The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: Getting a Stake in the Private Equity Game

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 Nicola James, Managing Partner of Thomas Brooke International.

Private Equity firms have always had an allure for many executives. The challenge is how to get on their radar? This week’s career coach, Nicola James, has a lot of experience working with private equity firms and was able to provide some meaningful responses to NETSHARE member questions.

The first caller noted that he had worked with private equity firms in the past at a senior level. How should he re-engage with the private equity market? Nicola replied that his previous experience would give him some standing with those who have hiring authority.

Nicola reminded the callers that there are two different levels of hiring within a private equity firm. If they are hiring at the C-level, then that is usually done by the portfolio company, by the partners. In this case they usually look to their own personal networks for hiring candidates. This gives you an advantage since you can identify those partners and build your connections through your own networks. Determine their outside interests. Find different ways to approach them and get to know them. That way, when they start looking to fill a new position, you will be there. The challenge with working with partners, however, is they often tend to be disorganized and don’t have a formal process for managing their contacts, so you have to maintain regular contact to put yourself in the right place at the right time for the right opportunity.

Below the C-level, recruiting is usually handled by the Vice President of Recruiting. These guys are professionals, with better contacts and better contact management systems than you typically find at the partner level. The way the vice president will keep track of their candidates is better organized so being “top of mind” is less important, but they also don’t maintain that same personal connection. They tend to work from resumes and information in their database and they may or may not understand the real parameters of the job.

In either case, you need to have the right market connections of the “investment backed” background to make sure you can get traction in the job search. You also will have to be more flexible about compensation. Private equity opportunities usually don’t have the same salaries and you need to be prepared to take less compensation on the front end and look for an equity payout later.

If you have background in a specific market, then it’s best to search our private equity firms that work in those areas conducting searches for professionals with your background. You will need to determine where the gaps are in their knowledge base and demonstrate how you can fill the void. Show your value. If you can’t demonstrate your market value, then demonstrate what specialization you have that matches the company’s need- working with start-ups, working with underperforming companies, etc.

You need to help the private equity company connect the dots to show them why you are a great candidate. If you don’t connect the dots for them, they won’t do it themselves or they will do it wrong.

The Face-to-Face Interview: Maximize the Opportunity

The Face-to-Face Interview: Maximize the Opportunity

Guest post by Randy Block

Randy Block is an executive coach specializing in career transition. He also serves as a staffing and onboarding consultant for high tech start up companies. He has over 30 years experience in executive search/recruiting. Randy’s executive consulting practice includes both tactical and strategic issues; i.e. Interview Preparation, Personal Branding, Onboarding, Consulting/Freelancing Opportunities, Boomer issues, etc. Randy will be the featured presenter on this month’s Experts Connection. His topic, “The Face-to-Face Interview: Making the Most of Every Minute” will be presented on Wednesday, October 26th.
experts-connection.com

From my perspective in working with executives, particularly over the past few years….two things have become apparent:

1. Everyone purports to know how to interview…but few execute well.
2.The most qualified candidate does not necessarily get the offer…the offer usually goes to the candidate who interviews the best.

So, if you have survived the emailing, the phone interview(s) and made it to the face to face interview, you’ve done well…and you really deserve to maximize this opportunity that you have earned.

In my workshops on interviewing, I ask the audience this question: “If you are going to paint a room, what is the most important step in that process?” The answers vary from picking the paint color to choosing the right brush. The answer I’m looking for is “the prep.” If your masking is sloppy or you have not filled in the picture hook holes, you could pay $50/gallon for the paint and it will still look unprofessional. Your prized antique furniture or meaningful art will not cover up the mistakes.

When it comes to interviewing, we all know the preparation is important. So what do most people do for prep…check out the company website, study industry/product trends and Google the interviewer. And of course, review the job description. After all, we want to be knowledgeable and “right” with our answers.

This is helpful, but there is much room for improvement. Let’s examine one of these more closely; the job description. The job description is typically broken into three general parts:

1.Description of the company products and its industry.
2.The title, job duties/responsibilities and reporting structure.
3.The candidate profile –the person with these skills and qualities.

Numbers one and two are quantitative and the basis of your research. In my view number three is the most important part of the interview preparation. Here is where the all important “fit” comes into play.

The candidate profile is divided into “hard skills and experience” and soft skills i.e. leadership, decision making, management, etc. And of course all of them are grouped into “required” (usually in descending order of importance) and “preferred.” The “fit” is determined by relevancy (your skills and experience against their definition of what skills the successful candidate should have) and that indefinable something called “will you like doing the job and will I like you doing the job”.

To determine relevancy, I recommend the following as a guide. (Excessive humility or braggadocio will not help you here.)

1. List their required skills (again, whether you agree or not)
2.Then evaluate your skills (both hard and soft) on a scale from 1 (never heard of that acronym let alone do I know what it means) to 10 (I have current and direct experience, achievements and knowledge.)

Companies today want 8’s, 9’s and 10’s.

• For any low scores (7 and below) prepare an “equivalent answer”. For example, if the position requires an MBA and you don’t have one, your response might be “I have 20+ years of successful business experience.”

• For all of the soft skill questions, prepare a story of about 3 minutes that is a solid achievement supporting each soft skill.
Let’s consider the elements of that softer side of “fit” by today’s definition.

(Your technical competence is assumed at the time of the in person interview. Yes, they will check your references. Initially, technical is the focus of the phone screen with soft skills to be screened in the face-to-face meeting. You don’t even get the face-to-face interview unless you have the right background.)

1. During the interview, they want to know how excited you are about the position and the company. Have you chosen them? Be prepared to discuss why (from your heart as well as your head)
2.Will they like you doing the job? (This will be influenced by how you express yourself in #1) It is my opinion that #2 is at least 50-60% of the hiring decision today.

There are definite measures and tactics that you, the interviewee, have control over: your preparation, the interview itself and the followup. When following up with clients and their interviews, the question comes up …"would you do anything different?" If yes, we learn from it and move forward. If the answer is no, then we know we maximized the face-to-face interview. In these cases, we get and go out on another interview stronger and wiser and increasing the probability of success.

Ask the Coach: Where are the Holes in Your Job Search Template?

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.

Do you have a job search template?

This is a very common question that was raised again this week. You are entering the marketing phase of your job search. What is the schedule you should follow now?

There are templates or procedures that can help you on the way; that can assist you in staying “on top” of things. However, there is no “one-size-fits-all” template. There are basics that everyone needs to follow, but depending on your executive level, how long it has been since you last looked for a job, and how strong your professional network is, your needs will vary. If you have been maintaining your professional network and maintaining your personal brand, then your list will be shorter.

Networking is your most important step. Barbara could not emphasize this enough. Every one you have worked with, worked for, or who has worked for you is potentially a valuable contact. You could get assistance from an old schoolmate, parents from your kid’s soccer team, your mailman – you never know what might lead to your next job. Take five minutes each day to connect with someone from your past. Never ask for a job, but ask how they are doing and make the connection personal. Start a dialogue.

Prepare your marketing documents. Before others can understand your value, you must understand it yourself and be able to articulate it. What is it that you do better than anyone else? That is the essence of your personal brand, and it should be the cohesive glue that holds together all your marketing materials. Step one is to identify the components that make up your personal brand.

Your marketing documents include a resume and cover letter, but you also need an executive bio. Create an online profile that summarizes your value for use on online networking organization such as NETSHARE, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Facebook, Google+, Plaxo, Ziggs, Spoke, and Naymz. If you have a common name, such as Barbara, you can use Vizibility.com to fine-tune search results that lead to you. But whatever you do, make sure your brand is consistent throughout.

Promote your personal brand online by writing articles, commenting on industry forums and blogs, and if you have the inclination, start your own blog. Remember that companies want to find you, so leave an online trail for them to follow back to your posted branding materials, like your LinkedIn profile.

And you should have replying to job listings posted in targeted web sites as part of your job search strategy, but only devote about 5 percent of your time. You will get more results from proactive outreach rather than competing with everyone else for jobs posted on the web.

Where you need to focus your energy depends on your situation, but the basic elements are the same for everyone.

If you want more insight into how to take charge of your job search, join our Experts Connection teleseminar next week with Randy Block on how to handle face-to-face interviews. As Randy notes, most jobs don’t go to the most qualified, but they do go to those who interview the best.

From Blog to Job: Demonstrate Your Domain Expertise

Jason Alba, author of “You’re On LinkedIn, Now What?,” is a frequent contributor to our Experts Connection series. He recently wrote a blog about Blogging in a Job Search, which prompted me to think about different ways that NETSHARE candidates can differentiate their personal brand by demonstrating domain expertise.

Blogging about your area of expertise is one method, but as Jason notes when he recommends blogging, “When I speak, it’s one of the tactics I always talk about, but I don’t spend much time on it. It’s scary for a lot of people.” However, blogging is a great way to show your stuff in a manner that is easy to leverage for your job search. Think about how blogging works in a practical way:

Step one: Identify a topic that you are passionate about and that you can sustain as an ongoing blog. If your expertise is selling, then blog about sales strategies. Of if your specialty is logistics, set up a blog about procurement strategies. Whatever the topic, make sure you have enough content to add to the blog on a regular basis.

Step two: Surf the web for ideas. Most blogs aren’t based on original ideas but are spawned by other blogs (just as this blog post was inspired by Jason’s blog). Find other sites that inspire your thinking. Comment on those sites and adapt the discussion to demonstrate your own domain expertise.

Step three: Blog it. Write about what you are thinking and about your reactions to what you read on the Web. Be sure to attribute your sources, both because it is the right thing to do but also to build crosslink traffic.

Step four: Promote your blog. Once you have the source material posted on your own blog site, peddle it. Go to LinkedIn and other sources and offer your insights as expert commentary. For example, you can ask questions on LinkedIn groups and offer your blog posts as conversation starters. Or you can comment on other blogs adding, “This is what I think,” with a link back to your blog.

Step five: Include your blog in your marketing materials. Just as your resume and your executive bio are part of your job searching arsenal, so is your blog. As you identify contacts you want to network with, use your blog to start a conversation rather than sending a resume. It’s less threatening and doesn’t say “I am looking for a job.”

You also can use your blog to talk about target companies and their strategies. If you write about a company you are targeting for a job, that company is likely to pick up your comments and they might start tracking you. Or your comments might come up in a Web search once you get your foot in the door.

A blogging strategy is not that difficult to implement, although it does demand some time and some thought. You want to make sure you think through your blog strategy, and execute it well. However, a solid blog can help build your online presence and crystallize your personal brand; at the same time it gives you a new tool to start a conversation.

Ask the Coach: Talking to Potential Employers

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.

This week, job search expert Christine Dennison fielded questions from NETSHARE members about handling outreach to potential employers:

Q. Is it worth cold calling or sending a blind inquiry letter and a resume to a potential employer?

Yes if you use a targeted approach. Your best strategy is to build a list of companies that interest you, whether they have posted openings or not. Then research the companies; gather information from their website, use Google and LinkedIn, and research the executive profiles. Then draft a cover letter or make a phone call that is focused on the company, the company’s executives, and their needs. For example, “I see that you have just given a keynote speech…” or “I see you have just launched a new product line. Can we spend a few minutes talking about the industry…?” Focus on an industry issue, not on you.

Q. Companies often ask for a salary history. How do you deal with that?

Do everything you can to avoid the salary question until the final stages of negotiation, when you have a better sense of what they need and what it’s worth. When you do address the question, address the salary question confidently, firmly, and in a way that moves the dialogue forward. For example, “I’ll be happy to discuss compensation when I have a better understanding of what you need. What has been the main challenge in the last quarter?” Also know what a competitive salary range is. Review Salary.com, Payscale.com, and other resources to determine what the market rate looks like.

Q. How can I keep my job search a secret from my current employer?

Stealth marketing can be a challenge. First, don’t “hang” your resume anywhere where it can be discovered. You will need a LinkedIn profile, but set the tone to demonstrate that you are a subject expert looking to build your network. Turn off the “announcement” settings and don’t check the “career opportunities” box. Also don’t apply directly to posted positions. Instead, use research, talk about the industry, and be active in a way that it opens up confidential conversations.

Q. What’s the best way to spend your time in a job search?

Spend most of your time developing relationships and finding out what’s on the horizon for your target companies. Go after the decision-makers and try to catch them at the start of the search process. Talk to them about their business and competition before they talk to HR or a headhunter. When you approach them, don’t ask if they are hiring but try to spark ideas that demonstrate how you would be valuable to their business. Be curious, have your radar running, and see if you can turn the conversation into the possibility of hiring for an existing position, or even creating a new position. Show you understand their problems, and know how to solve them.

Sector Slump Means Looking for Greener Pastures

We all know the job market has been tough in the past few years, but some segments are suffering more than others. In a recent blog post by Lindsay Olson of Paradigm Staffing she notes that the hardest hit sectors according to a new report from Bullhorn are wholesale (down 40%), IT (down 31%), and entertainment (down 28%). There are a number of factors at work here, including the European debt crisis, a lack of confidence in Wall Street, slow recovery, and more. However, as Lindsay notes:

The major issue in unemployment is the long-term unemployment which accounts for 43 percent of the unemployed. These are people who have been out of work for at least six months and are still job seeking. Long-term unemployment means they are losing skills to keep them current with the market demands – creating a gap between the candidates’ qualifications and those the employer seeks.

Employers are seeing a flood of resumes for any given posting, many of whom are not qualified for the job they’re applying for. This is taking more time and energy than hiring has in the past.

It’s a lose/lose situation for both job hunters and employers, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better any time soon.

What’s an executive job seeker to do? Get creative! If your niche market is in a slump, look elsewhere. Determine where your skills will have the most value and peddle them into new arenas that are hiring.

Or better yet, rather than looking for a job, try looking for work. As Randy Block noted this week in our Ask the Coach call, senior executives can overcome age discrimination by looking for assignments rather than employment. Find a company that needs your services and offer your expertise as a consultant. That way you find work, the company gets the resources they need without risk, and you can open up new doors. If your current market area is flat, this strategy is a great way to build credentials in a new market that is growing.

Whatever you do, keep trying! NETSHARE has resources to help you stay focused and open new doors. And your network can help you rethink your strategy and identify new markets where you can promote your personal brand. If you aren’t getting traction in the areas you have been looking, start looking elsewhere and expand your vision. Your skills are transferrable if you know how to package them and market them.

Ask the Coach: Be the Hunted, Not the Hunter

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.

This week’s call with career coach Randy Block was a lively one. The discussion began with a discussion of social networking and how to use it effectively as part of your job search.

Randy opened the call with a story about a group of hunters who were very excited about the opening of moose season. They packed up and heading toward their cabin the woods to get to bed early to bag their first moose of the season early the next day. Imagine their disappointment when they awoke to find a dead moose on their doorstep. The point, of course, is that you want to be hunted rather than being the hunter.

The first caller talked about his LinkedIn strategy. He has a profile on LinkedIn but was only using it to network with contacts and he kept a lot of the information private; accessible by invitation only. Randy notes that that is a mistake. LinkedIn sells sophisticated SEO software to clients to help them find candidates on LinkedIn using sophisticated search criteria. In order to be found, you need to put your best foot forward in a searchable profile. Highlight your best achievements and make sure you are discoverable using keywords and other means.

Randy also emphasized the need to be perceived as a subject expert. Participate in the forums and offer expert opinions on various topics related to your personal brand. You become known by the groups where you are active and how you rank as an expert, so participation is important.

Another caller asked about the new social network Google+ and how important that is to job search. As Randy noted, some folks like to start with a Google search, and if you are active in Google it increases your rankings. Google+ is another tool that you can add to your job search arsenal to supplement your hunt-ability. The more Google tools you use, the higher your rankings.

Start by doing a vanity search and uncovering what you can on your name and your personal brand. Then you can help shape your brand with a Google profile and using Google+ to build your network. As Randy noted, relevancy is the key to job search today. To be found and considered, you need to be perceived as relevant, so you need to plant your brand footprint in as many searchable locations as possible.