The Executive Update

Why Should I Employ You?

That was a question that was posed recently to the NETSHARE LinkedIn forum by Martin Buckland of Elite Resumes. The question was posted to stimulate discussion among both senior executives and recruiters, and it certainly hit the mark. The responses were quite diverse, and very enlightening.

Some of those in the group were quick to offer superlatives about their skills and prowess:

• “I get things done that last”
• “I believe in people...and what they are able to accomplish if you tap their will to win and get out of their way. “
• “I understand what it takes to drive demand and what it takes to satisfy it. “
• “I like to bring out ingenuity within operational teams…”

Others talked about what they look for in a candidate:

• “I look for achievements beyond the call of duty…” and “what have you done for junior people.”
• “The number one hiring mistake managers make is focusing too much on what you can teach (i.e. industry/product/technology), but they don't focus enough on what you can't teach (integrity, attitude, creativity, etc.) which explains why there is so much turnover in most organizations.”

But how relevant are these skills and differentiators in a competitive job market? Relevance is the key. As one commenter noted, “You can only answer the question if you know exactly what they are looking for…. You need to tailor your answer and show only benefits, not features.”

Randy Block, a regular on our Ask the Coach calls, concurred, noting that in the current job climate it’s all about features and more importantly, benefits. Your resume is your list of features, but those skills are only relevant if they deliver a specific benefit to a prospective employer. As Randy puts it, the question isn’t “Why should I hire you?” but rather the question you need to answer is do you have enough information about the job to match your features as benefits that suit the prospect’s needs? Relevance is the key. As Randy notes, “’I cured cancer’ is a great achievement, but it could get the response, ‘Cool, but we can’t use that here.’”

So as you conduct your job search, your marketing documents needs to reflect the features you have to offer that will put you in the running. To beat out the competition, you need to highlight those benefits you bring to the table that are relevant to the job the recruiter or hiring manager is trying to fill.

Ask the Coach: “Why Isn’t My Phone Ringing?”

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in career coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with Kristin Speer of Accelerated Search Consulting.

Sometimes job search seems like a lonely hearts club. You keep putting yourself out there but your phone isn’t ringing. That was the question posed to career coach Kris Speer this week: “What should I do if the phone isn't ringing?  I'm sending out lots of job apps but I'm not getting any phone calls or interviews.”

As Kris points out, getting the phone to ring is part of a larger personal branding initiative. If you are sending a lot of materials out and not getting a call back, something is standing in the way. Take a hard look at your “presence.” What does your personal branding material say about you? Assess your marketing documents, your social media profiles, and your digital footprint to see if they are consistent. Do they really represent your value?

As part of your online presence, make sure you have a LinkedIn profile. As Kris notes, this is the way most recruiters and hiring managers find candidates, and your profile should make you approachable. After all, LinkedIn is a networking platform, not a profile to present to a board of directors. Use a friendly picture. Be open in your communications and let that openness come through. Let others know you are open to relocation, or meetings, or consulting work. And make sure you can be found! Many recruiters search by title or key word, so be sure to list yourself with a title that maps to the job you are seeking so you can be found.

And as your online brand proliferates throughout the Web, make sure that all sites point to the same personal brand. Use the same theme and the same photo across Ziggs, Jigsaw, Plaxo, Twitter, and Facebook to show consistency.

The recruiters like to be the ones doing the hunting, but you don’t have to be passive and wait for the phone to ring. Use the advanced search function in LinkedIn to look for recruiters by area of expertise and geography.  Invite them to connect. Kris notes that while it’s good to know the Partner in a search firm, it’s the Senior Associate who drives the search process. The Senior Associate is the one who assembles a short list of candidates, and you can help cement the relationship with a Senior Associate by sharing your expertise about your market niche. Helping them understand your market and facilitating a search can help put your name at the top of the list, if not for this search, then for the next one. It also shows your ability to act as a mentor, and how you train and work with others.

Above all, be gentle when you network. Don’t come in like a bulldozer and ask for a job. Don’t be a stalker. Once you make contact, ask politely how you can help. A short note every week or two with interesting information or offers of assistance is appropriate. Ask questions about subjects you wish to know more about so you can show you are interested and engaged.

When everything lines up, you are found by the right hiring managers, you have the right messages in your materials, and you show you are an asset, then the phone will start ringing.

Ask the Coach: Never Volunteer!

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 career management consultant Randy Block.

If you have served in the military, you know there is a cardinal rule among the rank and file, “Never volunteer!” The same is true in job search, as Randy reminded us this week, and there are so many areas where this rule needs to be applied.

As Randy told those on this week’s Ask the Coach call, there still is lots of discrimination in the workplace. Employers still discriminate based on age, ethnicity, religion, accent, sexual preference, or any one of a host of other factors. Even if you know you are being singled out for some irrelevant reason, you can rant and rave all you want and even threaten to sue, but it won’t do you any good in the long run. There are many aspects of the interview that you won’t be able to control so don’t even try.

However, one of the things you can control is how much you divulge. You control how much information you are ready to share, and when. During the interview, you want to be responsive to the interviewer and answer his or her questions, but be succinct and to the point, without offering a lot of extra information. You can always follow up one of their questions with your own, “Does that answer your question?” If you didn’t provide enough information, let the interviewer instruct you as to what additional information they are looking for. This will help you keep you answered focused and succinct.

One pitfall that many interviewees fall into is focusing too much on their last (or latest) boss. Many are concerned about their failed relationship with their last boss, and if it was rocky it can be an impediment to getting hired. Remember, there are three parts to any employment relationship: 1) the employee, 2) the company or the boss, and 3) the fit. If you have an issue with your former boss, address your response to fit: “It wasn’t that there was a personality conflict, goals were unattainable, etc. The fit wasn’t right.” Fit is something that everyone can relate to, and for those with an engagement of less than a year, it is a very valid reason for making a change. If you have been in a job for some time, show where things have changed so the fit has changed as well.

If you don’t volunteer too much information, you can retain control of the interview. Hiring managers are often looking for reasons not to hire you or to eliminate you from the running. If you don’t give them too much information, they can’t use it against you.

You Can Tweet Your Way To a New Job if You Know the Ropes

Many thanks to recruiter Lindsay Olsen of the search firm Paradigm Staffing for her tips in U.S. News & World Report on how to harness Twitter for job search. We have been talking to NETSHARE members about Twitter use for some time, and a number of our career coaches have become avid tweeters. The rules of Twitter are much the same as the rules for LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo or any networking site. It’s a place where you need to be found, engage in a conversation, and start building connections that can lead to other conversations. Hiring managers and recruiters are posting new jobs and searches on Twitter daily, and the advantage of Twitter is you can tweet back directly to get more details.

Lindsay’s tips are not only valuable for job search, but should be applied by anyone using Twitter:

1. Create a user-friendly profile. The whole concept of social media is to be real and be found, so use your real name or a professional equivalent and make sure your bio includes details about you that will be of interest to a potential hiring manager.
2. Link to your online sales materials. You have a web link in your profile – use it to link to your online resume or other background about who you are and what your personal brand represents.
3. Keep your tweets out in the open. There is an option to keep your tweets public or private. If your goal is to be found, keep your comments out there for all to see, especially recruiters.
4. Search for relevant hashtags. Twitter, Tweetdeck, and other third-party Twitter dashboard applications let you search keywords to follow, such as #job, so you can look for relevant conversations to follow.
5. Follow others in your industry. Track companies you are targeting and professionals working at those companies. Those connections could reveal hidden career possibilities.
6. Twitter lists help you find new people to follow. You can make your own lists to manage your feeds, or better yet, find similar lists that others are compiling and follow them to find new contacts.
7. Tweet consistently. Post regularly, at least once or twice a day, and try to interact with other Twitterers.
8. Help others first. Blatant self-promotion doesn’t work well in Twitter or any social media site. Listen and engage first, then offer information that is of interest and value. This will make you part of the community and promote conversation.

Ask the Coach: “Son, Let Me Tell You Why to Hire Me” – Coping with Ageism in the Interview

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 career management consultant Randy Block.

So you have spent the last 30 years successfully shepherding companies through turnarounds and opening new markets. You have proven your worth. So why is it so challenging now to convince Generation X hiring managers that you know your stuff?

This week, Randy tackled the challenge of interviewing with younger hiring managers. As Randy often says, no manager likes to hire his or her parents. So how are you going to overcome ageism during the interview process?

You land the interview because of your experience, and it’s clear the decision makers don’t understand what it takes to fix the company. You’re a forthright manager, so you want to tell them what’s broken, and how to fix it. But will such a direct approach sabotage your interview? How do you present yourself so that your expertise shines through without looking like a know-it-all father figure?

Randy made it clear that when you are interviewing with a younger hiring manager, tread carefully. Once you land the job, a no-nonsense approach may be appreciated, but you first have to convince them to hire you; that you are the solution to their problem. If you are an older job candidate then the hiring manager will probably be on the defensive, so to win the job, you need to align yourself with them – understand them. Until you convince them that you understand their problem and can move forward, there is no way to move forward. You know that to get to D, you must do A, B, and C first, but such a direct approach won’t be heard – who listens to mom or dad? Instead, you need to empathize, make them feel comfortable, and show them you are on the same page. Establish a rapport and understand how they perceive their problem, and where they want to go. Listen to them to understand their viewpoint and, ultimately, win them over.

Persuasion is your best weapon. Work to decide together that you have what they need to address their points of pain. The only way they will listen is when you have established credibility.

As Randy points out, most Generation Xers are good managers but they are not good leaders. They need leadership training. They need mentoring. That’s where you can make a difference. By coming across as the solution to their problem (without threatening their position) you can mentor and coach them; you can change their perception. Show them that you are the expert/advisor/guru they have been seeking.

Randy notes that in hiring into a company you can learn from family dynamics. In many families, the children and parents butt heads, but grandkids and grandparents deal smoothly with each other. That’s why many Millennials are going around Gen Xers in the workplace to connect directly with Boomers who can mentor them. Learn how to be gentle in assuming a mentoring role. Consider consulting, for example, which is much less threatening to younger hiring managers. You need to win them over before you can lead them.

New Scientific Evidence Shows Why Companies Should Keep Salaries a Secret

Staff salaries are one of the most closely guarded secrets in any corporation. Letting slip what George in marketing is earning, or what the CFO is making is a strict taboo, although it’s information that every employee would like to have. It’s human nature.

According to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton, there is good reason for keeping salary information secret. If salaries were made public knowledge, it would only have a negative impact on productivity:

“The University of California finding suggests employers have more to lose than to gain from publicizing salaries. Inexpensive workers might leave and costly ones aren't made more loyal”

Following the passage of a “right-to-know” law in March 2008, the Sacramento Bee published a list of state workers’ salaries, and the authors of the study contacted a select number of employees at UC campuses and directed them to the web site. When the researchers checked back a few days later, they found that use of the salary site was spreading like wildfire, and 80 percent of new users said they had looked up salary details for colleagues in their department. Workers with pay scales below the departmental median registered a huge drop in job satisfaction, while employees above the median registered no change.

While the findings aren’t necessarily surprising, they are validated by a scientific precedent called “inequality aversion theory,” which was proposed in 1999 by researchers in Zurich and Munich. Apparently, this theory states that people are willing to sacrifice their own potential rewards if they can block others from receiving greater rewards, like a higher salary. The theory has been tested and proven with monkeys, who reacted negatively when the other monkey received more bananas.

So salary secrecy is directly linked to productivity. If you don’t know what your coworkers are earning, there is no disincentive to perform. If corporate salaries become common knowledge, there’s no upside for the company. Those workers paid below the median wage are merely dissatisfied and more inclined to find more profitable work elsewhere, while those who are better paid probably won’t work any harder.