Launching a Blog Series: 100 Career Boosting Tips

Okay. I am putting it out there. I was thinking over the holiday (well a little bit anyway) about the next spurt of blogging activity. I wanted a theme. And in my usual fashion, I came up with something biggish.

How about a 100 Tips on boosting your career? Sound good?

Okay. My pulse just went up a bit as I put that out there, but hey, we grow when we stretch.

100 short tips on boosting your career. Coming up.

My loophole…no deadline. But they are coming.

Tune in and share the series with friends.

Technorati Tags: career change, career coach, career development, career transition, cover letter, interviewing, job search, networking, personal branding, resume writing, resumes

Six Reasons Executive Recruiters will Talk to You

Kennedy Information is an authoritative source for information on executive recruitment and careers. I am pleased to have another exclusive article published in their most recent Executive Agent newsletter and Executive Registry newsletter. Six Reasons Executive Recruiters will Talk to You. Have a read.

Technorati Tags: career change, career coach, career transition, executive search, job search, networking

Six Reasons Executive Recruiters will Talk to You

It is worth covering the motivations of 3rd party recruiters, that is, executive search firms and other retained or contingent recruitment agencies.

The basic starting point is that these firms and their individual partners, associates, or support staff, are under no obligation to talk to you. They owe you nothing. Harsh, but true. The client of the search firm is the hiring organization. That is rule one.

However, rule 2 is that they need candidates that FIT their current and future assignments in order to do their job. That's where you come in.

So, let's drill down a bit and examine what the reasons or circumstances are in which a headhunter might talk to you.

Reason #1: When you are a strong potential candidate for one of their existing, current search assignments. Whether you have applied to an ad, sent in a blind resume, have been referred, or called, you will get attention only if you are a strong match for the assignment they are working on.

A search firm gets paid to attract people who are among the best in their field, not those just able to do the job. This is where a lot of frustration occurs among candidates.

Reason #2: When your background appears to be highly placeable for a future opportunity AND fits with the kind of work they do. Similarly, if they have the time, you may get their attention if your profession and industry are closely aligned with the kind of work they do, and your career trajectory is impressive. They will judge how placeable you are, that is, how likely it is that one of their clients would want to hire you. If there is a strong fit, then yes, they may make time for you.

Reason #3: When someone they respect refers you. The world of executive search and recruitment is about relationships and exchange of information. Yes, they post ads, but the ads are often failsafes. The real work occurs on the phones, speaking with people in their networks about who is good and who is ready to take on this challenge.

Referrals. That's how it works. So, search professionals tend to be highly attuned to incoming referrals from their network. The referrers may be current and past clients, industry experts, or former candidates. The later category is tricky. The power of the referral in this case really depends on the level of relationship that candidate had with the search firm.

Reason #4: When they want to have a relationship with you. If they conclude that you are a player, someone who might hire them to do search work in the future; someone who is well respected in the industry; someone with a big and powerful network, then they may be very attentive in starting a relationship with you. Being an up-and-comer is also considered. You may not, in their eyes, be ready today, but talking to you now may in fact be a good investment of time on their part.

Reason #5: When the market is slow. The fewer active assignments they have, the more time there is to fill their pipeline. Yes, they will be out looking for new clients, but it is also a time to catch-up on meeting new candidates. In a slower market, they are likely to be a little more open in who they talk to.

Reason #6: Lastly, when you target a junior, but motivated professional in the firm. You might not be able to get a partner or senior consultant's attention, but you may be able to with an associate or researcher. Don't underestimate the power of these folks to insert you into the search firm's active system and assignments. And, they need to build their career with strong, relevant and productive relationships. It could be you.

That's it. Yes, you may get in because you catch someone on a good day, and they feel like helping, but don't count on it. As a rule, these are the only instances when you can get an audience with a search firm.

Have you noticed something? If you are smart, and I know you are, you will see that you can turn this around to employ strategically. Who do you know that can refer you? Who is an up and comer in the firm but likely hungry to build there rolodex? And so on.

I hope that helps.

Technorati Tags: career coach, executive search, job search, networking

The Marketing Mind-Set for Career Management & Job Search

I get faced with questions about why marketing is a relevant concept in career managment. Shouldn't the resume and the interview be about facts? A display of credentials?

In an ideal world, we might only have to display our credentials and magically have a job matched for us, as the best candidate. There would be no need to market yourself if there were no competition for jobs. Nor would there be any need to market yourself if you didn’t care which job you were hired for. Reality is different.

Let’s have a look at why you see me focusing on the marketing aspect of career management.

When looking for a new position, your goal is to identify the best match jobs and organizations and then do the best job you can to portray yourself accurately as a fit for that job.

Making Sense of Your Background

The traditional, more bureaucratic method of resume writing and interviewing was to focus on job responsibilities. This is relevant of course, but it says little about your performance, what you have actually accomplished, your relative skill levels, strengths, and ability to take on a different or more senior role.



In order to establish these important pieces of information, you need to make sense of your professional background. This requires that you to step out of a bureaucratic mind-set and think in different terms about your performance. In some cases, this performance is obvious and quantifiable. The marketing comes in understanding and articulating the less tangible accomplishments. Leadership. Influence. Change. These are just a few of the areas where you may have performed. By framing these, you add a whole new dimension to your offering.



Making Sense of Your Strengths

We are each unique individuals and we bring some of that uniqueness to our work. In your job, you likely excel at some aspects of your work, are competent in others, and either have no interest in, or perform poorly in others. What are you good at? What do you want to do? Unless you want to take an accidental approach to managing your career, you need to communicate these strengths, and ideally frame them as benefits to the hiring organization. This accomplishes three things:

• First, simply by having an understanding of yourself, and then communicating your competencies, you will present yourself as a more credible candidate.


• Second, you increase the likelihood that the hiring decision makers will recognize a fit, if there is one. Also, you have a better chance of weeding out those jobs and organizations that aren’t a fit.


• Third, if you can frame what you offer in terms of how you can help the hiring organization, then you have just differentiated yourself from the vast majority of candidates.

Sounds like marketing to me.



Fit

As a reader of this column, you may have discovered that I put a great deal of focus on fit. Fit is subtle, complex and of the utmost importance. Fit with your boss. Fit with the team. Fit with the values of the organization. Fit with the style of work. Fit with the job content. Fit with the company’s stage and size. Fit with the industry. Any ONE of these out of alignment could cause a derailment of your performance, your engagement in your work, and in the worst case, your career. What does this have to do with marketing?



We humans are incredibly complex beings. How can a hiring executive or recruiter establish this fit if you don’t provide the necessary information? Part of marketing is bringing the best solution to a customer’s needs. If you are that best solution, then you have to first understand what you are offering and then communicate it effectively and persuasively.



Competition

True, the market is hot right now and you might find yourself in a candidate’s market. If this is the case, marketing yourself might be less important. In general, however, we all need to distinguish ourselves from the other fine folks vying for the same jobs. In times of job scarcity, this becomes critical. And, the more focused and deliberate you want to be about your career development, the more you will have to compete with other focused, deliberate candidates.



Selectivity & Timing

Marketing is partially about what to communicate, what not to communicate, and when. You need to be selective about what kind of information to share, how to share it and when.



Marketing is a relevant and important mind-set that you should employ in your job search and managing your career. Notice that nowhere in this article did I recommend straying from the truth, or focusing on the “sizzle vs. the steak.” Authentic marketing, and career management, starts with a solid base. That base is you and what you offer the hiring market.

Technorati Tags: career development, job search, personal branding

Positioning Yourself with Executive Recruiters

The Executive Career Strategies at ExecutiveAgent.com newsletter came out today. The lead article for this issue was written by yours truly and focuses on how to make connections with executive recruiters.

I give 10 of my best pointers on making connections, and in particular, building rapport, with executive search consultants. I hope you find it useful.

Executive Career Strategies: Positioning Yourself with Executive Recruiters

Technorati Tags: executive search, job search