The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: Summertime is Time to Relax and Keep 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.

The topic of this week’s Ask the Coach call was summer vacation and how to stay engaged with your job search while you also take some down time. Remember that your family is an important component of your job search; they are the core of your support network, so you need to treat them well and spending time with your family during the summer is one way to do it. But that doesn’t mean you have to squander your free time. Multitask!

Vacations are a great time to expand your network through conversations with others in a relaxing atmosphere. The pressure is off, which makes it easier to find things you have in common with others that could lead to career opportunities. Even if you are taking a “staycation,” keep networking. Once the ice is broken and a relationship has been started, it’s much easier to explain what you do and what you love to do; where your passions lie. Be sure to let the other party talk and learn as well. Remember that they are being complimented when you indicate that they are worth listening to as well.

You can build on these conversations so you are not only better known, but have a larger network to build on. Enlist more recruits to your fan club. When these new summer contacts go back to their routine, they will remember you and pass your name along. Also be sure to reach out to them when the summer is over and find out how life is going for them, and what future plans they may have that match your interests. Ask about mutual contacts and see if you can set up a time to talk. Remember you want to talk; you don’t want to ask for a job.

Be sure you plan how to stay on their radar when vacations are over and decisions are ready to be made. That’s when you want to have your name to be remembered.

You might consider partnering with someone who is in a similar situation, and who understands your problems and stresses. Consider them your accountability partner who can help you stay on track. And be sure you partner with someone who will be honest and supportive.

Ask the Coach: “Let’s Change Partners and Dance…” – Embracing the Portfolio Career

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, career transition coach Randy Block led the call and he had some interesting insight for those who joined us:

“Changing partners might be your best move in the job search dance.”

Traditionally, career nirvana was to land a job with a company and stay there. You would work your way up the ladder and retire with a nice pension and benefits. Thanks to the economic upheaval we have just experienced this idyllic picture will seem like something made up for a movie or the plot of a novel. What was once almost guaranteed is now harder and harder to find. In fact, hiring managers sometimes look on a stable career path with suspicion; What's wrong with this person they stayed in one place so long? Didn’t he or she have any job offers? Is there no desire to expand their horizons?

Older workers who have been "indoctrinated" in this expectation need to realize that the "dream" does not exist for many anymore. They must adapt, or die.

More and more boomers are finding it difficult to make the cut when it comes to hiring. As Randy points out, most Gen Xers don't want their father working for them. Most boomers are not used to taking orders from their kids. It can be a very uncomfortable working situation. Many of today’s Gen X hiring managers see boomers as lacking energy, lacking technical skills, lacking social media skills, and lacking an understanding of current consumers and their needs.

To overcome these obstacles, boomers must show that they are none of the above. They must prove they are on the cutting edge of change and technology. Yes, they know what SEO and SEM mean. They can tweet and blog with the best of them. They have a strong web presence and a dynamic digital footprint. A quick Google search of their name will prove their value, and show that they are willing to share this value in discussion groups, industry conferences, and with thought leaders.

Instead of working towards the full-time job with the large company as a career strategy for a long run, boomers need to change partners. They need to look to a Portfolio Career. This will provide them with many challenges - each a separate chapter, a separate project. By being project-based you make yourself appear to be more valuable and more ready to be hired by the companies you are interested in. Where they can't see hiring you for a full-time position, they can see hiring you to fix the problem at hand. Once that problem is fixed, you have proven your worth in spades. The company has seen how you "fit" into its culture. They have seen that you are up on the industry and that you can work with their employees. They might just decide to take the leap and offer you a full-time position.

Now it's your turn to decide if you like this partner enough to stay or look for another partner who fits your style and needs better. You can start a new chapter with a new challenge – it’s always a new dance.

LinkedIn Netiquette Requires Finesse and Tact

This week we will be hosting our Experts Connection teleseminar on how to get the most from LinkedIn with Jason Alba, “LinkedIn For Executives - Beyond The Basics.” A lot of experts talk about the best way to get more from LinkedIn, but I have also seen a number of social networking faux pas from inexperienced users who routinely break the rules of LinkedIn etiquette. Last week, Hannah Morgan, the Career Sherpa, posted an article on how NOT to network on LinkedIn. Although some of the advice may seem obvious, these reminders will help us all brush up on our netiquette.

All LinkedIn users get requests to connect. Some come as short messages, others come as “in-mails,” and others come as requests through connections. All of these approaches have their own issues, but the first thing to remember is that you are looking to make a new network contact; you are not looking to land a job. So you need to be sensitive to the recipient’s time and value to you, and what you might have to offer in return.

There also are some specific rules that are applicable to making contact.

1. Formatting matters. This means you should avoid long rambling paragraphs, and use a spell checker. You want to be clean and concise.
2. Get to the point. Explain what you want at the beginning and then go into the whys and wherefores. You might event include some insight in the subject line.
3. Be specific about your role and qualifications. Don’t use vague terms or make the recipient think too hard about what you do. If you make them work they will ignore you.
4. Don’t bother offering an email or a resume. You’re on LinkedIn! If they accept your request to connect then they can see your credentials and contact information in your profile, and they can always reach you through the LinkedIn network.
5. Don’t ask the other party to do all the work. Ask to connect, but don’t put the burden on them to send information, or give you something for nothing. People are busy and all you should ask of them is to click the “accept” button to make contact. Nothing more.
6. What’s in it for them? Granted, you are looking for people to help you find a job, but don’t make it obvious that you want to connect because this person is a stepping stone to your final goal. No one wants to feel used. Offer something in return if you can, such as contacts they might find useful or insight from a LinkedIn group they might find valuable.

In any networking situation, you want to be tactful, respectful, and gracious. Networking is an exchange of information, which means it should be of mutual benefit. Establish the rapport before you start making requests.

Ask the Coach: What's in Your Career Toolbox?

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.

This week, Nicola James hosted out Ask the Coach call. Much of the discussion revolved around developing all the career documents you can as part of your career toolbox.

As Nicola points out, resumes are a basic tool. They are not very exciting (in fact, they are often downright boring) but they are designed to deliver the facts quickly, succinctly, and thoroughly. And, of course, they are supposed to be sufficiently interesting to capture the reader’s attention. That’s a tall order, but one worth striving for.

Remember that when preparing your resume there is no time or room to address subtle nuances. You have to capture the reader’s attention in 15 seconds or less. The challenge is delivering the right information to capture their attention.

Of course, your resume can’t stand alone as the only tool in your career arsenal. Nicola strongly urges all executives, whether actively seeking a new job or passive candidates, to make sure their LinkedIn profiles are up to date and structured to capture attention. Many will look for your LinkedIn profile or search for you on Google before they engage with you. And a complete LinkedIn profile will increase your Google rankings. (If you are interested in learning more about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, be sure to check out this month’s Experts Connection: “LinkedIn for Executives – Beyond the Basics.”)

Other tools you can include in your career toolbox to add that extra something – case studies, executive biographies, white papers, SlideShare presentations, and other marketing materials. Services like Box.net and SlideShare let you add more dimensions and depth to your online presence. They allow you to present additional content and materials that demonstrate your real value.

So think about ways to build your online persona. Don’t let your resume be your only means of introduction. Identify other online resources that can help you tell your story and point out your skills and your real value.

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: Ask the Question They Should Ask

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando .

This week’s career coach, Don Orlando, offered an important insight to those listening in on this week’s Ask the Coach call: HR professionals and hiring managers have many masters, so you need to be empathetic about their challenges when you interview.

Don noted that HR people work really hard, especially since they often get conflicting orders from their management. Sometime they don’t have the right training, or the correct information, and they often don’t get a lot of respect from their bosses. And they are the ones who are expected to find the perfect candidate among the avalanche or resumes that hit their desks. They need to identify the perfect manager to fill a position when they often don’t have any real understanding of what it takes to do the job. They are under a lot of pressure.

The same is true for the hiring manager. They have to negotiate a maze of legal red tape, and be cognizant of cultural and business rules imposed by senior management. And they still have to find the right candidate who can do the job and who will meet with the approval of their boss. They have to find the right candidate and make sure that candidate will generate more revenue than they cost the company to find, hire, and retain them. Again, they are under a lot of pressure.

So what is your best approach to help alleviate this pressure? Help them ask the questions you would ask if you had to hire you!

Remember, too, that most of the managers who find themselves hiring new employees have little or no training in how to conduct an interview. They usually prepare for a candidate interview as they would for a business meeting. The business still needs to make money, so their focus is (or should be) on how you will help them boost sales or control costs. How do you fit as a solution to his problem?

Everyone is worried about the “Tell me about yourself” question. The question they should be asking is “Tell me how what you do is going to have value for my company?” If you have a good brand value statement then the answer will be clear. And that value is transferrable from one position, or company, or industry to another.

Throw them a lifeline. Ask them “What is your single greatest problem at this moment?” Or ask, “If I am hired, what do I need to have achieved after six months to succeed in this position?” This will help them focus on the right question and gives you an opportunity to listen and understand what they really need so you can market yourself as the solution to that problem.

Ask the Coach: Face to Face Still Promotes the Best Connection

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.

This week, Kris Speer fielded a question that resonated with almost everyone on the Ask the Coach call: “I'm setting up face to face meetings with local recruiters. I'm attending networking events. But the phone just isn't ringing. What else should I be doing?”

Kris congratulated him on reaching out to recruiters and arranging personal meetings. Generally, recruiters will only give you their time if you provide an almost exact match for a search they are conducting, but it’s good to stay on their radar. Recruiters are inundated with hundreds of requests and resumes so it’s easy to get lost in the crowd, and face-to-face meetings are the ultimate in personal networking. There is no better way to tell someone who you are.

Attending networking events also is important, assuming you target the right kinds of events. You want to target active networking events where there is a good mix of employed executives and job seekers at or above your professional level. But don’t stop there. Also target industry conferences and trade shows. They are a great way to stay on the cutting edge of your market and people you reach out to later will have a face to match the name. By broadening the scope of the events you attend, you will expand your network of connections and your knowledge. Remember you are not looking for a job; you are looking for meaningful connections, mentors, and information. And NETSHARE members can search out one another through the NETSHARE site by searching on zip codes to set up face-to-face meetings.

Kris also recommended that you try something new. CFOs are often involved in the hiring process so target them as part of your networking strategy. Don’t show up with your resume. Instead, determine what information they would find useful in your industry. Write an article for an industry newsletter or conduct a survey on the topic and call the CFOs to let them know you are interested in their expertise as part of your research, and offer to share the results when you are done.

And don’t forget your old friend, the telephone. Most people shy away from the telephone, which means you can use it to your advantage. If you can schedule a meeting, great, but a phone call can help you cement the relationship as well.

What’s It Worth to You?

The salary question comes up in every job discussion, and it is the toughest question to answer, or really to dodge if you can. If you name a price too early, then you could be out of the running before you can demonstrate your value. If you shoot too low, then you have boxed yourself in or eliminated yourself as being less of an executive than they were seeking. So how do you handle the money question?

There are a number of strategies, but perhaps the most cogent approach I have seen lately was put forward in a blog by Lindsay Olsen of Paradigm Staffing. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Think about timing. We all know that salary is an easy check box that keeps you in or out of the running. Don’t fall into the trap of offering a salary figure up front in a cover letter or screening interview. Instead, keep it vague until you can demonstrate you are the perfect candidate for the job. If you’re perfect, a couple of dollars won’t get in the way.
2. Be prepared. Do your homework and see what the market will bear. Use sites like Glassdoor.com and Salary.com to see what the position is worth based on your experience, and see what others with similar positions earn. Research the employer’s competitors. A recruiter may also be a good source of salary information.
3. The artful dodger. Avoid naming a salary figure, period. Most people don’t want to talk about salary numbers, so if you can avoid the question, they’ll fill in the blanks for you to relieve the discomfort. If the hiring manager asks you about salary expectations, say you don’t know what range they have budgeted and he or she may fill in the blanks. Also remember that you are looking at a compensation package, not just a salary figure.
4. Salary stare-down. If you are the first to name a salary figure, then you lost the stare-down. You want to get a salary figure based on your experience, not your past job or what your predecessor earned. It’s like playing poker. You can’t reveal your hand before you know how high they might go.
5. Offer a range. When your back is to the wall, give them a range. Assume they are paying a fair wage and tell them what your research shows.

Try it. It’s a proven approach. If you can demonstrate yourself to be invaluable, then the sky is the limit, and that’s what they will offer you.

If you are looking for a crash course in salary negotiation, you might check out Barbara Safani’s recent presentation on Experts Connection, “Show Me the Money: Executive Compensation Negotiation in Today’s Marketplace.”

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.

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.