"Your resume is great, anyone would be lucky to have you, but we don't know how we'd use you here." That makes sense, her primary experience for the past several years has been in a hybrid consulting/strategy/sales/marketing role..."
It sounds like you need to really define the position she is gunning for.
Agreed. We've been talking about this. She's had to shape her resume a few different ways based on the type of job she's applying for to highlight specific experience relevant to the particular position but it still hasn't yielded much. I dont' know if it's the resume so much as not knowing the right people/perosn in an org to vouch for her even if she applies for something 'out of band' so to speak.
I think that usually means "we can't see our business evolving in ways that benefit from the input of people we hire". My view is that if someone you hire does not change and leave a mark on your business they were a mistake. Too many people just have really narrow roles in mind.
This is where my head was on this whole undertaking. I assumed that the people she'd engage with would immediately see the potential in the individual - not whether or not the intersection of the resume and job description was a 100% match.
Yeah it just doesnt work like that with most startups. But you can find those people eventually. Thy have been in the business for a bit longer in my experience. Look for companies that have grown self funded for five years or so not new startups. They have worked through the people give us new potential thing more.
It sounds like you need to really define the position she is gunning for.