The Executive Update

The Consulting Conundrum: Is Consulting the Right Alternative

Many of the senior executives we talk to at NETSHARE have been consultants at one time or another. (Sometimes I think of Janis Joplin and hum “freelance is another word for nothing left to lose…” in my head.) Consulting is a necessary evil for many between positions, and a number of executives find they can do quite well at consulting, if they understand the rules. According to Alan Weiss, president of the Summit Consulting Group:

“There are about 400,000 people in the U.S. calling themselves consultants. My estimate is that only half of them are actually working as consultants. Most enter the profession as a second career or after they're retired.”

There was an interesting article posted to BusinessWeek.com by Smart Answers columnist Karen Klein, “Why Self-Employed Consultants Fail,” which offers some interesting tips for those considering consulting. If you are thinking about consulting, remember the following:

1. Consulting is a marketing business. Being smart or having a great service is not enough. Start with a great marketing approach, spread the word, and be patient while you start to get results.
2. Billable hours won’t make you rich. You need to bill on value, not time. Time is finite and you can’t scale it. Billing should be based on how fast you can solve the client’s problem and what that solution is worth.
3. The problem with most consultants is they lack the self-esteem to bill what they are worth, and they tend to deal with people not authorized to write the check. Poor self-esteem rises when you are self-employed because you don’t have bosses to hide behind, and friends and spouses often look at consulting as a road to failure rather than real work.
4. You can provide true value by building intellectual property. You need to become a thought-leader in a specific niche that your client base wants to tap.
5. Bill on value. Create metrics and milestones that demonstrate that you are getting paid for results, e.g., if you can show a company how to save $1 million or improve their market position by $2.5 million, that’s worth $100,000 or $250,000 for the company.
6. Deal with the decision-makers and get them to come to you. The best approach is to become an expert, ideally with a published book or high visibility through social media and other mechanisms. If you become a known expert then corporate decision-makers will come looking for you and you can name your own price.
7. The best clients are companies that need “remedial help” – they are already strong in their market and have money to spend. Know your strengths, and remember that lousy prospects make terrible clients, so don’t fall in the trap of taking them on just because they have money. Bad clients don’t help you build your brand.

Ask the Coach: You Have Questions, We Have Answers

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from our most recent session with Christine Dennison, The Job Search Coach.

As part of our weekly career coaching call, NETSHARE members will call, email, and tweet their questions for our coaches to answer. As a change of pace this week, we thought we would offer the questions as they were presented, with the responses by this week’s expert, Chris Dennison:

Q: Can you discuss working with, finding and approaching Private Equity firms?

To quote from Chicago politics, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” Job search success depends heavily on relationships and referrals. There also are search firms that include work with private equity and venture capital firms in their specialties; check the Kennedy Information Directory. Banks, investment banks and accounting firms also have those relationships, so see who’s in your network who can introduce you. There are also firms that keep a stable of interim managers on tap, such as Tatum LLC, which has offices across the country.

Q: In the past I held two C-level positions (CEO and COO) at relatively small firms (under $10M). I have been looking for a position as General Manager/Director/Vice President for which I consider myself well-qualified, but I am getting the impression that recruiters and hiring managers are dissuaded by my previous C-level positions. Perhaps they are thinking that I no longer have the energy to "work," that I might not be used to reporting to someone, that I am just looking for an "interim" position. How do I overcome this?

Your best strategy is to focus on connecting your ability with their specific pain. Then the resume can (and should) be more of an afterthought. If you’re using the resume as a door-opener, it’s much more difficult to avoid the typecasting and assumptions. Job search conversations and relationship development are especially critical situations like yours.

Q: During this difficult economic time, some candidates may have issues in their background check related to home short sales or other financial issues. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this, or do these topics even come up on the typical employment background check?

Background checks are becoming more prevalent, but many states are trying to update their laws to keep them fairer. For the most part, an actual credit check should only apply to positions that include handling money. Most of the time you will have had a chance to win them over before a background check is performed, but it’s still difficult to figure out if and when to bring up any negative information that may be in your record. Companies shouldn’t poke around for information that isn’t relevant to your ability to do the job, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. Of course, if you are turned down you might have grounds to sue them, but where does that get you?

Q: You go on a face-to-face interview. It goes exceedingly well and you get very positive feedback in terms of comments made and body language. But once you leave the building it turns into a literal black hole. The HR contact doesn't respond to your emails or return your phone calls, even though you strongly suspect that you're going to get called back for a second interview. Is the HR contact dodging you because he/she literally doesn't know when the next round of interviews is going to take place? And if that's the case, what's the best course of action? Stop trying to contact them? The "not knowing" is leading me to some sleepless nights.

“They” don’t usually mean to leave you hanging. It’s good to ask during the interview what the next steps will be and the timetable. Then you have a reason to follow up, but add a week to whatever they say. HR is usually in a state of frustration, trying to keep the decision-makers moving the process along. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to be professionally persistent –just be sympathetic to HR’s challenges. As much as we would love to be the center of their work schedule, that’s never the case.

Resume Errors: How Computers Are Making Us Dumber

If you work with hiring managers and recruiters, you will hear all kinds of horror stories about receiving resumes and samples. It appears that job search can impede common sense, and living out loud online has made us less concerned about how people perceive us as we rush from email to blog post to get the word out.

In many ways, the personal computer has made it easier to look foolish to a hiring manager or recruiter because computers make it possible to work faster without necessarily checking what we are doing. It has become too easy to send a resume at the click of a mouse or post material on the web to use as a reference, whether that material is a fit or not. One recruiter recently posted to her Facebook page that she had just received a cover letter directing her to a blog site for writing samples, and the blog site bears the disclaimer, “not suitable for readers under 18.” What was that job seeker thinking?

The computer age has made it easier to reach out to prospective employers via web, e-mail, e-forms, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it. And that’s the problem, it has become so easy to reach out that the proprieties and protocols are suffering as a result – candidates don’t take the time they need to think and review before they hit “send.”

I recently saw a blog post from Peter Shankman, social media expert and author, and founder of Help A Reporter Out, who was seeking to hire an assistant editor. His experience is all-too-typical what recruiters and hiring managers are seeing today:

• He received 481 resumes, of which 33 were sent to the wrong email address so were disqualified for failure to follow instructions.
• Of the remaining 449, 184 had the resume attached to an email without a cover letter, note, subject line notation, nothing. They were immediately eliminated. As Shankman says:

“We didn’t specifically ask for a cover letter, but come on – Nothing? That doesn’t give us much to go on. That’s like a guy walking up to a girl in a bar and just screaming “SEX!” It doesn’t work. Give us some reason to look at you – This is your first introduction to us. “JOB!” doesn’t cut it.”

• Another 52 were immediately eliminated for spelling or grammar errors, or because they were addressed to the wrong person or the wrong company (the curse of cut-and-paste in haste).
• 213 resumes left, and 28 were eliminated for their email addresses (e.g. poopiepants47@hotmail.com)
• Of the 185 left, 20 were selected who matched the job criteria

So nearly half of the resumes he received for this job were eliminated for stupid errors and because the candidate did not stop to think or check his or her work. Maybe computers don’t make us dumber, but they do tend to make us more careless, and those mistakes will eliminate you from the running before you can even show your value.

Ask the Coach: The Serendipity of Networking

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 Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers based in New York City

One of the things that job seekers come to NETSHARE for is networking. After all, that is the premise of NETSHARE and where we took our name; to network and share information to help one another. Yet networking remains one of the most misunderstood concepts. When you network with others it is for mutual interest, and information exchange, and benefit. It’s not so you can get what you need from the other guy. Networking continues to be challenging for almost everyone, from the graduating student to the most seasoned CEO. Which brings us to serendipity.

As Barbara noted in this week’s Ask the Coach call, serendipity is driven by accident – you make discoveries that are important or of significant value to you without planning them. Serendipity plays a significant role in networking because everyone has something to contribute, and until you connect in whatever fashion presents itself, you will never know how that contact can add to your competitive intelligence. You never know who will be in a position to change your path or help you in some significant way. (I always remember the grocery clerk who made an introduction for a customer that landed him a high-paying executive job.)

So when you start to network, remember that making connections, although very important, is just the start. You want to make quality connections, but quantity of connections also is a factor. Once you make contact, don’t expect every connection to produce the results you want. And don’t assume that just because someone seems to be a “small fish” they are not in a position to introduce you to people you need to talk to – hiring managers, chief executives, board members, etc. Connections come in all shapes and sizes, from the Rotary club and your daughter’s soccer league.

Serendipity plans an important role in many of your connections. You just need to remain open to the possibilities. Be engaged, help others to the best of your ability, and leave yourself open to receiving assistance in return. Be genuine and you will be remembered and rewarded. You never know who might be able to help you in your career quest and when serendipity might play a part.

What Makes a Good Boss? Google Has Done the Analytics

I recently saw an interesting blog post at North of Neutral, an executive coaching firm based in New York, where Coach Dr. Carolyn Mathews cites a New York Times article about “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss.” The article describes an initiative Google launched in 2009 code-named Project Oxygen to determine what makes a good boss.

After poring over performance reviews, employee interviews, feedback surveys, and other materials, Google identified eight ways to improve staff management. What Google recognized is that the three key reasons people leave their jobs: a) because they don’t agree with the company mission, b) they have no respect for their coworkers, or c) they have a terrible boss. Of these three, having a bad boss was the biggest variable, and the element over which they could implement the greatest control. And what Carolyn Mathews notes is that the top three of those eight positive traits are what you want to look for in a great boss and a great mentor:

“What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”

1. Be a good coach. This means providing positive feedback and balancing negative criticism with positive reinforcement. According to Mathews, the best P/N ration to balance positive to negative comments should be around 2.9-to-1 to elicit optimal workplace performance. And being a good coach means having regular one-on-one meetings with staffers where you identify solutions to problems based on the employee’s specific strengths and talents.
2. Empower your team. One of the most common complaints about bad bosses is micromanaging. If you can boost creative thinking with positive feedback (as noted in promoting a healthy P/N ratio above), then it minimizes micromanaging, enabling team members to use their own initiative and approach their boss for advice when needed. Mathews cites the concept of “flow” where you need to establish clear goals, balance the perceived challenge and the perceived ability so you are giving stretch assignments that can be solved, and provide clear and immediate feedback. That’s how you give your staff leadership without micromanaging.
3. Show interest in team members’ success and their well-being. Good management requires empathy. You want to get to know your employees and what makes them tick, both on the job and outside the office. You also want to make sure that you nurture newcomers and make them feel welcome to help ease transition. People quit their jobs because they don’t feel appreciated, not just as employees but as human beings. Work takes up a lot of time and energy, which is why people need to feel their work is connected to the rest of their personal life, and that connection needs to be acknowledged and even celebrated.

Check out the article. The other five of those key management traits may be common sense, but they are strong indicators of what makes a good manager. As you are looking for your next career opportunity, keep these indicators in mind. They will provide a good litmus test as to whether your next boss is a good manager or not.

Ask the Coach: Navigating the Recruiter Phone Screening

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.

Whether you are dealing with a recruiter or a hiring manager, you have to navigate the initial phone screening. Your objective is to present your credentials in such a way that the recruiter will see you as a solid candidate for the position in question. You also want to get a solid sense of the qualifications they are looking for so you can be more focused as you move through the process.

In this week’s coach call, Kristin had some specific suggestions as to how best to tackle the initial phone screening. A lot of her advice has to do more with proper preparation so you can be ready for the call itself. Here are some suggestions she offered to our Ask the Coach callers:

1. Read the job specification carefully. All candidates are given a job description before a phone screening, and there is a lot of detail and insight in that document that can point you in the right direction. Identify elements that aren’t boilerplate and that give you a hint as to the company’s focus and needs. Kristin notes that most job descriptions are poorly written, so you have to be prepared to ask about the company’s most pressing challenges. Also ask about expectations for the first three months, six months, and 12 months.
2. Read up on the hiring company. This is a critical part of your homework. Check out the company on LinkedIn. Talk to connections about what is going on with the company (preferably by phone rather than email). Find out all you can.
3. What kind of questions can you expect? It naturally depends on the nature of the position, but Kristin offered some ideas of the questions she would ask for a technology position. You can anticipate similar questions:
   • What experience do you have to the company’s market? Have you dealt with that target audience and similar products?
   • Have you had P&L responsibility? Did you have revenue targets, manage the sales team, have hiring/firing responsibility, manage resources to a budget, etc.
   • Have you had product lifecycle experience? Do you manage product development, QA, product marketing, etc? Do you have cross-functional interaction with sales, product marketing, engineering, etc?
4. Be prepared to answer questions about your management approach. You want to be specific here, talking about whom you managed, where they were located, your management challenges and how you handled them, and how you mentored those under your supervision.
5. Customer involvement. What was your role in working with large corporate accounts? How did you handle interaction and who had accountability for customer satisfaction.
6. Whenever possible, use examples. You want to use specific examples to answer questions and who how these examples related to experience cited on your resume.