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 Peter Engler, president of the Engler Career Group.
In this week’s coaching session, Peter Engler offered a number of tips for executives on how to engage with potential employers. As Peter notes, most executives are woefully unprepared when they engage with potential employers. His advice, start with an executive bio as an ice breaker; a bio says you are interested in a meeting to see how you can work together, where a resume says you are looking for a job (and your contact may not have one). Your primary objective is to keep the lines of communication open.
To help executives prepare, Peter uses a number of tools to help you identify hidden strengths and reveal weaknesses. The Birkman Method is one he has had particular luck with. It offers a series of online questions to better determine strengths, and cultures and work situations where you will flourish. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you make a better first impression.
Transferrable skills are what make you valuable. The real challenge is selling those skills while you are in transition. Peter’s approach is to tackle it head on with a short e-mail or letter to the hiring authority with a three-part message:
- Praise them (“I was alerted to the great things that XYZ company is doing in…”);
- Make the connection (“My background includes… with is directly in line with the challenges you face”); and
- Set up the meeting (“I would like to schedule a meeting to review how we might meet these challenges. I will contact you this Friday at 9:00 to schedule the meeting.”).
And use your network of contacts to target a dozen companies in your area that you are interested in working for. Use LinkedIn, Google, NETSHARE executive forums, and other sources to identify decision-makers – hiring managers, board members who know about changes at the C level, and senior executives. Then reach out to them with your three-part message. Consider trying to land a consulting contract and then parlay it into a full-time position after an appropriate honeymoon period. Just continue to find new ways to open channels of communication and maintain the dialogue to generate new opportunities.
