roles at Google and Indeed. From the outside, it looked like success in the traditional sense. And in many ways, it was.

As a recruiter, I reviewed thousands of resumes, participated in hiring conversations, and saw the gap between what people are told matters and what actually moves the needle. I watched strong, capable professionals get overlooked — not because they lacked skill, but because they lacked positioning, context, or the right narrative.

At the same time, my life outside of work was full. I was parenting. I was caregiving. I was managing a household, relationships, and responsibilities that didn't pause for career growth. I was doing what many people do: holding everything together while continuing to perform at a high level.

The Turning Point

Then the layoffs began.

In early 2023, I watched colleagues — brilliant, loyal, high-performing people — lose their jobs overnight. It shook something loose. The belief system I had grown up with — that working hard and doing everything "right" would keep you safe — started to crack.

Later that year, I was laid off as well.

It was destabilizing. But it was also clarifying.

I understood that titles and brand names don't guarantee security. I understood how quickly circumstances change, and how little control individuals often have inside large systems.

So instead of trying to rush back into the same structure, I stepped back and asked different questions: What actually makes a career resilient? What skills travel? What gives someone leverage — not just in one role, but across industries, markets, and even countries?

The Rebuild

That work changed everything.

I focused on breaking my own experience down into its component parts — skills, judgment, pattern recognition, decision-making — and learning how to articulate that value clearly.

Within a year, I rebuilt my income independently. Within 14 months, I replaced my salary. My career became portable enough that I could relocate my family to Spain — not as a fantasy, but as a practical outcome of intentional design.

That's when it became clear that what I had learned wasn't intuitive — it was simply knowledge most people are never taught.

1,000+ Professionals coached

30 Countries worldwide

14 Mo. To replace full salary

40%+ Avg. client salary increase

Who I Work With

I understand them because I've lived that reality.

Since then, I've worked with hundreds of professionals navigating layoffs, career pivots, stalled growth, relocations, and identity shifts tied to work. Many are parents. Many are caregivers. Many are high performers who have carried responsibility for a long time and are exhausted by systems that demand more while offering less stability.

I don't romanticize resilience. I understand it as something forged under constraint. I know the difference between ambition and necessity, between achievement driven by ego and achievement driven by survival.

The work I do sits at the intersection of career strategy, communication, and real-world labor market dynamics. I help people translate their experience into clear value, understand how decisions are actually made, and build careers that can bend without breaking.

My Approach

Career insurance, not career advice.

Most career coaches will help you update your resume and practice interview answers. That's career maintenance. I don't do maintenance — I do strategy.

I created the SSIP Framework — Story, Skills, Impact, Positioning — because I saw the same pattern in every client who was stuck: they had all the pieces, but nobody had ever helped them assemble the full picture.

Your story is your differentiator. Your skills need context. Your impact needs proof. And your positioning is what makes you impossible to ignore and expensive to lose.

That's what career insurance is. It's not one job. It's a system that means you never start from zero again.

Story

Your narrative is your unfair advantage. We craft a career story that makes hiring managers lean forward.

Skills

Skills without context are invisible. We map your abilities to what the market actually pays for.

Impact

Numbers talk. We quantify your contributions so decision-makers see the ROI before they meet you.

Positioning

You become the obvious choice — the person they recruit instead of the person who applies.

Let's Talk

Ready to build your career insurance?

The next step is a 30-minute Strategy Briefing. We assess the situation, the gaps, and whether working together makes sense. No pitch. Just clarity.

Book Your Strategy Briefing

30 minutes · Free · No obligation

Meet Erica Rivera.