The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: Getting Recruiter Attention

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.

We had a number of queries in this week’s coach call from executives looking for a new position and in transition. The common theme seemed to be how best to deal with recruiters.

One employed executive asked about the most productive way to reach retained recruiters. Randy’s response was to address your correspondence only to those recruiters who conduct searches in your target market or discipline. Also be sure to narrow your search by geography and other factors. If you can, get a friend or associate to introduce you, but before you reach out, be sure to have a clear idea of where you want to go with your career. If you are looking in “stealth” mode, the next session of Experts Connection is focused on “The Undercover Job Search: Stealth Tactics for Employed Executives,” and will include tips and techniques on how to work with recruiters and stay under the radar.

Another caller in transition asked about the value of signing with an outplacement firm. Are they worth the money? Randy noted that these firms are used to soften the blow during a layoff, but they charge between $20,000 and $25,000 for their services. They have started marketing to individuals as a sign of hard economic times. You want to assess the value of working with an outplacement firm versus a personal career coach who will work with you one-on-one. Both have to bring personal accountability to the process and help keep you on track with your job search, but beyond that you have to assess their real value for yourself.

A third caller asked why he wasn’t getting any positive responses to his cover letters and resume. He notes that he spends considerable time research each target company and targeting his marketing materials. Randy replied there can be any number of factors, but in the current job climate you need to match what the recruiter or hiring company is looking for pretty closely. If you are not a 90-percent match to the job specification, then you may not get a response. If, however, you are a close match to the job criteria and you still aren’t getting a response, then go directly to the hiring manager who needs the position filled. He or she may have a more precise set of hiring criteria than the recruiter or HR department.

Remember that NETSHARE hosts an Ask the Coach call for NETSHARE members on Monday at 2:00 Pacific time. The next Ask the Coach call is scheduled for January 23.

Some New Year’s Resolutions for Your Career in 2012

It’s a new year, and that means a renewed effort to manage your career. If you are like most people, you have made some New Year’s resolutions to improve performance for the coming year, and you may abandon those resolutions before January is over. However, if you are serious about making a positive career move in 2012, consider hanging on to some of these New Year’s resolutions:

1. Complete your LinkedIn Profile – If you haven’t done it already, complete your LinkedIn profile, and if you have completed it, consider revising it. Spend some effort reworking your profile to integrate the right key words and make it compelling. Talk to co-workers and others who can offer recommendations. Add a professional photo. Think like a hiring manager and look at your profile and ask yourself, “Would I contact this person?”
2. Network with a Purpose – Networking is important, and with social media it’s easy and it’s free! However, remember that you get what you pay for. Making thousands of LinkedIn connections has no value unless you know what those contacts can do for you. Identify a handful of networking groups and dig in so they know who you are. If you identify four LinkedIn groups, for example, each with 50 members, and you target those four groups, you emerge with 200 people who know who you are and what you have to offer.
3. Clean up your digital dirt – It’s time to do some housekeeping. Look at some of those old accounts you never use and close them, or refresh them if you have to. Do a Google search on yourself and see where you might have to do damage control, or where you might have to focus your energies to improve the rankings for content that matters to your personal brand. Try to remove those embarrassing photos on Facebook and check for past rants about your coworkers and your boss on Twitter and elsewhere. Resolve to be a clean and sober cybercitizen this year.
4. Determine your true value – Times have changed. Rather than chasing the salary you used to get three or four years ago, determine what your true market value is today. What are your skills worth today’s market, and how can you maximize your value? Check out Payscale.com, Glassdoor.com, Salary.com, and your peers and network contacts to reset your market value.
5. Focus Your Efforts – Don’t throw your resume at any job that appears. Don’t pursue arbitrary networking opportunities to build your contact list. Focus. Determine where you are going to get the most traction. Identify your skills, what market you want to work in, and focus your efforts to network into that industry, targeting company and people who can help you achieve your goals. Apply laser-like focus to your career goals.

Of course, these aren’t just New Year’s resolutions but are useful the year round. The beginning of a new year is a good time to re-think your career objectives, and how best to achieve them.

Time Management: The Underappreciated Skill in Job Search

Time management is one of the biggest challenges facing career changers. Where do you spend your time most effectively? How much time do you dedicate to online search? How much time do you apply to online networking? How much to materials development?

Time management is a skill set like any other and successful time management takes planning. So whether you are working on a major project or undertaking a career change, you need to have a strategy to allocate your time. Here’s a strategy outlined by Anne Lueneburger at North of Neutral:

1. Define your goals – Anne suggests you be “SMART” about establishing your time management goals. The acronym SMART stands for:
   • Specific – you want to be exact about your objectives. “Finding a better job” is much too vague. “Finding a vice president of marketing role with a major retailer within six months” is more specific. Use who, what, when, where, and why to guide you.
   • Measurable – You need to know success when you see it. If your time management strategy calls for making 30 new contacts a week, then that’s measurable.
   • Attainable – Don’t set your sights so high that you are destined to fail. If 30 contacts a week is too ambitious, for example, adjust your goal to 15.
   • Relevant – Be sure your goals are in line with your overall objectives. For example, building your personal network is important, but it’s only relevant if your new network contacts can help you achieve your objective.
   • Time-oriented – Establish deadlines and time parameters. For example, set yourself a realistic long-term deadline to find a new job, such as six months. And be sure to set yourself a short-term goal for time allocations, such as one hour a day for networking.
2. Prioritize – The challenge with time management is all the smaller tasks that are easy to accomplish, but distract from the larger tasks that should be a priority. Those things that are important and urgent usually get dealt with in a timely manner, but the important items that are less urgent often get set aside. Be sure to focus effort on action items that will accomplish the goal.
3. Overcome procrastination – We all have challenges with procrastination. The best approach is to recognize when procrastination starts and the take steps to eliminate it. There are some steps you can take to help, such as contacting a mentor or career coach for assistance getting focused, breaking daunting projects into bite-sized steps, addressing “worst things first” to get them out of the way, and setting yourself a small reward for accomplishing something unpleasant or difficult.
4. Manage disruptions – If you have incoming disruptions, manage them as part of the process. Build the new requests for your time into your priority list; are they urgent or can they wait? You can minimize disruptions by turning off your phone, shutting down your email, or closing your door. Set aside dedicated time to pursue your job search without interruption.
5. Take charge of your schedule – Set time aside every day for job search but be sure to balance your career management schedule with other demands on your time, such as family, friends, and work. Try to find a time that you can dedicate every day or every week to your career pursuits that won’t interfere with other activities.

Structuring your time is a good way to increase your productivity, but you can’t be too rigid about time management. If you don’t get everything done on your list, don’t punish yourself. Just be sure you make the most of the time you have allotted for your job search.

“Creative” No Longer Cuts It – the Most Overused Words on LinkedIn

We spend a lot of time and space on this weblog talking about the need to network and how important your online profile is. In fact, today we sponsored an Experts Connection webinar with social media expert Glenn Raines talking about how to create professional social media profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google. As part of that process, it is becoming increasingly important to stand out from the crowd. Hiring managers and recruiters are using social media outlets to find fresh talent, and they are using proactive search terms. That means you need to keep your social media profiles fresh as well.

According to the latest poll from LinkedIn, users continue to use the same hackneyed adjectives in their profiles. “Creativity” is the most overused buzzword for 2011, followed by “organizational” and “effective.” The problem with all these buzzwords is they do not differentiate you or your expertise. Everyone can make claims about vague capabilities like “creativity” and “effectiveness.” And such platitudes don’t promote searchability. No hiring manager is going to search for the term “creativity” or “effective.” They will search for nouns, such as “sales manager,” “telecommunications,” “top seller,” “Ruby on Rails,” and other specific terms that will help narrow their search. In his Experts Connection presentation, Glenn Raines noted that you need to keep your keyword density at 3 percent if you want your profile optimized for the search algorithms.

So don’t waste precious space on adjectives that are meaningless, actually less than meaningless because they just make you part of the herd. Try to use terms that differentiate you, and your expertise. Identify key phrases and terms that speak to your expertise and your profession. Think like a hiring manager. How would you find, well, you? What search terms would you use to find a hot property like yourself? If you can describe yourself as you want others to find you, you can build a solid social media profile without falling prey to buzzword bingo.

'Tis the Season to Be Searching!

The holidays are approaching and for many, it is a time to celebrate with friends and family and to forget about the woes of work. However, the holidays are the time you should be stepping up your job search. It is the season when companies are thinking about the year ahead, including staffing challenges, and when a little good cheer in the right quarters can land your next interview.

Why are the holidays a good time for job search? There are a number of factors:

1. Planning for a new year – For many companies, the New Year is a new fiscal year as well and they need to plan their staffing before January 1. Since many of the other executive candidates will be taking off during the holidays, this is your chance to step in and demonstrate your expertise because there will be fewer competitors and possibly more opportunities.
2. Vacations create opportunity – The holidays are the times when many key decision-makers are out of the office, which can complicate the hiring process. This also creates opportunities for creative job seekers. Business is slower so you make get key decision-makers on the phone. And if they are out of the office, they still need to hire for the coming year so they may actually call you back if you can address their problem. Executives have been known to interrupt their vacations to meet with short-listed candidates. Remember, they may have vacation days they need to use while balancing their hiring needs for the coming year, which could be a winning combination for you if you can get in front of the right hiring manager.
3. Good will toward men and women – The holidays also are the ideal time for networking. Use the excuse of holiday cheer to get together with former colleagues and others. Show some interest in their holiday plans and forge a deeper relationship. Send holiday greetings to your online connections to promote conversation. Catch up with an eye toward your contacts’ needs for the coming year.
4. Use the time to strategize – While others are taking time off, you can use the time to strategize to improve your search. Research potential hiring companies and refresh your existing research with an eye toward competitive challenges that you can help address for target companies in the year ahead. Use the time to refresh your marketing documents.

Remember that the season of holiday parties is full of networking events and companies are looking to fill positions before the New Year. Don’t take a break for the holidays but be even more aggressive in getting out there to rub elbows will holiday merrymakers. Who knows, Santa may put a new job in your stocking for Christmas.

Ask the Coach: Practice Organic Networking

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, career coach Christine Dennison continued on the theme that was begun in last week’s coach call – networking to advance your career while you are still employed. Many executives feel that building their personal networks will raise concerns with their current employers. Some employers may raise an eyebrow, but networking in today’s online world is a natural thing. And that was Chris’s advice – keep it natural.

Make networking a natural or organic extension of your interests and activities. Base your networking on curiosity, education, mentoring, and learning more about the industry, whether it’s your industry or a new one. This works for you whether you are looking for a new opportunity or not.

You can also start making natural inroads into target companies through online commentary. Conduct online research to determine what’s happening at your target companies. Identify what sets them apart in their market. Identify the movers and shakers within the organization and start communicating with them in a natural way. Using this approach, you become familiar to others in a low-stress manner that forges strong connections for the future without shouting “Hire me!” As you build your network you can keep yourself open for opportunities that may arise, either for yourself or for another network connection.

As you start to build that organic network, opportunities will arise. You will start to look at openings that are worth pursuing. How many openings can you try to juggle at one time? That’s up to you. However, you want to make sure you give each opportunity proper consideration. You don’t want to shortchange yourself or your potential employer by not assessing the opportunity properly. Dig deep. Assess the cultural fit as well as the job fit. Is the position you are going after what you really want to do. If you can’t give yourself the time you need to get all the information required for a fair assessment, then you are stretched too thin.

Remember, each opportunity needs to be considered on its own merit. If it’s a fit, excellent! If it isn’t a fit, then don’t close the door. Keep your options open. That same company may have a new opening just down the road and you want to be remembered in a positive light. If the job isn’t right for you, then be polite but offer to help find another candidate from your network. Show you want to work with them. It’s good karma for you and for the corporate recruiter, which can only lead to good things.

And if you want to learn more about how to effectively network using LinkedIn, be sure to join us next week, November 15, when LinkedIn expert Jason Alba presents the webinar, LINKEDIN FOR EXECUTIVES: BEYOND THE BASICS, 2012 Edition.

Ask the Coach: It’s Time to Clean Out Your Closet

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.

All of us can use a little professional help organizing our lives. If you are a fan of reality television, you may know of programs such as “What Not to Wear,” where the two show hosts help some fashion-challenged guest to improve their wardrobe. Or maybe you need a professional to help you reorganize your closet and eliminate all the stuff you haven’t worn for 10 years. The same is true of a career coach; they offer their services as experts to help job seekers organize their careers.

In this week’s coach call, career expert Barbara Safani made a compelling comparison between a career coach and a professional closet organizer.

If you are an experienced professional, you may ask yourself “Why do I need a professional resume writer or a career coach? Can’t I do this myself?” Well, at some level, you can do a lot of the work of job search without help. However, as with trying to clean out your closet, you are probably too close to the problem, which means you can’t be objective, or as effective.

Let’s consider our closets. We all have them, and like Fibber McGee’s famous hall closet, our own closets are often out of control. When we open the door we vow to clean things up, but as we go through them we become sidetracked by those items that hold fond memories. We think about that dress we haven’t worn for years, or that tennis racket that reminds you to start taking lessons again. You may have straightened up the closet, but in the end it’s still too cluttered with useless stuff. The same can be said for many resumes; they are cluttered with useless information that has relevance only for the job seeker.

This is where an impartial observer, like a career coach, can be invaluable. A career coach can provide a new perspective, since they have nothing personally invested in the process. Career experts can help us see ourselves from 40,000 feet as well as up close. They help bring into focus what will show us what facts are relevant to the search at hand (and not what was relevant two years ago, like that outdated dress). Career coaches are worth the investment. They can help shorten your job search, increase your pay, and best of all help you understand the best fit for your expertise.

So if it’s time for you to clean your career closet, consider hiring a professional to help you.

Ask the Coach: When Everything is Hurting, Offer Targeted Pain Relief

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 coach Randy Block observed that in hard times, gift stores tend to do well, where in good times high-end stores do well. When things are going well, we tend to go to great lengths to impress others through our shopping habits, spending money at the high-end stores that have a lot of offer. However, when times are hard, we tend to gravitate to the gift stores and target our shopping to meet a specific, immediate need.

The same is true in recruiting. Companies can’t afford to shop for high-end talent that offers multiple skills. They are not looking for a jack-of-all-trades. They need a skilled expert who can stop their pain in one specific area. If you muddy the waters, and your value proposition, by bundling your specific value with other traits, it will be lost. You need to be able to address their specific point of pain without making them wade through excess information.

Be sure to present all the pertinent information right up front! Make it easy to find and easier to understand. There can be no question about the value you bring and that it’s aligned with what the target company needs now!

If you are worried about your age getting in the way, turn it to your advantage. Offer to use your expertise and wisdom to help solve their problem through a specific assignment. Contract work is less “age sensitive” and can lead to full time positions.

Ask the Coach: Create Your Brand (So Others Don’t Do It For You)

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, career coach Don Orlando reminded attendees to our weekly Ask the Coach call that they need to take charge of their personal brand. After all, if you don’t tell people who you are and what you have to offer, others will define your brand for you.

Don reminded attendees that everyone has a brand, like it or not. And that your brand should be consistent across all the media you use to promote yourself – printed materials, online, marketing documents, etc. The objective of creating a solid personal brand is to provide a personal value proposition that helps you stand out from the crowd. You want your brand to match your excellence to the needs of the organization. And you want your brand to differentiate you so you are not seen as a commodity available at the right price.

Your personal brand is the excellence you have accumulated and integrated over time. Branding is the thing that has guided and will continue to guide your personal life.

Your personal brand is:

• Your demonstrable promise of value
• Proof of your integrity and character
• The best guide for your career
• Consistent and part of every aspect of your career campaign
• The way you demonstrate your worth to the marketplace.

Your personal brand must never be:

• A slogan
• Your obituary (past accomplishments without a value message)
• Ignored in favor of short-term objectives or advantages, such as pay or location.
• Shape-shifting to meet the needs of what you think the hiring manger wants

When you do it right, proper branding makes it easy for companies to see how your value fits their needs and will help them compete more effectively, either by reducing costs or increasing revenue.

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.