Who is Top of the Stack?

If you've ever wished you had someone in your corner who actually knew how the hiring process worked from the inside, that's exactly what Top of the Stack was built to be. We haven’t just read about the job market and hiring processes, we lived it for decades.

To understand what Top of the Stack is, it helps to understand where it came from.

The backstory: 24 years on the other side of the table.

Ed Guy, Top of the Stack’s founder, has spent his career in the rooms where hiring decisions get made. Since launching NationStaff in 2001, his executive search firm has been trusted by financial technology companies, venture-backed startups, and some of the most competitive hiring teams in New York, London, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles for more than two decades. Before that, Ed was already building – launching his first tech company at 22 while teaching at NYU. He has spent his career at the intersection of technology, investing, and talent, helping companies find the people who would define their next chapter.

Over those 20+ years, he has sourced thousands of candidates, evaluated tens of thousands of resumes, run more interviews than he can count, and made the calls that determined who got offers and who got passed over. He has seen exactly what makes a candidacy land and exactly what quietly kills one.

What he also saw, year after year, was a gap. Candidates working hard, applying everywhere, doing everything they thought they were supposed to do… and still not getting traction. Not because they weren't qualified, but because nobody had ever told them the truth about how their candidacy was being read on the other side of the table. That honest, hiring-side perspective was available to the companies Ed worked with but had never been available directly to candidates.

In December 2025, he decided to change that.

What Top of the Stack actually is.

Top of the Stack is, at its core, PR for job seekers. Think about what a great publicist does. They don't change who you are, but they make sure the world sees you the way you deserve to be seen. They craft your narrative, manage your presence, and make sure your value comes through clearly and compellingly to the right audience. That's exactly what we do for candidates.

Most career coaching focuses on surface-level fixes like tightening up bullet points, suggesting a new format, or telling you what you want to hear. We do something different. We function as your personal PR agent in your job search: working across your resume, your LinkedIn, and your professional narrative to make sure every touchpoint tells the same powerful story about who you are and what you bring.

We tell you what others won't. If your resume is underselling you, we'll say so. If your LinkedIn doesn't reflect your actual value, we'll fix it. If your professional narrative is scattered or unclear, we'll help you find the throughline. Our tough-love approach isn't about being harsh — it's about being genuinely useful in a way that most feedback never is.

Ed has brought together a team of talent professionals who share that same hiring-side perspective and that same commitment to honest, strategic candidate support. Together, they work with senior professionals navigating one of the most complex job markets in recent history to help them get seen, get considered, and get hired.

Why it matters right now.

It’s no secret that the hiring landscape has shifted dramatically. Algorithms screen candidates before humans do, AI-generated applications flood recruiters' inboxes, and the rules that worked even just a couple of years ago don't apply the same way today. And yet most candidates are still operating from an outdated playbook, sending the same resume to fifty companies and wondering why nothing is moving.

The professionals who are getting traction in this market are the ones who understand how the process has changed, how it works today, and have the right support behind them. That's what Top of the Stack provides. Not generic advice and not a template. Real hiring-side insight, finally in your corner.

If you're ready to stop guessing and start getting results, we'd love to work with you. Explore our Services and get started today.