The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: It’s All About Affinity and Relevance

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.

During this week’s coach call, the conversation honed in on two keys to a successful job search. As Barbara noted, it’s all about affinity and relevance.

You have to have an affinity for the work, the situation, the people, all the factors surrounding your target company and their problem. Your skills and background also have to be relevant to the task at hand.

She also noted that social networking is a double-edged sword that helps you address the issues of affinity and relevance. Companies are using social networking to determine “fit” within a corporate culture, or affinity. Networking provides the interaction that lets all sides get a feeling for how the other party operates, how they think, how they handle pressure, etc. Your online participation in groups, blogs, and online discussions also helps the “other side” understand your expertise and how you might be able to help them. Your answers and actions show that your skills and abilities are relevant to the problem at hand. And demonstrating your expertise and value through social networking eliminates the question of being “too old” before it’s even broached.

Another part of the discussion focused on being ready to make a move when necessary. Every executive should have a two- to three-year business plan for himself or herself. Take the time to look at the companies you might consider working for. Do your homework and gain an in-depth understanding the company, its industry, where they fit, where they are going, and what challenges they face. You do the research by networking. Contact people who know the company best, such as current and former employees, customers, and suppliers, and ask questions. Then become a subject matter expert and make sure you are seen by the hiring managers or those who have access to the hiring managers. Join the same LinkedIn groups and stay active. If you are blogging, make sure to share your industry knowledge with influencers and ask for comments. When the target company is ready to make a move, or you are ready to make your move, you will have already built affinity and demonstrated relevance.

Barbara also notes that once the economy starts to rebound, there will be mass exoduses from companies with employees who are overworked, undervalued, and underappreciated. When that exodus starts you need to be prepared to step in and take advantage of these openings.

You Need to See “The Big Picture” and How You Fit

One of the things I always advise NETSHARE members in our weekly welcome calls is that you need to think of the job search process as if you were launching a business or a new product. The product, of course, is you and the business is your career. You can use the same principles you would apply to marketing a new product to see if your “go to market” strategy is in line with your potential market, i.e. the companies that need your talent.

I recently ran across a guest blog entry on Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership site written by Steve Trautman, author of Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader’s Guide to Knowledge Transfer. Trautman’s post poses the five questions you need to ask to see if you understand the big picture strategy for your company. In reading the blog post, it occurred to me that these same five questions apply well to how you manage your job search. They are an excellent litmus test to determine if you really understand your personal value proposition and how your talents, your “product,” fit in the big picture of your target market. So ask yourself:

1. Who are your customers or customer segment you serve, listed in order of priority? Can you identify those target companies who would best be served by your skills? Can you at least create a profile of the kind of company that could use your talents? This question may not be as easy to answer as you think.
2. What are the services you provide and which ones, if any, may need to change to implement your current strategy? Think of your services as your marketable skills. If you align those skills with the needs of your customer, e.g. your target employers, do they match up? Does what you have to offer fit what those potential employers need?
3. What is your value proposition and how does it set you apart in the marketplace? This is an increasingly important question. Remember that no matter what position you are seeking, there are dozens of other candidates who have the same basic qualifications. You might consider those qualifications the price of admission. To stand out from the crowd, you need to identify what talents and skills make you unique.
4. Which environmental trends or issues are important to your strategy, such as market, economic, societal, political, or environmental? If you are looking at the big picture, you have to consider how your industry is being affected by large-scale change, such as new regulations or new economic factors, and how your skill set can help address those changes. You also can think about this question as “fit.” What environment requirements do you need for you next job, including salary, managerial hierarchy, cultural fit, and anything else that you can identify as a prerequisite for a good job fit?
5. What three things are you doing (or doing differently) to support your strategy? What is your marketing strategy for your product? Have you identified three or more things you can do to align your product (your expertise) with your target market (hiring companies)? Have you expanded your networking strategy? How are you connecting with decision-makers in your target companies?

If you can determine how your expertise fits in the big picture, you will be ahead of the competition when it comes to closing the deal that delivers your next job.

Use the Right Words to Write a Powerful Profile

Our last blog entry was about the 10 most overused phrases found in LinkedIn profiles. Buzzword creep is a common problem in every executive’s marketing materials. It’s hard to keep jargon and business-speak out of your resume, but there are some strategies you can adopt to make sure your marketing documents are more powerful, and more accessible to recruiters and hiring managers.

Some good advice comes from Karen Burns, who blogs for the Money section of US News & World Report. She recently posted a blog on the most powerful words you can use on your resume which offers some solid tips on how to craft your resume or online profile:

1. Mind your nouns. Remember that employers search for nouns and not adjectives, so be sure to list your skills, titles, products, companies, certifications, and other things that speak to your personal brand. Think of search terms you would use to find someone like you.
2. Study those job descriptions. You can reverse-engineer your online profile by studying job descriptions for positions that are in line with what you are looking for, then using similar nouns and phrases. You can use the same key words and phrases to make your resume more searchable.
3. Check out the professional associations. See what your peers are talking about at conferences and in newsletters. See what issues are on the minds of your potential employers and think about ways to incorporate those ideas into your profile.
4. Think about your job titles. If you have an off-beat or unusual job title then it is less likely to show up in a search. Either use standardized job titles or find a way to expand on your job function to include more industry-specific titles.
5. Appropriate jargon is a good idea. Remember that hiring managers are looking for industry-specific expertise, so knowing the insider buzz words show you know your stuff. However, if you are looking for a career transition, be sensitive to the fact that a hiring manager may not understand jargon from another industry, so try substituting other keywords.
6. Be careful with your verbs. Use strong verbs like “achieved,” “resolved,” and “increased. “ Verbs that have less impact like “supported” or “aided” don’t promote your expertise.
7. Avoid meaningless adjectives. Overused words like “dynamic” and “experienced” create clutter not credibility. Stick with strong nouns and verbs.

The Building Blocks of Your Personal Brand

Despite the fact that the idea of personal branding has been around since 1977 when Tom Peters penned an article called “The Brand Called You” for Fast Company magazine, the concept of personal branding is still elusive for some professionals. I often am asked about how to create a personal brand, or what it needs to consist of or what it should look like.

A personal brand is not one of your personal marketing documents, like a resume or an executive bio. It’s not like a mission statement, although a personal mission statement could be part of your personal brand. Rather, a personal brand is built around those characteristics that make you unique; that help you stand out from the crowd. The concept of brand itself is elusive, since it is based on an overall impression rather than a specific, concrete formula. Think about the consumer brand experience. What makes McDonalds different from Burger King, or Target different from WalMart, or Macy’s different from Bloomingdales? Those brands are generated by a wide range of variety of expectations and experiences that give those stores and restaurants a unique personality. Your personal brand needs to convey that same sense of uniqueness and differentiation.

When you apply for a position, your professional expertise, your credentials, are a given as part of the price of admission. If you are competing with other professionals for a role as a vice president of engineering or CFO, then you have to possess a specific set of skills to be considered for the role – that’s the price of admission. What will make you stand out are those characteristics beyond your job qualifications.

Megan Koehler, founder of ContempoResume blogs about personal branding, and she recently posted a recent blog explaining what she calls “The Five Ps of Personal Branding.” These five characteristics are common to all of us, and if you can find a way to capture and package them and incorporate them into your resume, marketing documents, blog, interviews, and everything you do as part of your professional persona, you will be well on your way to developing your personal brand:

1. Personality – Everyone has one, but the hard part is taking a look at your personality and define yourself.
2. Perception – How do others perceive you? Ask a few trusted colleagues (rather than friends) if there are areas where you can improve.
3. Passion – What drives you? Do you like to look at different ways of doing things, or are you a people person? What makes your life complete? It reflects on your personal brand.
4. Presence – How do you present yourself? Unlike how you are being perceived, this is what you are projecting to others.
5. Principles – What do you stand for? What values and ethics do you live by? These are also core to your personal brand.

Arm Yourself with the 5 Critical Marketing Tools

If you have been reading this blog regularly, you know that a resume and cover letter are no longer adequate to get you to stand out with potential hiring managers and recruiters. You need a full arsenal of marketing tools that you can strategically use to present your personal brand, highlight your expertise, and open new doors.  That’s why we have asked Ross Macpherson, president of CareerQuest and a recognized authority in resume writing and job search strategies, to address “The Top 5 Critical Marketing Tools for Executives: What Works Today!” at our next Experts Connection teleseminar scheduled for April 28.

This is an important topic for everyone, so I wanted to share a little bit of what Ross will be talking about here as a sneak preview. Ross has identified five basic tools you need as part of your personal marketing arsenal, but these tools are only the foundation for a solid personal marketing kit:

1. A LinkedIn Profile – Everyone needs to build a solid online presence, and LinkedIn is the best place to start building your online brand. Recruiters and hiring managers are looking on LinkedIn for talent, and they are Googling candidates, so you want to make sure you can be found, and that you have a compelling LinkedIn profile to highlight your skills. And remember, that a LinkedIn profile is different from your resume.
2. A Resume and Cover Letter – Although some pundits keep preaching that the resume is dead, hiring managers still want to see your credentials presented in a resume format. And at the executive level, you need to be sure your resume is compelling, well-written, and polished.
3.  An Executive Bio – A bio is different from a resume. Where a resume should be chronological, the executive bio allows you to present yourself any way you want. This makes it easier to highlight your strengths and emphasize those points that will help you demonstrate your value for a potential position or to make a career change. An executive bio is typically a one-page document that gets a different level of attention and can be used to make an introduction without making it look like you are seeking a job (which is what happens when you start with your resume).
4. A Brag Sheet – Like a bio, a brag sheet lets you emphasize your strengths and value by cataloging the real value you had in different jobs and the results you generated in different roles. You can organize your credentials as you want and show the real value behind your job title and activities.
5. A Brand Statement – Some like to call this an elevator pitch, but your brand statement should be more than that. It needs to capture who you are and what you have to offer a prospective employer. Once you create your brand statement, you can use it in other branding documents, like your resume and bio, as a differentiator.

Each of these marketing tools can be used in different ways to move your job search forward. Ross will offer greater insight into how to develop and use these tools in his Experts Connection presentation. You can register at www.experts-connection.com.

Ask the Coach: Slant Your Resume to Sell Yourself

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Nicola James, Managing Partner of Thomas Brooke International.

One of the biggest concerns for executive job seekers is how to present yourself. Career coaches like Nicola can be a big help here, and NETSHARE maintains a database of the best career coaches in North America, including those with specializations like working with CFOs or CIOs. NETSHARE is always happy to recommend qualified career coaches to its members, and this week, Nicola demonstrated her expertise with insights into how executives can best present themselves through their resume.

One of the most important things to remember about the resume is you need a chronological format. There is no “one size fits all” approach to resumes, but recruiters do seem to universally prefer a chronological approach. The chronological summary allows the reader to quickly review a candidate’s experience, scan job titles and dates, and make sure there are no glaring holes in their career path. However, many candidates feel this pigeonholes them and limits them by tying them too closely to their last job. In these times it’s important to be able to show you can handle new challenges and transition to a new role with your current skill set.

Nicola recommends working with the chronological resume format and using your experience to lead the reader where you want to take them. As an example, Nicola offered Joe, President of Widgets, Inc. If you look at his resume, his most recent position was as president of a family-owned widget company. If you go back in time, you see that Joe has been a senior executive with other widget companies, as well as president of other family-owned firms. By carefully crafting his marketing documents, Joe can make a solid case for candidacy as president of a widget company, or a family-owned company in a different industry. It’s the context that guides the reader to the conclusion you want them to make, which means you need to understand what you want to attain.

Of course, the resume is not the only weapon on your job search arsenal. On April 28, Ross Macpherson will join Experts Connection to review “The Top 5 Critical Marketing Tools for Executives: What Works Today!” Ross recommends augmenting a professionally written resume with other tools, including a solid LinkedIn profile, an executive bio, a brag sheet, and a brand statement. Each of these marketing tools is crafted in a different way, and each is used in a different way. Together they form a strong foundation for any job search campaign.

Pay It Forward Video Resume Service – Film It Now and Pay Later

 

I had an interesting conversation with Dan Powers this week. Dan is the co-founder of a new video resume service in Silicon Valley, SanJoseStock.com. With partner Kymberli Brady, who lost her marketing job last September, Dan is producing two-minute video resumes for clients. And here’s the hook – if their unemployed clients can’t pay the $100 fee, they can pay later.I love this kind of “pay-it-forward” business model, especially in this economic climate. As Brady said in her KGO interview (posted here), “I can’t find a job, so I have to make one.” And she has support from the Silicon Valley business community as well, as demonstrated by the fact that the San Jose Executive Center donated space for them to film their video resumes for three days.

It’s not only altruistic, but I am sure it is a smart business move. It’s demonstrated that video resumes help you stand out from the crowd. For the KGO-YV news story, they interviewed Jim Vandergrift, creative director for Design Reactor in Campbell, California, a local design firm that receives hundreds of resumes from applicants looking for work. He said he had never seen a video resume before, and it made the applicant really stand out.

As Brady says, deferring payment for those in need is a means of paying a spiritual and emotional mortgage. And it might promise future gigs from those grateful folks who are newly employed.

To Blog, or Not To Blog – The Benefits Outweigh the Risks

It’s common knowledge that once the mainstream media pick up on a new trend, it’s old news to those of us “in the know.” That’s why I was gratified to see a posting on Web Guild Silicon Valley touting a recent story broadcast on The Today Show about how to “De-Age Your Resume With a Web Presence.” What a novel idea! What’s interesting is that the blog notes that The Today Show segment was targeting job seekers over 40 who are, supposedly, new to the social networking scene. The recommendations should be familiar to you: set up an online profile, use LinkedIn and Facebook, set up a professional blog if you have the time, and basically build out your presence online:

In the story, an out-of-work reporter featured was finding it hard to get call-backs and went onto Craigslist and hired a “young, hip, web designer” who designed a blog for her. She listed the blog at the top of her resume and got two jobs offers. As one expert in the piece put it, the “workplace has been completely transformed by the internet”.

All of this should be common sense if you have been reading The Executive Update regularly. But how many of you have had the time and energy to build your online presence? There are tools you can use, like the LinkedIn Profile, to help you start an online resume, but most of those are fairly stiff and static. Some more innovative online tools are evolving for personal marketing. One I have been toying with recently is VisualCV, which lets you set up a comprehensive professional profile, including work samples and a career portfolio. You can even set up different profiles for different target audiences.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

The web continues to be a fresh and dynamic medium for executive job seekers, and it’s a truly rich medium that supports audio and video as well as the printed word. So in building your online presence, you have to think outside of the text box and embrace new approaches to deliver your personal brand message. Remember, the medium is the message, so you need to move beyond presenting plain text to carry your message and think about images, sound, and video.

In our last entry, we talked about building your online portfolio. Obviously, as part of your online brand, you want to present your credentials, your work philosophy, key market messages that differentiate you from the competition, a photo, etc. However, a growing trend is producing video podcasts as part of your portfolio. The next best thing to a face-to-face meeting is presenting your message in a video. A number of job seekers are starting to post their video resumes on popular public sites like YouTube, or there are emerging online video posting sites such as RecuiTV.

The mistake that many job seekers make is trying to force a video podcast to do the job of their resume. Building your brand requires the three e’s: extract, express, and exude, and producing a web video is your opportunity to exude. Video is a poor medium to present details about your professional credentials, but it is a great medium to give prospective employers a flavor of who you are as a person. Video profiles should be about the packaging, not the substance, but you still should be careful about pushing creative boundaries.

A recent story broadcast on National Public Radio demonstrates the pros and cons of taking creative risks with video resumes. The story compares the clever promotional approach of Trent Willis, whose online profile “Do You Really Know Trent Willis?” is a clever parody of a political ad, the ideal foil to get the attention of lobbyists who might hire him. Compare this to the unfortunate video CV of Aleksey Vayner, “Impossible is Nothing,” which has received widespread ridicule for missing the mark in trying to create a message that would appeal to financial institutions that might hire him. Remember our previous comments on digital dirt? Well the same goes for video footage that you post to bolster your portfolio – make sure that the video is relevant to the image you want to create, and you aren’t setting yourself up as a contestant on American Idol or worse, The Gong Show.

When hiring at the executive level, C-level managers are often trying to gauge who you are, rather than what you can do. If you have made it to the senior management level, it’s assumed you have the expertise; the real question is about your character and whether you are good fit for the organization. A video profile is an ideal way to tell people who you are, ideally without having to resort to juggling chainsaws or singing karaoke.

I agree with Mark Hovind, founder of JobBait.com who edits (and occasionally hosts) video profiles for clients. “What goes on a video clip is your passion,” says Mark. The objective of a video clip as part of a portfolio is to present you as a breathing person, separate from your credentials. Mark believes all you need is a short, impromptu video clip that speaks to who you are, your passion, and how you handle yourself. He also believes that scripted videos are the worst, since executives seldom read scripts well and tend to be stiff or freeze. Rather than delivering a State of the Union address, he suggests you use the Academy Awards approach and tie your passion to a few key messages that link back to your core brand.

Once you have a video hosted as part of your brand portfolio, use it! Include links in communications to prospective employers, colleagues, friends, and family. Make sure you take advantage of the viral effect of the Web and get your brand out there. Flog your blog!

Coming up, I will share some of the insights offered by Ross Macpherson in the latest entry in our Experts Connection teleseminar series. Ross is an expert in delivering your brand in an effective interview that closes the job.