Managing Your Brand While Looking For A Job

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Becky Pearce

Executives looking for a job should always be mindful of protecting their career brand.

From the minor errors in the resume or cover letter, to applying for jobs they do not qualify for, or stumbling badly in the interview process, there is ample opportunity for executives to damage their brand in the job search process.

Here are five guide points to help executives navigate these potentially troublesome waters.

1. Do Not Apply For A Job You Do Not Qualify For – If the job advertisement, internet posting or networking email specifically mentions in the first sentence “We are searching for a physician executive” and you are not a doctor, then why waste your time? The mentality that something might work out is not only wrongheaded but it will diminish you in the eyes of recruiters who are overwhelmed with resumes.

Here is an interesting factoid: “Job seekers self-report spending up to 10 minutes viewing a job,” according to a recent study conducted by internet recruiting site, The Ladders. On average they actually spend between 39.7 to 76.7 seconds. So look before you leap. Clicking the “submit resume” button on every ad that contains the words “leadership” or “executive” is a fool’s errand. Slow down and actually read the job requirements. Submitting a resume for a job that you do not qualify for is a red flag: Beware!! This candidate does not pay attention to details.

2. Resumes Are Preferred For Executive Searches – In an executive search, send a resume that chronicles your executive progression and value-based accomplishments, not a curriculum vitae that focuses on endless listings of appointments, committees, research and articles. The only time you use a CV is when you are applying to an academic or affiliated organization, or a research firm. A 46-page history of your research articles with no clear career path is a great way to be excluded in a competitive executive search. The only people who speed read faster than candidates are recruiting researchers who spend, on average, between 20 and 30 seconds reviewing a resume or CV.

3. Do Not Send The Same Resume For Every Job – No two jobs are alike. Pay attention to the client’s selection criteria and preferred characteristics. Use a career summary paragraph at the top of a resume to emphasize your strengths and accomplishments that match the needs of the client. The one-size-fits-all jobs resume is a thing of the past. Target your audience.

4. Proof Your Documents – We all have submitted documents in our career—resumes, letters, proposals, contracts…heck, even blogs, that contain errors. While regrettable, one or two errors will probably not change the rotation of the earth. However, if, over the course of a search, the number of minor errors increases, you are only reaffirming that you do not pay attention to details.

5. Be Prepared, Be Smart – If you have a career glitch – and I am not talking about the candidate with five felonies (that is another story), or if you fall short with one or two elements of the selection criteria, prepare in advance how you will address these issues. Only a foolish candidate will be cocky enough to devise an answer on the fly when asked. Think these issues through. Draft responses. Practice and revise. Then practice in front of a mirror. When asked, smile, and then hit the ball out of the park.

Regardless of the industry, competition for the best jobs will only intensify in this new economy. Faced with an avalanche of resumes, recruiters must eliminate candidates to get the number down to a manageable level.

Do not make it easy for them to eject you from the game.

Four Jobs in Six Years? Death by A Thousand Cuts

Posted on April 17, 2013 by John G. Self

There are more than a few candidates whose job/employment history is less than stellar.

In everyone’s career stuff happens and in most cases these situations can be managed effectively without inflicting major damage to future employment opportunities.

However, when you see a resume with four to five jobs in a six or seven-year period of time, that spells trouble. The candidate with a regrettable history may be an unsung star skills-wise, but has encountered a bad workplace environment, a terrible choice in a bounce-back job or a couple of unforeseen layoffs.

For some recruiters, this type of job history merits red-flag status, meaning that the candidate will not be considered under any circumstance. Why take a risk with their client relationship, these recruiters reason. For well-qualified candidates, other recruiters will at least take the time to sort through the career carnage in an initial screening interview. The bad news for these candidates, they are unlikely to change the employer’s mind about their ability to end this career thread unless they get on top of the problem early in the screening process.

So what to do?

What not to do is suffer death by a thousand cuts, waiting for the recruiter to ask about each job change individually. The number of times a candidate is asked, so why did you leave, what happened there, or did you quit or were you asked to leave can be demoralizing, and usually the kiss of death.

What candidates rarely do is to take a direct approach. Getting out in front of these employment issues with a true but favorably worded disclosure of the various transitions which emphasize lessons learned and framing the recruiters’ inevitable follow-up questions, is the best course of action. This is not something candidates can do on the fly. It takes carefully thought out preparation, including the selection of references that can help add factual context to each transition. What the references will say should be incorporated into the candidate’s “get out in front” explanation.

Drafting a summary answer with a brief reference to each job change that opens the door for a more positive discussion and questions with the recruiter is the best way to go.

When I entered healthcare, an executive who moved every four or five years was a job hopper, someone to be viewed with enormous skepticism. Today, staying too long in one job can hurt an up and coming executive build a broad-based portfolio of experience that will lead to their dream job.

Times have changed, and four jobs in six or seven years is problematic but not career ending if the candidate takes the initiative and prepares for each interview, not sitting back and waiting for the grand inquisition to begin.

Backlist and Career Management

Posted on March 25, 2013 by John G. Self

As we push through college basketball’s March Madness and look ahead to graduation, perhaps it is time to reconnect with some important career management rules, especially given the hyper-competitive job market and the fact that far too many students will struggle to find a full-time job.

By Joi Ito (Seth Godin), via Wikimedia Commons

This weekend, a posting on the concept of a “backlist” by marketing guru Seth Godin, one of the most popular bloggers in the world, caught my attention. What is the backlist? I will allow Mr. Godin to explain it:

“Authors and musicians have one. This is the book you wrote seven years ago or the album from early in your career. The book keeps selling, spreading the ideas and making a difference. The album gets played on the radio, earning you new fans.

“Backlist is what publishers call the stuff that got published a while ago, but that’s still out there, selling.

“The Wizard of Oz, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits and Starsky and Hutch all live on the backlist,” Mr. Godin writes.

But wait, there’s more, and the more, when it comes to how the backlist can impact career management, should sometimes be less.

Your Twitter account, your Facebook, your MySpace, and all your other social media sites that you post to make up your personal backlist. Once it is out there, it stays out there.

Mr. Godin shared an excellent example of how less is more: “I almost hired someone a few years ago–until I Googled her and discovered that the first two matches were pictures of her drinking beer from a funnel, and her listed hobby was, ‘binge drinking.’”

“Backlist!”

My youngest son and I had a spirited debate several years ago about whether it was fair for recruiters or potential employers to troll these social media sites for their “personal posts.” As a relatively recent college graduate at the time, he felt that material should be off limits. I responded that it shouldn’t be, that once it is in the public domain, regardless of how unflattering, it is out there and we should not be expected to ignore information that could help establish a more complete profile of a candidate for employment.

It was not surprising, then, for me to hear from other college students and graduates who felt that it was not “fair” for unflattering pictures to be examined even though many thought it was perfectly fine for us to evaluate and use flattering information. Well, in the world of career management, as the saying goes, if you want “fair” come to Dallas in October. It is called the State Fair.

A better rule of thumb is not to post photos or statements to your social media sites that you would not want your parents or a future employer to see. If you are at a party where drinking games are part of the evening entertainment, then perhaps a no camera of any kind rule should be imposed.

Never, ever, post a photograph of a friend in a compromising position unless you would be thrilled if they posted an unflattering picture of you. You may think it is cute – a gotcha iPhone moment – but actually this is just a bad gift that keeps on giving.

It is just common courtesy and common sense in the digital age.