For most, consulting while looking for a job is a double-edged sword. On the one hand you are working and generating revenue. On the other hand most people stop conducting their job search during this period. What they have actually done is accept a short-term full time job. So when the job is over in three to six months they start their search again. This causes the candidate to keep starting and stopping their job search. What happens if the ideal position becomes available while you are working this short-term position? Generally, you will miss it.
If you are going to take a short-term position, I recommend making it clear to the company your goal is to find a full-time position. In order to that let them know up front you may have to leave for interviews, networking events, or other issues surrounding your primary goal of finding a job. Consider requesting a work week of four ten hour days instead of five days. This will leave you one day a week to work on your job search.
I believe there are enough ups and downs in a job search without trying to ramp up a new job search every three to six months.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
Q. I have been contacted by a firm that promises to market my skills to companies. They claim to have many contacts with local companies. I’m not sure it is worth the cost. Any recommendations regarding using someone to market me?
I have two words for you, BUYER BEWARE. Too often these firms claim a lot and deliver very little. Since they contacted you, that is a red flag and you need to do your research. These firms always spring up in times of high unemployment.
Some things to consider before writing a check include: Are they claiming or even implying they will find you a job? If this is even implied, run and run fast. Do they claim to have access to the “hidden job market?” Have them provide references of other candidates they have worked with that are now working due to their help. If they are as good as they claim they should have a list of raving fans. You should speak with people currently in the program. Contact the Better Business Bureau to check on any complaints. If they claim they have companies they work with regularly ask to speak to someone at the company. Don’t accept any excuses for not being able to do this. Do they offer a money back guarantee? Ask to speak to someone they actually refunded the money to. Don’t accept that they have never had to give a refund. No one is that perfect. Is the full fee paid up front? Finally, you should write out a list of expected results you want them to deliver and over what period of time they will deliver these results. Make them very specific. If they don’t meet them then they agree in writing to refund your money.
I know too many candidates that have fallen prey to these firms. There are good ones and many excellent professionals, but be careful. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true. It probably is.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
Q. I’m currently one of those who is underemployed. I’m considering looking for a better job and would like to know the best way to go about it while working?
I would start with your current employer. Situations like yours often happen when a candidate is in need of a job. That is generally why they accepted a lower position in the first place. So I believe some level of loyalty should be given to a company that helped you when you needed it. You might check to see if a position will open up as the economy continues to improve? Are they open to expanding your role in the company? Converting you from part-time to full-time? If you haven’t already, you might consider giving them this opportunity before throwing in the towel.
If you still decide it is best to move, then you will have to conduct a search. Many candidates search while working. Start by building or updating your LinkedIn profile, post your resume on the job boards, let people you trust know you are open to something different, attend networking meetings before or after work hours, check the Web sites of potential employers in your industry to see if they post open positions and when appropriate engage a recruiter and respond to ads. Most companies are willing to conduct interviews during off hours for those people working. You basically have to get out and let people know you are open to referrals or find a position via job postings.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
Question: What is the best way for an executive to distinguish themselves from all of the other executives chasing the same positions?
This is one of the most important issues all candidates must tackle during a job search. In today’s job market companies are very specific when hiring. You cannot be a jack of all trades. You must be the king or queen of your trade. So it is imperative you determine what distinguishes you from others.
Most candidates have a hard time doing this for fear of being excluded from a possible position. I disagree. Candidates should find their sweet spot and build a search around that, instead of around some long shot opportunity that might come their way.
I have coached many executives and they all have something that makes them unique. It may be international experience, M&A, turnarounds, startups, changing a company’s culture from dysfunctional to one that thrives on success, a specific technology, and so on. I recommend you survey your peers, bosses, customers, vendors, subordinates, trusted advisors, for what they believe distinguishes you from other executives. Once you know these then build your brand and job search around those distinguishing characteristics.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
Question: Is there a bias for people working over those unemployed?
The short answer is yes. Companies seem to always prefer those working. That doesn’t mean if you’re unemployed you won’t find a job. It simply means there is a preference towards those working. You should not be discouraged if unemployed. Bad things happen to good people. I find that when I present highly qualified candidates to my clients the issue of whether they are working or not goes away.
You must be able to demonstrate why you are the best qualified person for the position. What value do you bring to the company? How does your background align with what needs to be accomplished? How well do you interview? Do you present a positive and professional image? Just to name a few. There is a lot more to getting a job than whether you are working or not. If you can demonstrate you are the best candidate for the position, chances are you will be hired.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
Q. I’m just starting my job search after working for the same company for the last 20 years. What tips can you give me to help me get started and do it right?
I would start by knowing the three P’s required for an effective job search.
1) Presentation. I speak on this all the time. Candidates so often down play this or take it for granted. For some reason candidates just don’t focus enough energy here. This is the most basic of basics. Remember, the most qualified person doesn’t always get the job. The person with the best presentation and some minimum level of qualification will often get the job.
2) Preparation. If the presentation is working, now it is time to start preparing. This is a big job and again so often taken for granted by candidates.
Prepare your marketing plan. Are you in the right networking groups? Maybe it is time to change the groups you are attending. Are you meeting the right people? Look back over the people you met within the last 3 months and evaluate who and what types of people have been helpful and those that didn’t provide any assistance. Identify companies and people you want to meet. Set up a plan to meet them. If you contacted a company 6–8 months ago things may have changed, so consider reconnecting or finding another way into the company.
3) Practice. This is probably the most important of the three “P’s.” Everyone has heard, “Practice makes perfect.” Well this applies in a job search. Practice your body language, how you use your voice to stress points, answering succinctly, and the important questions you want ask.
Practice exactly how you are going to answer the standard questions asked in just about every interview. I always have the candidates I coach write out complete answers to these. Then we practice them until the candidate has succinct answers. These should be so well rehearsed that they come off as if it is the first time you answered the question.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
This blog post by Eliott Lasson in the Baltimore Business Journal triggered an observation I’ve been thinking about during this depressing job market.
Most of the executive job search candidates I come across appear to be “blundering” OR “stumbling their way through a job search. I’m not surprised it’s taking the average executive over a year to find a new opportunity. When are you going to stop the blundering and start using job search best practices.
Wait – do you even know what are the top ten job search best practices? If not, how do you plan to learn them?
Or, do you prefer to muddle through your job search in a state that Steve Covey called being “unconsciously incompetent?”
Although Elliot’s article focused on young graduates, the same concepts apply for more experienced executives. Here’s a comment Elliot made about resumes that I find are a major source of blunders:
Always have a resume that is good-to-go to include in your email or promptly forward after a phone call. A turn-off is a resume with spelling errors and spacing issues. It is always a good idea to have some sort of objective at the top as to what you are looking for. The resume should not be over-the-top for where you are at in life, whether educationally or professionally. Make sure to list your technical skills with software, systems, and professionally relevant social media. Just saying non-descriptive terms like “proficient in Microsoft Office” might be construed as “I have a 5th grade literacy level.”
Your move – what are you going to do right now to put your job search back in effective mode and land a great opportunity in 90 days?
Robyn Greenspan published a recent article on Huffington Post about what has changed over the last 6 plus years for executive job search.
A lot has changed. Brad and I find that most executives are STILL conducting their job search like it was the mid-90s. That doesn’t work any longer for conducting an effective job search. How are you using new techniques, best practices, social media, and other tools to work your job search that you didn’t use 6 or more years ago?
Here’s an excerpt from her article:
What has changed in the 6-and-a-half years since their last job search? Here are the problems job seekers recently told ExecuNet they were encountering, and our solutions to mitigate them:
Not enough opportunities found at their level – This complaint is not surprising since the large majority of $200K positions are not openly posted, for fear that the recruiter will be inundated with unqualified résumés. Use job boards to research companies, but use your network to find and create roles.
Taking longer to land – You can easily shorten your transition time if you are in a perpetual state of career management. C-level executives always have an eye out for the next business partnership opportunity and so should the professional who is effectively managing his or her career.
Available positions are put on hold – “On hold” does not necessarily mean “eliminated” so stay connected to the recruiter/hiring manager and ensure they continue to see you as the solution to their problems. That doesn’t mean regularly checking in to see if the position has been re-opened; instead keep them apprised with market trends and relevant information.
Recruiters are not returning calls – Friends and acquaintances generally return calls; people you call out of the blue for jobs, might not. Establish relationships with recruiters well before you need something.
No multiple offers to consider – Just over half of the ExecuNet-surveyed executive recruiters reported that candidates had more than one offer to consider, up from 35 percent in 2010. Adjust your job search activities to reflect contemporary conditions and you might have more options, too.
What are you doing different in this job search vs. the last one you did over 6 years ago?
Barry Deutsch
If you would like to read the full article, please click the link below:
I was meeting with a candidate today, we will call him Andy, who recently landed. He had been on the market for about 5 months. He did all the right things, went to the networking meetings, drank more coffee than he should have, reworked his resume over and over, all for nothing. He would get interviews but never make the cut. He had sent out lots of resumes with moderate success.
About 2 months ago I met with Andy and a group of financial professionals, mainly CFOs, to do a resume review exercise. You might try this exercise. Everyone brings their current resume and passes them face down to the person next to them. Then at the same time everyone turns the resume over and for 10 seconds reviews them. After 10 seconds all resumes go face down again. The next step gets to the real purpose for the exercise. The person that read the resume for 10 seconds gives feedback on exactly what they learned about the person’s background, companies, position, location and any other information they took away in that short period of time. Why you ask? That is about how long most people first look at a resume, so the purpose is to find out if the person reading the resume for 10 seconds captures from the resume what the owner of the resume wanted them to. If not, then they need to change the resume.
After the meeting I started working with Andy as part of our Job Search Coaching program. The first thing I noticed was Andy’s resume had him as a CFO. The reality was that compared to other CFOs in the group Andy could not compete. He was really a controller. Andy was trying to play at a level that he wasn’t competitive. He lost out every time, either when the resume was submitted, or during the interview.
We made a small tweak to his resume by taking off all references to CFO and changed them to controller. Everything else remained the same. Within two weeks Andy started getting interviews and within 6 weeks he was working. He credits all of the activity and the job to this one tweak of his resume.
Sometimes one small change can make all the difference. Make sure you are playing in the right league. Andy wasn’t, and his resume clearly communicated that. Like most candidates I coach, candidates think only about themselves and not the competition. Andy had clearly done this. He would have been working months earlier had he thought about this.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Q. Last year I came in second too many times. I seem to get interviews and get asked back for additional interviews, but always end up the bridesmaid. I would like to change that in the new year, what do you suggest?
The good news is that a lot of things are working in your job search. Your resume is getting you in the door, you are uncovering openings, and companies want to talk with you. Getting up to bat is key to getting a job. Things are falling apart at the interviewing stage. It might even be that you are not in second place after the first interview, but being asked back just to be compared to other candidates. So I recommend spending a lot of time honing your interviewing skills in the new year.
Reflect on the interviews you’ve had and start by identifying some of the same questions asked in each interview, make a list of the standard questions asked in most interviews and develop a list of questions around your specific function that are often asked. After you have these lists write out answers to the questions. Yes, you must write them out. This is rarely done, but this exercise brings great clarity to how you answer questions. It forces you to stay focused, helps ensure you are actually answering the questions, and begins to make sure you are prepared for just about anything. Then practice answering these as if you are in an interview. However, make sure you don’t come across as if you are reading a script.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self- Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Job Search Mistakes, Job Search Preparation | bradremillard October 23, 2012 | 
Comments (0) 
