Month: March 2017

• Why don’t executive recruiters call me back?
• Why is it so difficult getting through to a recruiter?
• After all these years, why are educational credentials still an issue?
• How much information should I include in my LinkedIn profile?
• How does one find an executive recruiter that specializes in my professional niche?

• —Be competitive; assume that the recruiter has plenty of viable candidates.
• —Present a resume that includes your complete work history; it is relevant and important.
• —When you are scheduled to talk with the recruiter, be prepared.
• —Make it easy for me to find you and don’t make me chase you down when I need you.
• —Check in from time to time to reaffirm your interest and receive updates.

• —Why don’t executive recruiters call you back?
• —Why is it so difficult getting through to a recruiter?
• —After all these years, why are educational credentials still an issue?
• —How much information should I include in my LinkedIn profile?
• —How does one find an executive recruiter that specializes in my professional niche?

Regarding age discrimination, my recommendation is to take a perceived negative (which really isn’t a negative) and make it a positive. In other words, job seekers should understand that most Fortune 500 companies have a recruiting and selection model that favors young professionals. These companies prefer to hire people they can train, develop, and indoctrinate into their culture for a long-term career. This orientation works against baby boomers at the end of their careers.  I recommend that Baby Boomers internalize this fact and look for employment where their skills and experience is valued.  They should look for mid-caps, emerging brands, and Private Equity portfolio companies which offer the most opportunities.  Our experience is our strength, we should lead with this.

My second point is to present yourself as a specialist as employers are looking for people to solve particular problems during their tenure. Even if you have what appears a generalist background, you will find that you have specialized skills that have shaped your career.
Presenting yourself as a specialist aligns well for the Digital Age. Job tenures are decreasing as people are hired to work on specific projects and then transition out of the company. This is particularly true of private equity groups.

We also discussed the value of resumes presenting only the last ten or twelve years of employment. Whereas that might be a useful strategy when talking to an in-house recruiter, it is just irritating to executive recruiters. We are interested in your total package. We want to know where you came from, the foundation for your career. It is important to understand where someone received their initial training and development.  It is a predictor of your habits supporting continued success. Eventually, I will get your entire work history, so why not save us both some time?

As most of the folks in the room were Baby Boomers with established careers, one would expect they had developed relationships with a few recruiters. I have my doubts, however, as they seem not to understand the differences between recruiters and how they work. That might be an interesting topic for another blog post.

My presentation was well received and generated a lot of discussions. I am grateful for the help I received from Kerri, another recruiter, Beverly, an employment professional, and Julie who hosted the meeting.  I could write a book about working with executive recruiters based on our dialogue. Next month I will make the same presentation to the Financial Executives Networking Group, (FENG).

Being a successful freelancer means achieving the delicate balance between pitching for the clients you know you can achieve and pitching for the clients you really want. The fact is that we are all working to earn a living. We need to pay our mortgages, put food on the table, get our kids through college. Money makes the world go round, and your world won’t go around without it! Unfortunately that often means taking on the bread and butter jobs we’d rather not do more often than we’d like, and leaving the convoluted pitches process for highly sought after jobs we’d really like to do to those that are younger and have more time and less responsibilities. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are three overlooked ways to pitch for the business that you really want and actually succeed:
       
Spend Time Maintaining Relationships

Most small businesses and freelancers understand the importance of generating solid leads, but so often once those leads have been generated they forget to maintain those new relationships and cultivate a culture of mutual understanding and respect. Although it won’t directly add to your revenue, it is important to take a couple of hours out of your week and spend it talking to your customers: existing ones, potential ones, ones that you have been working with for years and those that are newly acquired. Follow up on every business opportunity you are offered and make sure that you are maintaining a good reputation within your community. This might not immediately lead to an uptake in your services (remember that 73% of newly generated business to business sales leads are not ready to purchase) but all of these things are important to building your business  identity and ensuring that, if and when they need the services that you provide, the right people will know where to find you.

Believe in Yourself

It’s so easy to criticize yourself and make excuses for why you won’t get a job, or why it’s not worth pitching to that new client. Often in business we can be our own worst enemies and the more we listen to our inner critic, the less proactive we are in reaching out, networking, and reaching for those goals that might seem unobtainable right now. This is particularly true as our responsibilities grow and we juggle running our businesses with the needs of our family. It may sound a little trite, and like something out of a Disney movie, but believing in yourself is one of the very best things you can do to boost your business success. Confidence comes from many different things, but if you are lacking confidence in yourself or in your brand then why not have a makeover? A new website, new business cards, updated email signature, even a haircut, can all help to increase your confidence in your brand and enable you to sell it to others in much more positive way.

Leave The Comfort of Your PC

We live in a modern internet age that makes it much easier to arrange all the marketing for your business from behind your computer screen whilst you sit in your jammies.  Whilst engaging in online social networking, utilizing social media and having a great website certainly will help you to generate leads for your business, nothing beats leaving the comfort of your PC and going out and meeting people. Show people who you are and what you do: being visible is the very best way of ensuring that you will be remembered by potential clients, and you can impress upon people the wide range of services you can provide for them much more comprehensively in the flesh than you ever could over the internet. Understand your business niche and know who your target market is, then get out of the house and go and target them! You could do this by attending national conferences, professional events for individuals in the same market as you, or even by going out and talking to local small businesses. The key is to put yourself out there and ensure that as many people as possible know who you are.

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I talked with two very accomplished job seekers this week. Both have MBA’s from prestigious Universities and twenty-five-plus years with Blue-chip companies. Both are accomplished in their fields, having held senior level positions. Both lost their job due to a company-wide reorganization. However, the similarities end there. After a short hiatus, one found a new situation in a smaller, entrepreneurial company. The other is approaching two years in job search. The difference in their results is instructive.

In my last post, I wrote about the hiring criteria for senior managers in a tightening labor market. I wrote that employers looking to fill senior-level roles expect the new hire to have a very short learning curve. They are expected to make an immediate contribution. Adapting to the employer’s culture should be the majority of their learning curve, a reasonable expectation.

Much of my work recently has been placing CFOs with Private Equity Groups’ (PEG) portfolio companies. In case you have been disconnected from all economic news for the last decade, PEGs have been reshaping the economy, creating a lot of opportunities. These companies have a defined timetable to divestiture. Their time horizon is relatively short. During their holding periods, they maintain a focus on strategic initiatives to maximize terminal value. They need senior level managers who can help them achieve their goals within the holding period. They seek specialists.

The lack of industry-specific experience is another obstacle facing Baby-boomers in transition. There are many factors in play in this situation; however, this bias is not absolute. To be sure, a transition into some industries is difficult. Job functions like CEO, COO, and senior level marketing positions may require significant industry experience. Hiring a senior manage without relevant industry experience is usually unwise, but not always. Typically, there is somewhat more flexibility regarding specific industry experience for other job functions.

If you want to change industries, focus on your leadership skills. Senior-level jobs are about directing and managing teams, leadership. As a serious job seeker, you will research new industry segments to become familiar with revenue models, customers, and operational challenges. That work will help nullify a lack of industry experience. However, in competition for any job, you must sell your strengths. As a senior executive, leadership should be your greatest strength. As a candidate for a senior position, focus on accomplishments which required effective leadership, then translate those situations to the needs of the employer.

As an effective leader, you will have developed “street cred,” specialized skills. You did not get to this point without becoming proficient in a particular discipline or activity. In the New Normal, employers are looking for people with specialized skills. For example, some people are great at turnarounds, whereas others may be adept at penetrating new markets. Some executives are good at building new companies where others are skilled at protecting mature brands. If you look back on your career, you will find common threads for your success. Do you have particular strength in re-engineering, business development, or maybe, systems implementation? If so, these are your specialties. Your next step is to build a resume that highlights these skills so as to match the job. Skill sets that are transferrable to other industry segments are highly desirable.

Referring to the two Executives mentioned at the beginning of this article: the difference in their results is due to the quality of their networks. More to the point, the successful job seeker (a CFO type) has a contact that is well-networked into the community. His contact made an introduction to a CEO who needed a CFO. The referral source was highly credible, which led to a positive hiring decision. The other candidate’s networking efforts have not been as successful.

Since most job seekers find employment through networking, managing your network is vital. However, the size of your network is not as important as are high-quality, highly-motivated contacts working on your behalf. They must understand your search strategy to best present your capabilities. Actively manage your network to ensure its effectiveness. Make sure they know how to help you.

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3-02-2017:  New Century Dynamics Executive Search is pleased to announce that it has landed a Search for a Chief Operating Officer.

I am looking for a COO to join my client’s team. They are an Atlanta-based, Casual Dining Brand. The position offers a competitive salary plus healthy incentive program. If you know anyone with a Restaurant Company Operations/Franchising background who is looking for a new opportunity, please contact me for further information.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read. Your input is important to me so; please leave a comment.