The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: Hiring Managers Abandon Bottom Trawling for Spear Fishing

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando.

Based on the insight shared in this week’s Ask the Coach call, it’s clear that it’s more important than ever to build an online brand presence and post your credentials online where they can be found by discriminating hiring managers. The way corporations are finding qualified job candidates is changing, and to succeed, your tactics need to change along with it.

As Don told those on this week’s call, the current system is antiquated and hopeless broken because it can’t keep up with the demand. Consider the following steps companies use to find candidates:

1. Recruiters or hiring companies post openings on one or more or the mega job boards. Since the big job boards don’t maintain exclusive, qualified job listings, chances are those jobs will proliferate throughout the Web, since it is a common practice to scrape and repost job listings. As a result, corporations are inundated with applications, and most of the applicants are not qualified. Why? A recent study shows that recruiters and hiring managers spend on average 15 seconds reviewing a resume; but the average job applicant spends 23 seconds scanning posted job openings.
2. Recruiters put together a review panel based on applicants to cull through the mountain of online applications, and narrow them down to three or four likely candidates. If one of those candidates is hired, it means a commission of 25 percent to 33 percent of their annual salary for the recruiter.
3. Frustrated with the quality of the candidates they are interviewing, the company starts looking for the candidates themselves, using a spear fishing approach rather than a trawler net to land the types of candidates they need.

This third option is becoming the norm, not the exception. Don notes that more companies are becoming more discriminating in where they post their job listings, and they are proactively searching the Web seeking out qualified job candidates. Corporations are using more targeted job boards, like NETSHARE, to control their job listings, making sure they get higher quality candidates and aren’t flooded with unqualified Internet applicants. They also are using outlets like LinkedIn and the professional forums on NETSHARE, following specialty blogs and industry-specific discussions to find those who write about their industry and provide quality comments for discussion. They then follow these industry experts, make a connection and establish a rapport until those proven experts might entertain an offer.

So why not go where companies are looking for candidates. Don’t get scooped up with all the other Web candidates. Instead, be exclusive, connect with your online peers, and show them what you know and the hiring managers will to seek you out. That’s the new reality.

Ask the Coach: Hiring Managers Abandon Bottom Trawling for Spear Fishing

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando.

Based on the insight shared in this week’s Ask the Coach call, it’s clear that it’s more important than ever to build an online brand presence and post your credentials online where they can be found by discriminating hiring managers. The way corporations are finding qualified job candidates is changing, and to succeed, your tactics need to change along with it.

As Don told those on this week’s call, the current system is antiquated and hopeless broken because it can’t keep up with the demand. Consider the following steps companies use to find candidates:

1. Recruiters or hiring companies post openings on one or more or the mega job boards. Since the big job boards don’t maintain exclusive, qualified job listings, chances are those jobs will proliferate throughout the Web, since it is a common practice to scrape and repost job listings. As a result, corporations are inundated with applications, and most of the applicants are not qualified. Why? A recent study shows that recruiters and hiring managers spend on average 15 seconds reviewing a resume; but the average job applicant spends 23 seconds scanning posted job openings.
2. Recruiters put together a review panel based on applicants to cull through the mountain of online applications, and narrow them down to three or four likely candidates. If one of those candidates is hired, it means a commission of 25 percent to 33 percent of their annual salary for the recruiter.
3. Frustrated with the quality of the candidates they are interviewing, the company starts looking for the candidates themselves, using a spear fishing approach rather than a trawler net to land the types of candidates they need.

This third option is becoming the norm, not the exception. Don notes that more companies are becoming more discriminating in where they post their job listings, and they are proactively searching the Web seeking out qualified job candidates. Corporations are using more targeted job boards, like NETSHARE, to control their job listings, making sure they get higher quality candidates and aren’t flooded with unqualified Internet applicants. They also are using outlets like LinkedIn and the professional forums on NETSHARE, following specialty blogs and industry-specific discussions to find those who write about their industry and provide quality comments for discussion. They then follow these industry experts, make a connection and establish a rapport until those proven experts might entertain an offer.

So why not go where companies are looking for candidates. Don’t get scooped up with all the other Web candidates. Instead, be exclusive, connect with your online peers, and show them what you know and the hiring managers will to seek you out. That’s the new reality.

Ask the Coach: Create a Theme for Your Resume to Show Value

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with our newest expert to join Ask the Coach, Christine Dennison, The Job Search Coach.

This week’s call started with a question from a professional who has been transferred from one job to another throughout his career. As a result, it appears that he doesn’t have a focus. How do you combat that in presenting yourself in a resume or cover letter?

The best way to approach a resume these days is to put a summary of your qualifications at the top or a value proposition. It’s no longer useful to start with a career objective at the top if the resume. Instead, you need to show your value from the outset, and provide your background in a nutshell and guide the reader. You can use accomplishments or themes around your background.

For example, even if you have had a number of different kinds of positions, you can usually take a step back and figure out if there are themes, things you are good at. Think in terms of what difference you made for each company you worked for; what did you inherit, how did you solve problems, and how do you add to their bottom line. If you can summarize that kind of information it will demonstrate your value in a nutshell. If you have a diverse background with many career changes, you still can identify a recurring theme.

It’s also important that you not ask the reader to have to figure you out. You are not asking them to choose from the long list of possibilities and isolate the matching elements that fit the position. Don’t worry about getting in all the key words and experience that might fit the job. Pick a main theme and develop two or three different versions of the resume to cover the different hats you might wear.

Promise Fulfilled: A Look at the Web from 1995

 

Anyone rememberClifford Stohl? He sprang to fame back in the late 1980s when he published The Cuckoo’s Egg, an Internet thriller (from before the days of the web) where he tracked an international spy ring through the Internet. He followed that book with Silicon Snake Oil in 1995, an anti-technology look at the Internet and the way it depersonalizes human interaction. What made me think of Stohl was an old article from Newsweek  Stohl penned before the release of Silicon Snake Oil entitled, “The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn't, and will never be, nirvana.”

What’s fascinating is that Stohl has been proven so absolutely and complete wrong in 15 years. Here are just of few of his predictions from 1995:

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

 

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

 

Well, of course we are all living in a virtual world these days. We are telecommuting. There are interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. The printed newspaper is dying and all kinds of multimedia content are being delivered online. The Web is changing everything, for better or for worse, and in an irreversible way.

Stohl’s biggest argument (in 1995) is that the Internet depersonalizes human interaction.  He claims that computers are really isolating us rather than drawing us closer together:

What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.

 

But that was before the birth of social media. I have always been an advocate for human interaction, and I always say a face-to face meeting is preferred to a phone call or an online chat. That’s why we have a weekly Ask the Coach phone call where NETSHARE members can interact with career coaches and get practical advice. It’s the same reason I have a weekly welcome call with members to get to know them personally, and see how we can help them with their career challenges.

 

However, contrary to Stohl’s predictions, social media has proven to be an invaluable tool to promote more personal interaction. Technology-driven conversations via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are helping all of us become more connected and broaden our reach to touch and connect with even more people. Once we connect online, we can move those exchanges into more intimate conversations via e-mail, phone, and in person.

 

Stohl continues to be an interesting visionary worth listening to for new ideas, but no one gets it right all the time. A lot of his predictions from 1995 have proven themselves to be completely wrong, and I think we are all the better for it.

Ask the Coach: Top 5 Tips for Effective Job Search

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with our newest expert to join Ask the Coach, Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers based in New York City.

Barbara Safani is the latest career expert to join the NETSHARE team, and she had some sage words of advice for job seekers in today’s market. She noted that the landscape has changed, and the time to hire has increased substantially. Along the way, the parameters change, which means the job specs change, business needs change, and these delays have nothing to do with the candidates. It’s not about you!

And because searches take longer, you need to stay in touch with the hiring authorities without stalking them. Look for natural touch points. If you read an article or blog that is relevant, pass it along with a note, “Thought you might be interested in this…” And as you are interviewing, ask that all-important questions, “What is the next step in the process? What is your timeline?” Use tangible data points to determine when you need to touch base again.

One caller asked Barbara if she had a top five action list to get hired? Barbara did have a top five list to help executives find meaningful work:

1. Network – Building your professional network is a lifelong endeavor, and you need to be consistent and persistent. Even when you are working, take the time to maintain your network of contacts. You never know when you may need them. Make a brief contact at least once a quarter to remind your network of who you are, what you did together, and how you know each other.
2. Recruiters – Build relationships with recruiters. Recruiters are struggling like everyone else. There has been a huge reduction in inventory, and recruiters are looking for help like everyone else. Become a resource; Help them find qualified candidates who meet exact criteria. Remember they do not work for you, but they will help you if you can help them.
3. Use online networking – Join those social networks you feel most comfortable with, because you will get more out of them.  Using business sites like LinkedIn also makes it easier to reconnect with those in your network and find people who can help you get ahead.
4. Direct targeting of companies – It’s up to you to find companies that need your expertise. You are the only one who can best determine if you have what that company needs, and if there is a good fit, even if they don’t have a specific opening. Make the contact, become known, and create your own opening.
5. Online Career Sites – There are a wide range of online career sources, from the big job posting boards to the niche career service sites, like NETHSHARE, which offers networking tools, forums, resources, and screened job postings. The big job boards can be useful for researching the job market and see who is hiring, and the niche career sites with screened postings are better for applying for targeted positions.

Of course, even identifying these top five approaches, you still need to apply a multi-pronged approach and use all possible routes that lead to success. Spend more time on relationship building. When people are comfortable with whom you are, they can become your best ally.

Pay It Forward Video Resume Service – Film It Now and Pay Later

 

I had an interesting conversation with Dan Powers this week. Dan is the co-founder of a new video resume service in Silicon Valley, SanJoseStock.com. With partner Kymberli Brady, who lost her marketing job last September, Dan is producing two-minute video resumes for clients. And here’s the hook – if their unemployed clients can’t pay the $100 fee, they can pay later.I love this kind of “pay-it-forward” business model, especially in this economic climate. As Brady said in her KGO interview (posted here), “I can’t find a job, so I have to make one.” And she has support from the Silicon Valley business community as well, as demonstrated by the fact that the San Jose Executive Center donated space for them to film their video resumes for three days.

It’s not only altruistic, but I am sure it is a smart business move. It’s demonstrated that video resumes help you stand out from the crowd. For the KGO-YV news story, they interviewed Jim Vandergrift, creative director for Design Reactor in Campbell, California, a local design firm that receives hundreds of resumes from applicants looking for work. He said he had never seen a video resume before, and it made the applicant really stand out.

As Brady says, deferring payment for those in need is a means of paying a spiritual and emotional mortgage. And it might promise future gigs from those grateful folks who are newly employed.

Ask the Coach: Mastering the Personal Brand

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with career transition coach and consultant Randy Block.

Randy Block was this week’s career coach, and he shared his innovative and effective strategy for developing your own personal brand. One caller was struggling with feeling “stuck,” and Randy’s recommendation was to get out there and start networking, but before you can do that, you need to determine what makes you stand out from the crowd. That’s why you need to create your personal brand.

Your personal brand is not your last job title but what makes you unique in your field. It characterizes what you do, and what others believe about you. To identify your personal brand, ask yourself what you are good at? What do you truly love doing, and what you do very, very well? How do you contribute to a company? Just as Starbucks has a product that makes you think “coffee,” and Coca-Cola has a product that makes you think “soda,” you need to create a personal brand that would make someone want to buy the product that is you!

To identify your personal brand, look back on your achievements from the last 10 years, including group achievements where you played a significant role. This does not mean listing your duties and responsibilities – everyone with the same job will share those and they don’t differentiate you. Be specific about your achievements and include metrics; measurable results. People can relate to metrics.

Randy has defined two steps for finding your persona brand?

1.  Make a list of your achievements since you obtained your degree and group them in three categories: a) You loved this work; b) You did the work and it was okay; and c) You did the work, accomplished something, and never want to do it again.
2. Now take the achievements in category A and look for a common thread. What verbs come to mind over and over again? Focus on what you accomplished, not how you did it. And “metricize” your achievements – talk about profits, growth, lowered costs, positive changes.

 Now write a three-to-four sentence outline of what you uncovered and share it with six of your closest friends; people who will be honest and say what they think. Let them know you are working on your personal brand and want their input. Ask them, “When my name comes up, what comes to mind – both personally and professionally?” Then wait for the response without prompting. (Note that if they can’t provide an example, that’s not a good sign.) Then take their answers and compare them to your four-sentence outline. Refine the results into a two-sentence description and share it with your six friends to see if you are on the mark. Make sure your value statement highlights your unique qualities.

Now you can take that value statement and have it printed on a business card beneath your name, and you now have a mini resume that you can use anywhere.

Remember that the impact of a good personal brand is that it makes you memorable. Five years ago at a networking event, Randy met an attendee and when he asked her what she did she replied, “I help the world stay in focus.” She was an optometrist, but Randy still remembers the value statement.

Armed for the Interview – The Three “Must Haves”

Career coaches can be very helpful in guiding you through your strengths and weaknesses, and preparing you to make a good impression in your next interview. In recent Ask the Coach calls, we have had a number of callers who say they are getting the interviews, but not the offers. Maybe it’s time to look past your credentials and brush up on your interview skills. I recently spotted a blog post by Brad Remillard of Impact Hiring Solutions, where he profiles the three things you must have for a successful interview.

The first thing is confidence. Even at the executive level, many or even most job candidates lack confidence, and that shows in an interview. And that lack of confidence becomes more self-evident the longer you are in the job market. It comes across in body language, how you sit in the chair, eye contact (or lack of it), and tone of voice. If you lack confidence you tend to give generic answers or won’t voice an opinion for fear of being too specific and knocking yourself out of the running. No one wants to hire a wimp. So how do you exude confidence? One way is to adopt the mindset that you already have a great career and you don’t need the job you are interviewing for. Pretend you are already on the job. That will give you a chance to reveal the real you in action.

Second, prepare your questions. If you don’t have any questions, then you haven’t done your homework. It shows a lack of understanding, or worse, a lack of interest. Asking probing questions is your chance to really show your stuff. Be ready to probe, get clarification, and get more information. Brad sees two things that stop candidates from asking questions: 1) fear of confrontation and 2) lack of preparation.

Third is preparation. If you have read this blog regularly, you know we are advocates of preparation. Brad spells out some specific steps to help you prepare that are very useful, including:

-   Write out the basic questions you know will be asked and have answers prepared.

-   Conduct mock interviews.

-   Prepare your own set of questions to ask during the interview.

-   Identify weaknesses in your interview style and know where to compensate.

-   Prepare to have details to explain bullet points in your resume.

-   Think about body language and its impact on the interview.

There are other pointers as well. You might also consider joining us on our next Experts Connection teleseminar, “Cultivating Executive Presence to Get Your Next Job,” scheduled for February 24. During this session, Dr. Dean Herman will share his insights into how to overcome the inner roadblocks to job search and bring more confidence and success to interviews and other personal interactions.

Ask the Coach: Rethinking the Resume

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Nicola James, Managing Partner of Thomas Brooke International.

Much of this weeks’ coaching call revolved around marketing documents, specifically formulating your resume. One caller asked about resume writing and keyword placement. Should you write your resume to be scannable? How important are keywords?

Nicola notes that keywords matter but they need to be relevant and not random. You can’t guarantee scanning success. Every manager and every company uses different search criteria, and you can’t guess or choose every possible keyword for a specific position. You need to be a natural match, and you can’t achieve authenticity by throwing a series of keywords into your resume.

When we write about ourselves we often overlook things. That’s why it’s important to get someone knowledgeable to review your resume. The right feedback can help you pinpoint where you may have missed critical information. Of course, they must know the target audience; Nicola sees great resumes that neglect to mention the industry or the product line.

Another caller noted that some resume writers are pushing the problem/solution resume style rather than the narrative style. Is this an acceptable trend? Nicola likes the problem/solution style resume when it fits in the commonly acceptable resume format. She wants to see the complete chronological history of a candidate, where they come from, and what their career track looks like, including the company and its size. The resume should be no more than two pages.

Nicola added that she prefers adding a third section: Problem/Action/Result. She wants to see how you did what you did. That’s what sets the great candidates apart from the good candidates. Nicola likes to look at what you did and compare it to what the client needs; is it a good match and does it fit their culture. Present an appropriate example for each position held.

One caller noted that, with 30 years experience, it’s difficult to fit everything into two pages. Nicola advises not to go into extreme detail with every job. Companies are really only interested in the last 10 years of work history. Before that, they want to see a career progression without gaps.  Where the company is no longer in business, just tell the truth. Provide dates of employment and explain there was an acquisition or whatever is appropriate. If you need to provide more details, you can always create additional documents or addenda.

If you are interested in learning more about honing your strategies for your marketing documents, join Experts Connection on April 28 for a teleseminar on “Top 5 Critical Marketing Tools for Executives.”

Using Video To Promote Your Personal Brand

We talk a lot about the value of online networking and building your brand presence using outlets like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. These are great online branding tools that can help you promote yourself and your unique value proposition, but they also are getting to be crowded outlets. You need to get your name and brand out there online, but everyone is using the same outlets so how do you differentiate yourself?

Consider video. I recently received an interesting e-mail directing me to a blog post by personal brandmeister Paul Copcutt of Square Peg on how to use video to promote your personal brand. What he has to say makes a lot of sense:

“One of the concerns about personal branding, especially if someone has built a significant online presence is that how much of it is controlled or even manufactured? People are starting to ask - who can we trust or believe?

“Enter - VIDEO - it's helping to level the playing field a little.”

Video can be a great branding tool to help you stand out from the crowd. Check out the video that Paul posted on his blog to see how he uses it to promote himself. And you can post the video in multiple locations, like Vimeo and YouTube, and then embed it in Facebook and other places to give you more visibility. It also gives you a chance to project your personality and connect in a more realistic way with others. Video also gives you an opportunity to differentiate your brand and communicate something about yourself with a more personal passion.

And just as there are online locations to post your portfolio, like VisualCV, there are online video production resources as well. Paul recommends videoBio, which can produce a professional video bio for you for $299. With a little skill you can do it yourself with a Flip camera or a video camera, but production quality matters so getting some professional assistance may not be a bad idea.

As with posting photos online, some are concerned about how videos might promote ageism and weed you out of the running from the start because people can actually see you. You can think of seeing your image online as a barrier to entry, but if you think about it another way, you can’t hide your age. Hiring managers will determine your age from your marketing documents or other means before they commit to an interview. If you harness social media and video, it demonstrates that you are savvier than the next candidate and it may give you an edge.

The real trick is what you do with your video calling card once you have produced it. You need to use it to create a trail of breadcrumbs that leads back to your primary online location, whether that’s your blog, your web site, or your LinkedIn profile. Video can be a great brand differentiator, but you have to use it with a plan in mind so you are strategically promoting your personal brand, not just throwing a video out on the web and hoping it gets seen.