The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: The Holidays Are the Time to Reconnect with Lost Contacts

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.

In our last blog post we noted that this is the perfect time to be networking. This week’s career coach, Barbara Safani, concurs, noting that this is the time to make the most of holiday cheer and to get back in touch with those contacts who may have fallen off your radar.

It can be a bit awkward reaching out to someone who has fallen out of your professional life. Things happen and people get busy and you don’t have time to keep up, and after a time you realize that you have not been in touch and maybe you have even fallen down on the job and missed a promise or two. Your friends and contacts who may have been close at one time have all but disappeared.

No matter! The holidays are the perfect time to re-establish those connections. You feel guilty about letting the relationship lapse, but chances are so does the other party. Networking is a two-way street, and if you were busy and forgetful then probably the other person shares the same feelings. The holidays offer you a chance to get reacquainted.

Use holiday greetings as an excuse to reconnect on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, etc. Reach out with an e-card or an email or a telephone call. Ask about their family, their hobbies, or some personal concern. What are their goals these days? If you open with such an icebreaker chances are the conversation will turn around to “and how are you,” which gives you a chance to bring them up to date on your successes and your goals. This is an excellent opportunity to ask if they know any experts who can offer counsel about a target company or market.

Remember that “out of office” responses are normal when you reach out via email in December. You should not be discouraged. Many recruiters may take time off until the New Year, but in tough economic times many are working through the holidays, while others leave someone to mind the store. Since things are slower and they are in a holiday mood, they might be more receptive to phone calls or even a chat over coffee. You can stand out from the crowd if you haven’t already packed it in for the season.

One of executive on the coaching call noted that whenever a recruiter views his LinkedIn profile, he immediately sends that recruiter a note offering to help with his search through his own network, and he almost always receives an email back from the recruiter.

Timing is everything, and the holidays are the perfect time to renew your connections and make some new ones. It’s also a good time to refresh your LinkedIn, Google, and Facebook profiles – our next Experts Connection session shows you how to approach low-maintenance social networking.

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.

Trapped in Transition: Don’t Derail Your Next Interview

We all know that career transitions are difficult. You go into an interview assuming that there will be skepticism, and that the hiring manager or recruiter is looking for reasons to exclude you from the mix of candidates because you aren’t working or you are trying to enter a new field and your credentials aren’t an exact fit. This is where transition candidates lose the opportunity; when they approach a job opportunity from a point of weakness, inwardly saying to themselves, “I am not worthy.”

Candidates in transition often are their own worst enemy largely because they ARE in transition. They lack their usual self-assurance and assume an air or quiet desperation that sabotages the interview. Last week I read a blog entry profiling this phenomenon from the Candidate’s Chair. Blogger Mark Richards describes some insights he gathered from Marcia Ballinger of Keystone Search about the difference between candidates with jobs and those in transition.

According to Ballinger, there are some distinct behavioral differences that candidates in transition display during a job interview. Like it or not, these unconscious clues usually lead to the candidates’ downfall:

1. The candidate talks more than listens. They are usually nervous and on the defensive.
2. They don’t wait for the speaker to finish before answering a question.
3. They quickly assume that the position is exactly what they want, without hearing more. They are desperate for a job so they aren’t worried about pounding a round peg into a square hole.
4. Their responses are usually less consider and glib, lacking any depth of thought.
5. They talk faster, as though trying to squeeze in more information to close a sale.
6. They lean forward taking a more aggressive posture.
7. They are seeking to persuade the interviewer, not understand their needs.

As Richards points out, when you are competing for an opening, you don’t have to be perfect but you do have to be better than the next guy:

“Much like that old joke about when you and buddy are being chased by a bear, you don’t have to run faster than the bear, just your buddy. When it comes to hiring, the candidate selected is not the best at everything, they are simply better than the other candidates.”

To be perceived as better than the other candidates, you need to control your anxiety and project your competence with confidence. Here’s the behavior to adopt for a successful job interview:

1. Be selective. Candidates who aren’t in transition are choosey; they can afford to be.
2. Wait to be convinced, instead of trying to convince them. Assume you are right for the role.
3. You should be genuinely interested in learning more about the job to determine if it is a good fit; don’t assume it’s a fit.
4. When you are employed, an interview is usually perceived as a business meeting of peers. Approach the situation as though you are talking to an equal, because you are. Don’t assume that because you are in transition you are at a disadvantage. Rather, stand on your expertise.
5. Try to put the hiring manager at ease as though they were talking to a staff member, not a salesman or an outsider.

Projecting the image that you don’t need the job and you can walk away gives you an advantage in an interview setting. It puts the interviewer on the defensive to convince you to consider the job. Take control of the interview by adopting a positive attitude, “I can take it or leave it,” and you will improve your chances. Better to approach from a position of strength and find the right position than going through the interview process again a year from now.

Ask the Coach: Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire!

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.

So what do you do when the competition flat out lies about their achievements?

That was one of the questions posed during this week’s Ask the Coach call. One of the callers said he had noticed that many executives he knows are embellishing their LinkedIn profiles. By playing loose with the facts about their experience and credentials, they look like terrific candidates that would garner the attention of a recruiter or a hiring manager in an online search. So how can he compete with these liars in a way that gets the same kind of attention without distorting the facts?

This particular job seeker says his specialty is closing big deals in tough markets, but he’s afraid if he posts his accomplishments it will look like “padding” and no one will believe him. Kristin Speer’s advice – you should never apologize for your experience.

You should post your achievements and find ways to back up your value. Provide news links or article clips about big deals that were part of your accomplishments. Or get others to validate your accomplishments with recommendations. If you have something to shout about, let others know.

Many times as a career coach, Kris said she has to work with clients to identify what metrics they had to prove their accomplishments. All too often those accomplishments are under-reported or not reported at all.

If you can validate your accomplishments then you will be ahead of the competition. When a recruiter or hiring manage challenges them about their achievements, they won’t be able to back up their claims, but you can. That’ll make the difference.

LinkedIn at 100 Million Members

I received an interesting little reminder from Reid Hoffman, CEO and co-founder of LinkedIn, today. He reminded me that I was member number 154,825 on the, then fledgling social network. Today, LinkedIn topped 100 million members (that’s 100,000,000), and they are reported to be adding two new members every second. That’s one-fifth of the population of North America. However you want to measure it, it’s a big number.

It has been fascinating to watch the growth of LinkedIn since Hoffman and his cronies launched it back in 2002. It was originally conceived of as a networking and career resource; a place where you could post your credentials and look for job opportunities. They actually launched the LinkedIn Jobs as their first premium service in March 2005. Since then it has evolved into the go-to resource for professionals in all walks of life looking to network with peers, potential customers, and potential employers.

Today’s note from Hoffman is, in itself, an interesting experiment in social networking. In monitoring Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels, I see my other connections sharing their membership numbers with their friends to see when they joined LinkedIn – “where were you when.” It’s generating a lot of buzz.

Of course, you can’t count 100 million people in your pool of closest friends. This is where the theory of the Strength of Weak Ties comes into play; where you find the connections you are seeking because you know someone who knows someone who can introduce you. It’s also interesting to see the sub-groups that have evolved within LinkedIn. LinkedIn Groups have proven an ideal way for peers and professionals to connect, just check out our main NETSHARE group as an example, and we have a number of sub-groups open to members. Clearly, LinkedIn has become the first stop for recruiters and hiring managers looking for talent because it offers a vast pool of searchable talent.

By contrast, I have been reviewing the history of NETSHARE. Our web presence predates LinkedIn by almost a decade – we launched our first web site in 1995 and our first searchable online job database in 1997. Where LinkedIn has built its user base with job seekers suddenly thrust into the job market, and demand from sales professionals and others prospecting for contacts, NETSHARE continues to remain focused on serving senior managers ($100,000 salary and up) with personalized services and networking. Where LinkedIn uses loose associations to build contacts, we provide one-to-one counseling and introduce members who can help one another, often with a phone call rather than an in-mail. We believe that networking needs to be more personal, which is why we continue to check all our job listings before they are posted, host weekly welcome calls, and career coaching calls for members.

So by combining the personalized service and custom career management tools we provide at NETSHARE with the broad reach of resources like LinkedIn, executives can develop a cohesive career management strategy and find the right hiring authorities and companies who can advance their careers.

(If you want to learn more about NETSHARE membership you can always visit us at www.netshare.com. And be sure to check out our next session of Experts Connection session with Jason Alba on “LinkedIn For Executives - Beyond The Basics.“)

Ask the Coach: Getting the Right Coach in Your Corner

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.

NETSHARE has been hosting these weekly Ask the Coach sessions for a few years now, and the reason they are valuable to members is because the coaches genuinely want to help job seekers achieve their goals. However, job seekers often find themselves confusing the role of a career coach and a recruiter. Both can be extremely helpful in getting you a job placement, but you always have to remember who they are working for.

The career coach is paid by the job seeker, which means you can expect their help and attention to define and achieve your goals. The recruiter is never paid by the candidate but rather by the hiring company, which means they are willing to assist you as long as you seem to be an ideal fit for the opening at hand. After all, it’s in their best interest to get you placed in the position since that’s how they get paid.

If you remember the distinction it will clarify your relationship with both the career coach and the recruiter. The coach will always be happy to talk to you since you are paying for the privilege. They want to help, since that’s how they prove their value (and why you will refer them to others in your network). The recruiter is happy to talk to you as well, as long as you will fit their needs. That means they will either be coaching you for an interview or helping you determine if you are the right candidate for their current search, or if you can direct them to someone who might be a good fit. If you can’t help them, then you are wasting their time.

And just as fit is important when looking for the right job, it’s also important when seeking the right career coach. Some coaches specialize in certain areas, industries, or executive roles. Others specialize in different aspects of job search, like helping you reposition for a new career, or helping you get your marketing documents in order. Many times, if you haven’t looked for a job in a long time, you won’t know where to start – you don’t have a current resume, you aren’t sure where to look, or what to look for, or what position to shoot for, or how to negotiate your compensation. The right career coach can help you sort through all those things and develop a strategy to help you achieve your goals, but you have to find someone you can work with. Fit is key. You need to find someone you can work with and whose “style” meshes with yours. They must have the same values. Trust your instincts.

Nicola notes that it is very important that the coach have a thorough understanding of the position you are looking for. They should have experience working with candidates at that same level. So ask questions. If they don’t have the right answers or understand the basics, then it won’t be a good fit. They may really be able to help executives in other areas, but they won’t be able to help you. You can always ask for a referral to find the right career coach, or get a recommendation from NETSHARE or a coaching association.

Using the Web to Get the Job You Want – 17 Lessons from the Tech Industry, Part 1

Everyone needs a job, which in some ways makes everyone a career expert. I tend to spend a lot of time talking to career coaches, recruiters, and those in the career management industry, but there are career experts in all fields. I recently ran across this interesting article from Channel Insider, one of the Ziff Davis online media channels serving high-tech resellers, on how to use SEO and social media to find the job you want. These 17 points are based on the same premise I hear from career coaches every day – it’s better to be found by recruiters and hiring managers rather than looking for opportunities. Or as the article’s author, Chris Talbot, expresses it, “Why look for a new IT job when you can bring recruiters, human resource representatives and hiring managers to your doorstep?”

This is a long but very helpful list, so I am going to post it in two parts:

1. Be an expert – Use blogs to demonstrate your domain expertise and what makes you a knowledgeable professional. And be sure to use the right keywords that are specific to the job you want, including location, areas of expertise, and even names of companies you admire and might like to work for.
2. Complete your social media profiles – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and blog profiles are all searchable so your profiles should be complete and loaded with searchable terms relevant to your profession. You don’t have to go overboard, of course. There has been a growing concern about social media sites like Facebook being ripe targets for identify thieves, so consider leaving out less important information that could be used against you, like your birth date or where you attended high school. The objective is to attract recruiters, not high school pals or identity thieves.
3. Show your face – Posting your picture adds a level of familiarity to your profile, and people tend to hire people they like.
4. Become a LinkedIn expert – If you don’t have time to blog, post your insights on the LinkedIn Forums in the form of questions or responses to others posts. This will boost your visibility so be sure to post under your real name with link backs to your phone and e-mail address. Also pick forums and threads where you know recruiters will most likely be lurking.
5. Link externally to boost your Google rankings – This is a great way to improve SEO, but only if the links are relevant and legitimate.
6. Join social networking groups – Identify networking groups that are relevant to your professional interests and become active. That’s where hiring managers will look for experts. Also look for corporate profiles in Facebook and MySpace. Or you can create your own group. LinkedIn and Facebook let you create your own groups and invite your own friends and associates to join. We have a NETSHARE forum on LinkedIn, for example. You might try forming your own forum.
7. Keep it professional – This may seem obvious, but with social networking people forget that their bosses and coworkers often can see their family photos and weekend posts as well. Don’t forget that everything you post online is discoverable, so don’t post something that would reflect badly on your professional brand. Make sure that you list your certifications and credentials in your bios so they are searchable. If a recruiter is looking for a specific certification or an MBA, make it easy to find them.
8. Target potential employers – Keywords are a great way to attract attention from the right people. All companies monitor their own brand, and they are looking at competitive products, so mention a targeted employer or competitive products in a relevant blog post of comment to boost your chances of turning up a hiring contact.

I’ll expand on this list in my next blog post.

The Lore of Online Job Listings: Is It Real or Urban Legend?

The social networking boom has had an interesting side effect with regard to job listings – it’s making a lot of these job posts larger than life. I have to ask if many of those listings I see propagating from CraigsList to KITlist to Twitter are real, or if they are really like urban legends. Consider the following:

Phony job listings have always plagued the human resources industry. We all know that many jobs are filled or the hiring company has a candidate in mind before a job is posted, but they have to post the position in order to comply with federal hiring regulations. Sometimes companies or more often recruiters just want to test the waters and gather resumes. I’m not talking about job scams on CraigsList for mystery shoppers but executive job listings for C-level positions. It’s always has been a problem and your only defense is to establish a rapport with recruiters and hiring managers so you know whom to trust.

Now let’s throw the Internet into this mix. When we started NETSHARE, e-mail was still in its infancy and FAXed job listings would be making the rounds. Then we all became connected and e-mail lists started to proliferate. One of the most popular these days is Sue Connelly’s KITlist. This list started out as a keep-in-touch mailing list in 1997 for employees laid off from Silicon Graphics. It’s grown to become one of the most active job lists on the ‘net.

Now consider what happens to KITlist postings. They get circulated via e-mail. You send them to friends who might be looking for a job, or a helpful recruiter might post it to a member list. We have a few recruiter members at NETSHARE that routinely repost KITlist leads. The same is true of Monster, HotJobs, and the big job boards. They routinely scrape other job boards, Criagslist, and other sources to build out their listings. These job listings get picked up and circulated by job bots, e-mail, and other web propagators.

And these same leads hit the social networking circuit where they take on a life of their own. There are more than 400 Twitter feeds dedicated to tracking job leads. So these Twitter leads get retweeted by people trying to build their online presence, which means they get reposted to Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, wikis, everywhere. It’s easy for a phony lead to get added to the batch. KITlist, Monster, and other online job services don’t qualify their job leads so anyone can post a job anywhere, whether those jobs are real or not.  Suddenly, these job leads start becoming urban legends. You start seeing the same job leads everywhere, like Kilroy, and it gets harder to determine if it’s a lead you’ve seen before, let alone a lead for a real job.

That’s why it’s important to know the source of your job lead. At NETSHARE, for example, we don’t accept money for job listings, which means we can be choosey. We can qualify every job listing. Before we post a job from a new lister, they get a call from our COO or CEO to make sure that the lister understands the rules and that the jobs they post are legitimate. And NETSHARE listings can’t be scraped because they are protected behind a firewall for access by members only. We take our job listings seriously which is why we protect them and make them exclusive to members.

So when you’re cruising those online job listings, remember you don’t know what’s being posted on the Web. That’s why it’s important to work with Web watchdogs who can vet those job listings for you.