Cohorts · Community program

Six to eight members, one strategist, eight weeks together.

The Marqee cohort program: small groups, a specialist facilitator, a weekly rhythm of Sunday commitments, Wednesday check-ins, and Friday celebrations. Five formats — New Grad, Career Changer, Executive, International, Underrepresented — with graduation into the alumni tier.

In short

A job search alone is a slog. A job search with six to eight peers who have the same stakes and one strategist calling the plays is a program.

Cohorts are the community layer that runs alongside your concierge engagement. Every cohort is six to eight members plus one senior Marqee strategist as facilitator, matched by vertical, seniority, and geography. The week has three touchpoints: Sunday for a short commitment note, Wednesday for a 45–60 minute live check-in, and Friday for a shared celebration thread. The program is eight weeks; most placements happen inside the window; graduation moves you into the alumni tier permanently. This page is the marketing overview. For the job-search framing of cohorts, see cohorts.html.

The weekly rhythm

Three touchpoints, ninety minutes total.

The cohort week is deliberately small. Sunday sets the intention, Wednesday goes deep on one member's problem, Friday celebrates what shipped. Everything else is asynchronous.

Sunday · Async · 10 min

Commitments.

A short note in the cohort thread

Every member posts one paragraph: what they'll ship this week. Not a to-do list — a single visible commitment. The strategist reads all seven or eight before Monday and flags anything that looks off-target, too ambitious, or too small. Ten minutes to write, five minutes to read what everyone else committed to.

Wednesday · Live · 45–60 min

Check-in.

Video call, facilitated by strategist

The whole cohort on video. One member takes the deep-dive slot (rotates weekly) and walks through the specific thing they're stuck on — a target-list gap, an interview loop tanking, an offer to negotiate. The rest give calibrated feedback. The strategist steers and closes each session with a written recap in the thread.

Friday · Async · Whenever

Celebrations.

Shared thread, no leaderboard

The shared Friday thread. What shipped this week. Who got an interview loop, who submitted the tailored app, who negotiated up, who signed the offer. No scores, no rankings, no comparisons — the point is a room where good weeks are visible and hard weeks don't get hidden. The strategist closes the thread with one line: what to watch for next week.

Five formats

The cohort you actually belong in.

Five specialized formats. Each has its own facilitator with real reps in that population, adjusted programming, and a matched peer bench. Members are placed in the format that fits — not the vertical that reads as most senior.

Format 01

New Grad

First professional role — six to twelve months out of school. Cohort is heavier on résumé rebuild, targeting the actual entry tier (not the aspirational one), and mocks that mirror new-grad panels.

Weekly · Vertical-mixed
Format 02

Career Changer

Credible pivot into a new vertical or function. Cohort emphasis on the narrative rebuild, the transferable skills argument, and finding the operators who've made a similar jump — those are the warm intros that move the search.

Bi-weekly kickoffs · Vertical-paired
Format 03

Executive

VP+ moves. Smaller cohort (six members max), confidential-by-default, facilitator is an executive-tier senior strategist. Programming leans on the side door, off-market roles, and the board and advisor conversations that surround a search.

Monthly kickoffs · Cross-vertical
Format 04

International

Visa-navigating, cross-border, or first-time-in-market job seekers. Programming built around sponsorship-real employers, timeline planning that respects visa expiries, and the recruiter conversations that don't turn into ghosting.

Rolling admission · Vertical-matched
Format 05

Underrepresented

Structural-underrepresentation-informed cohort. Programming built with practitioners who've navigated the specific patterns — pay bands that shift under negotiation, panel dynamics that reward specific framing, and mentor networks that already know the moves.

Rolling admission · Vertical-mixed
The eight-week program

From kickoff to graduation.

Every cohort runs the same eight-week arc, adjusted to the format. Weeks one and two set the search up; weeks three through six run the search; weeks seven and eight close it out and hand off to the alumni tier.

W1
Cohort kickoff
Members meet. Strategist runs the intake round — everyone shares the search goal, the timeline, and one non-negotiable. Sunday commitments open Sunday of week one. Every member ends week one with a written target list of twenty companies.
W2
Targeting + rebuild
Résumé rebuild for the target tier. Positioning conversation for career changers, portfolio pass for design and PM, comp calibration for exec. Every member ends week two with a Marqee-reviewed résumé, a positioning line, and a live short-list.
W3
Outreach opens
Side-door outreach begins — recruiter warm intros brokered by the strategist, hiring-manager notes drafted by the member, and the first tailored applications go out. First Wednesday deep-dive on outreach-response reading and adjusting the message.
W4
First loops land
First screens and phone loops for most members. Wednesday check-in shifts to interview-prep mode. The strategist runs a live mock with the deep-dive member; the rest give calibrated feedback and swap live mock partners for the week ahead.
W5
Interview compression
Peak interview week. Most members are in two or three loops simultaneously. Programming compresses to mock prep, panel-dynamics reads, and take-home reviews. The strategist runs an ad-hoc office hour on the Tuesday for anyone in a hot loop.
W6
First offers
First signed offers land, typically two or three members. The Wednesday check-in dedicates the deep-dive slot to a live offer-negotiation walk-through with the strategist. Friday celebrations get the first "signed" flags.
W7
Portfolio close
Remaining members close out portfolios of interviews. Strategist runs one-on-one exit conversations with any member who has not signed, to plan the two-week extension into maintenance cadence if the search continues.
W8
Graduation + handoff
Cohort graduation — a live session where every member shares one thing that shifted and one thing they'll take to the alumni tier. Members who signed roll into alumni onboarding immediately; members still searching move to a two-week maintenance rhythm with the same strategist.
The strategist facilitator
One senior strategist · Per cohort

The person calling the plays, not a coach with a clipboard.

Every cohort has one senior Marqee strategist as facilitator — the same strategist who could run any member's search solo. In the cohort format, they run the group instead. They own the weekly rhythm, they facilitate the Wednesday check-ins, and they close every session with a written recap. The cohort is not a coaching layer bolted onto strategist work; it's strategist work in a group format.

Format specialist

Each format has strategists with real reps in that population — new grads, career changers, VPs, visa-navigating candidates, and structural-underrepresentation-informed practice. Not generalists moonlighting.

Wednesday deep-dive host

The strategist facilitates the Wednesday check-in, calls the shift when one member is stuck, and steers the room away from unproductive feedback loops. Ninety minutes on video, one member deep, seven members watching and helping.

Weekly written recap

Every Wednesday closes with a written recap in the cohort thread — decisions taken, moves recommended, and what to watch for by Friday. Members who missed the live can catch up asynchronously in five minutes.

Meet a cohort

What a real Marqee Product cohort looks like.

Sample composition of a mid-vertical cohort. Placeholder members and roles; the real cohorts are matched on vertical, seniority tier, and geography.

Facilitator · Marqee senior strategist

[Placeholder strategist name]

Senior product strategist. Twelve years running product searches; last four at Marqee. Owns the Wednesday deep-dive slot and the written recap.

Member 01 · Senior PM

[Placeholder member]

Senior PM at a Series C fintech, targeting Group PM at Series D+. Timeline: eight weeks. Non-negotiable: remote-first.

Member 02 · Group PM

[Placeholder member]

Group PM at a mid-market SaaS, targeting Director of Product at scale. Timeline: twelve weeks. Non-negotiable: no re-org survivor stories at intake.

Member 03 · PM (career changer)

[Placeholder member]

Sales-to-PM lateral, one year in. Cohort emphasis on the narrative rebuild. Non-negotiable: product roles at seed-to-Series B only.

Member 04 · Senior PM

[Placeholder member]

Senior PM at a public company, targeting first-line Director role. Non-negotiable: geographic move blocked.

Member 05 · PM (international)

[Placeholder member]

Product manager on a visa timer. Cohort emphasis on sponsorship-real employer list. Non-negotiable: visa expiry pinned at nine months.

Member 06 · Director of Product

[Placeholder member]

Director of Product at a Series B, targeting VP Product at scale. Non-negotiable: no interim-VP band-aids.

Member 07 · Senior PM

[Placeholder member]

Senior PM at scale, targeting a founder-adjacent seat at a seed or Series A. Non-negotiable: founding equity, not employee equity.

Retention hypothesis

Why cohorts exist at all.

Cohorts exist to keep people in the room after they sign the offer.

The single biggest lever on lifetime value in a career service is post-placement retention. A member who signs the offer and drifts away is a placement; a member who signs the offer and stays for the next role, the referral, and the mentorship seat is a career. Cohorts are the format we tested against every other approach — one-off events, private Slacks, quarterly newsletters, alumni-only forums — and cohorts consistently kept people in the room longest, because the weekly rhythm built enough peer accountability that the group felt like a community, not a service.

The retention hypothesis is not that cohorts increase placement volume (concierge does that). It is that cohorts increase the probability that a placed member becomes a Marqued alumnus who mentors, refers, hires, and reactivates for their next move. Every metric below is projected from early cohort pilots and is a target, not a guaranteed outcome.

[placeholder]%Complete 8 weeks
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[placeholder]%Alumni activation
[placeholder]%Return for next move
Related

The rest of the community stack.

FAQ

The cohort program, answered.

Six to eight members plus one senior Marqee strategist as facilitator. Big enough for real variety in feedback and warm intros between members; small enough that every person is known by name, every deep-dive slot gets a real turn inside the eight-week window, and no one goes a week without being seen. Executive-format cohorts run at the small end of the band (six members max) for confidentiality reasons.

Three touchpoints a week, roughly 90 to 120 minutes total. Sunday for the weekly commitment — one paragraph in the cohort thread on what you'll ship this week. Wednesday for the live check-in — 45 to 60 minutes on video, one member goes deep on their specific problem, the rest give calibrated feedback, the strategist steers and posts a written recap. Friday for celebrations — a shared thread where members flag what shipped, what closed, and who got an interview.

Eight weeks from kickoff to graduation. Most placements happen inside the eight-week window; members who have not signed by week eight roll into a two-week maintenance rhythm with the same strategist and stay connected to the cohort thread. Graduation moves you into the alumni tier permanently, whether or not you signed inside the window.

New Grad (first professional role, six to twelve months out of school), Career Changer (a credible pivot into a new vertical or function), Executive (VP+ moves, run at the small end of the band and confidential by default), International (visa-navigating and cross-border job seekers with sponsorship-real employer lists), and Underrepresented (structural-underrepresentation-informed programming with practitioner facilitators). Each format has its own specialist facilitator and adjusted programming across the eight weeks.

About 90 to 120 minutes across the week. The Sunday commitment note takes 10 minutes to write; the Wednesday live check-in is 45 to 60 minutes; the Friday celebration thread is async and takes whatever you give it. Everything else is asynchronous — the cohort is meant to compound your search, not add a second job on top of it.

Cohort members who complete a Marqee placement move into the alumni tier — the elevated Marqued badge, lifetime warm-intro network access, quarterly in-person VIP dinners in the top ten metros, speaker rights in your vertical, and continued access whether or not you renew a paid subscription. Cohorts stay connected as a private alumni thread and reconvene once a quarter for an informal check-in.

No. Cohorts are an opt-in community layer that runs alongside concierge service. Every Marqee member gets a dedicated senior strategist and full done-for-you support whether or not they join a cohort. Members who want the peer accountability layer opt in at intake or at any point during their engagement; members who prefer a one-on-one rhythm stay one-on-one, and their service does not change.

No. Cohorts have no leaderboards, no public performance scores, and no comparison rituals of any kind. The whole point is a room where you can be honest about a hard week without it being counted against you, and where a good week is visible without becoming a benchmark others chase. Progress is shared, not ranked. This is a rule we do not bend.

Cohorts open by application, matched by vertical, seniority tier, and geography. Apply through your Marqee strategist or the intake form. New Grad and Career Changer cohorts kick off weekly; Executive cohorts kick off monthly; International and Underrepresented cohorts run rolling admission and slot you into the next matched group inside two weeks.

Six to eight people,
one search each.

Eight weeks. One strategist as facilitator. A Sunday commitment, a Wednesday check-in, and a Friday celebration. Then the alumni tier for life.

Prefer the concierge one-on-one rhythm? See how it works →