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Question: How do I effectively network at professional seminars without looking I in search?

January 28, 2011 By

Background: I serve on the ‘Ask the Expert’ panel for Proformative.com** answering questions on Job Search and Networking.  Below is a question asked by a member: 

Original Question: How do I attend professional seminars and “network” effectively without coming across that I am looking for job leads?

Response:

DECIDING UPON WHICH EVENT TO ATTEND:

If your goal of attending any professional event is job search networking, before you commit to attend, first determine if there will be a ‘buyer’ for your pitch.  In short, when people are attending these events are they in the ‘mindset’ to network.   If they are not, then no matter what the pitch – it’s tough to get through. 

For more detail on which types of events offer the best networking, please see “Networking Events – Is there a Buyer for Your Pitch”

SETTING YOUR EXPECTATION FOR RESULTS

The goal you want to achieve is to meet people with whom you can follow-up for 1-on-1 networking.  Imagine if you met someone in passing over a crowded session or lunch, it’s tough to know enough to if you want to open them up to your network.  That said; seek to set up a follow-up meeting.

BEFORE YOU ARRIVE

If you know the attendee list in advance – try to make connections with people you want to meet ahead of time (either directly or through your network).  This does not change your expected outcome, but it sure makes the process easier.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS:

If you attend an event to learn a skill or stay current on trends, etc., then you are simply another attendee from the profession.

When you get the question about work, I used “I was most recently CFO at …………. Company, but now I am actively seeking a CFO role”.   I’ve practiced this quite a bit, and I find starting with the last title and company name has disarmed the other person’s concern with my current status as in transition.

If they ask about your search, share just a quick overview (e.g. “CFO for a privately held professional services firm in the Seattle area).  If they want to learn more, they will ask. 

If not, change the topic to the event at hand.  You will be more memorable if you can speak intelligently about the topic (tip for your pre-meeting prep), then offering a snappy job search pitch.

PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING EVENTS

I say these events are both the ‘ying’ and ‘yang’.  On one hand, there are loads of people you don’t know.  On the other hand, they can be tough because these are attended by people that tend to know each other from either the profession or belonging to this group (e.g. Association for Corporate Growth, Private Equity Events, etc.).

If you go on your own, it’s tough to break into group and even tougher once you announce the job transition – because these people came to network for deals or friends.

You need to get a well-known member to be your host and make introductions.  Their reputation will be your ticket into the small group discussions.

Same rules apply to above once you get into the small group.  Mention your search in brief, but focus your conversation on the other people in the group.  See if you can make useful connections from your network.  Once you establish a sense of networking, then you can ask to meet in the future to network.

BEST BET

To be memorable, focus on what you bring: your network, skills and knowledge – not your search.

Hope this helps.

Mark

** Proformative is a free on-line forum for finance professionals to exchange resources, ideas and get answers – a great resource for finance professionals of all levels to stay current and improve their skills.

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Top Ten Interesting Facts about JobTalkAmerica

January 21, 2011 By

Ted Canova and Sam Zeff have been good friends to job seekers with their JobTalkAmerica.com program.  They and their guests deliver practical advice with a bit of humor and positive approach – which are badly needed for any job seeker!

I chimed in a few thoughts to a newspaper reporter for her article on JobTalkAmerica.  In the spirit of a bit of fun and to celebrate hitting a listener milestone, I sent the following to the lads as to what I shared with the reporter.  (For #4, my apologies to the non-Minnesota residents).

TOP TEN INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT JOBTALKAMERICA

10. Way more fun to listen to than JobTalkNorthKorea

 9. Not many people know the rejected motto “Learn secrets to the market…like Wikileaks for Job Seekers”

 8. Ted’s first experience in finding a job … member of Menudo

 7. Only Internet Radio show that is 100% cholesterol free

 6 You know they are smart hosts as they both saved 20%, not 15%, by switching to Geico

 5. If Sam forgets to get decaf the shows finish in under 12 minutes

 4. Failed promotion “Free Resume Makeover with Every Vikings Win”

 3. After legal wrangling with FCC, able to finally take off opening disclaimer “Caution.  Hosts may try to be humorous”

 2. Least popular episode to date “How to get the job as Mayor McCheese”

 1. You know it’s a good show when they would never publish a lame list like this one.

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Question: How much time should I spend networking with those who are currently out of work?

January 12, 2011 By

Background: I serve on the ‘Ask the Expert’ panel for Proformative.com** answering questions on Job Search and Networking.  Below is a question asked by a member: 

Original Question:

How much time should I spend networking with those who are currently out of work?

Response:

You want to spend the bulk of your networking with people who are on the “Roadmap to the Hiring Manager” , because they can help you move closer to the hiring manager.

When seeking contacts we will all fall into one of three categories: Connect, Learn and Influence.

Connect – Make introductions into a target company

Learn – Have relevant knowledge of the target company

Influence – Have a personal relationship with the Hiring Manager

A colleague in transition could fill all three roles.  For the Learn category, they could be former employee or doing contract work. 

Before you meet with a fellow colleague in transition, try to understand if you can help one another with connections into targeted companies.  The best method is to figure this out is to share your mutual “Marketing Plans” and “Targeted Company Lists” (please see “Resources” on Proformative for examples of both of these tools).

If a colleague cannot help you with connecting into targeted companies, I would limit these to 1-2 a week.  The most productive action at these meetings is offering insight on each other’s pitch, how you overcame issues, etc.

The goal of these meetings is to simply help be more efficient and boost your collective psyches, so you can get more out of your search.  Please see “5 Things You Can Do to Help Other Candidates” 

Hope this helps and good luck today.

Mark

** Proformative is a free on-line forum for finance professionals to exchange resources, ideas and get answers – a great resource for finance professionals of all levels to stay current and improve their skills.

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Question: Should You Directly Reach out to the Hiring Manager?

January 6, 2011 By

Background: I serve on the ‘Ask the Expert’ panel for Proformative.com** answering questions on Job Search and Networking.  Below is a question asked by a member. 

Original Question:

IF I FIND THE PERSON TO WHOM I WOULD REPORT FOR A JOB SHOULD I TRY AND CONNECT DIRECTLY OR FOCUS ON SOMEONE WHO WORKS FOR THIS PERSON?

Response:

Assuming the interview process is not in the late stages, you will want to approach the hiring manager in two steps: Learn and Influence.

LEARN:

To differentiate yourself from other candidates, you want to promote the experiences/style that best fits what the company needs. 

Meeting with company insiders will help you understand the business model, department and current issues.  You will want to meet with people outside the department to give you a well-rounded view.  If time allows, meeting with vendors (e.g. auditors) can also give you an objective view.

Even if you’ve worked for the company before, I would recommend refreshing your information to understand the most important issues (e.g. integrating new software, cash crunch, etc.)

INFLUENCE:

There are people who have a strong relationship with the hiring manger that can promote you to the hiring manager.  In ascending order of influence: outside colleague, direct report, peer, and boss – their relationship with the hiring manager gives their recommendation more weight.

The reason these people will be compelled to promote/introduce you to the hiring manager is the effectiveness of your pitch (both content and delivery) – short, relevant and convincing is what makes you memorable.

The best experience does not always win; it’s usually the person who can best explain how they can use their experience on behalf of the company.

IF TIME IS SHORT: I would recommend getting to someone in the hiring manager’s department to get a sense of the most critical issues.  Switching to phone versus face-to-face reduces the effectiveness of the ability to influence, but allows you to talk with more people in a short time.

IF THE COMPANY IS SMALL: Same process, except the lines between Learn and Influence are blurred – since people are likely to have a relationship with the hiring manager.

Here’s a post that may add some additional insight: Roadmap to the Hiring Manager

Hope this helps.

Mark

** Proformative is a free on-line forum for finance professionals to exchange resources, ideas and get answers – a great resource for finance professionals of all levels to stay current and improve their skills.

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Is Your Pitch Motivating Action?

December 23, 2010 By

We will all deliver our pitch hundreds of times during a job search and networking. The question is whether it’s effective to get someone to commit to taking action on your behalf.  After hearing hundreds and giving hundreds of pitches, here’s my take:  The best pitch is one that is understood. 

The most effective pitches I’ve understood are as follows:

  • Short
  • Uses simple language (or the language of experience)
  • Emphasizes the ‘promise’ of what you can deliver to the hiring company
  • No more than three key points, so I can remember in my head

Unless you are a clever copywriter, I’d pass on trying to craft a snappy tag line to describe yourself.  I’ve only heard one or two that did not make me want to roll my eyes.  All these lines were well-meaning attempts to make you memorable, but it’s usually just dead air.

Here’s what makes you’re the ‘message’ in your pitch truly memorable

  • You have practiced and can deliver it in a confident voice
  • Targeted the pitch to what the listener will “hear”

A pitch is the starting point to get the other person to commit to act on your behalf (provide contacts, move you along in the interview process, etc.)  If your pitch piques their interest, then they will want to learn more about you.  If it does not, then no need to pile on the details of your background, as it will be dead air as well.   This is why you want to make sure you include the information that will interest the listener  

You are seeking different actions from each contact to move you toward the hiring manager – either to “Connect” to an insider, “Learn” about the company or “Influence” the hiring manager. (Please see “Roadmap to the Hiring Manager”).  To motivate them to learn more, may require a slightly different pitch that includes information that will be important to them.

Always ask yourself “What will they want to ‘hear’ to trigger them to take action?”  For example, if I want my contact to introduce to a company, I may want to pitch my industry knowledge to help them feel more comfortable.

Here are a couple of ways to test your pitch effectiveness:

The Elevator Test: Does your ‘elevator pitch’ require a 150 story building to get through it?  If so, time to shorten it.

The Independent Observer: After giving your pitch, ask the person to repeat the top 2-3 items they remember.  If it does not match your 2-3, then shorten your pitch.

The Language Test: Write out your pitch.  Circle any words that you don’t use in everyday conversation (e.g. evangelist, etc.) if you have more than one, then it’s too many.  Try this “Buzzword Bingo” at LurkerTech.com – okay, you won’t use all these terms, but a good starting place for overused words.

Repeat Their Expectation: What would you expect from someone in your role (e.g. ability to work with clients, specific technical skill, etc.)?  If you have held a similar role, then they would expect you possess those skills.  Don’t burn time repeating.  Focus on what you can DO with those skills.

Lastly, I will borrow a recommendation from Guy Kawasaki’s “Art of the Start” chapter called “The Art of Pitching”: Rewrite from scratch.   His advice is sound, because we puts parts from different pitches and  try to incorporate feedback, only to end up with what Guy often sees “a Jeep with a Chevrolet engine”.

Good luck today.

Mark

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Good News for Candidates – Hope Lives on a Small Diet

December 5, 2010 By

Your secret weapon in search is a strong psyche.  It’s your resume or contact that gets you in the door; it’s the strong psyche that closes the sale and lands you the role.

The resumes from people in your profession will likely read very similar.  Several candidates will be pulled out because they show the ‘promise’ of succeeding within the role.   When you speak to the company, it’s your strong psyche that truly brings the differences between you and the other candidates to life.

A strong psyche gives you confidence, poise and the ability to look anyone in the eyes when you answer or ask a question.  Sitting across the table as the interviewer or networking contact, a strong psyche is almost tangible, as though that person has a shield in front of themselves and no matter what you toss at them – nothing is going to make them stray.

The strong psyche is driven by the hope that you will see an office, cubicle, nametag, or paycheck with your name on it – or whatever the symbol you think of when being employed. It’s that vision that gives you the hope.  Anyone has let their hope dip will tell you it’s like living in slow motion.

Here’s the good thing about hope, it can live on a small diet. Hope is driven by the small events of a day or week, not only major events.

This is good because most of us don’t experience many major events or opportunities that get us ‘discovered’ to be immediately hired.  Sure it happens to people, but you cannot count on it – sort of like that winning lottery ticket (I could have sworn the Powerball was going to be ‘10’ this week!)

Keep track of the small positive events in your search, the act of keeping track of these actions helps build your hope as well by reminding you of what is going well.

For example, any action that moves you closer to the hiring manager, information you discover that helps match your resume to a company, holding a great networking meeting, getting useful or positive feedback on your experience, finding someone who will connect you to a highly-desired networking contact, shortening your pitch or resume without losing any potency, etc.

Here’s the other good thing about hope.  Whatever hope you give to someone will increase yours by an equal share.

Good luck today.

Mark

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Roadmap to the Hiring Manager

November 27, 2010 By

We all want to get to in front of the hiring manager, both in reputation (or brand) and in person.  Although getting there can be a long march, it’s even longer without a roadmap! 

Here’s another one from the “Chronicle of My Job Search Mistakes”: By not thinking about their level of relationship to the hiring manager, I was not asking my contacts for the right help.

I was networking, but not interviewing, so there had to be something missing.  When a networking contact failed to show up a meeting, I sketched out a roadmap to the hiring manager (thanks for the napkin Caribou Coffee!).

Based upon a contact’s level of relationship to the hiring manager, I determined to ask them for help in one of three areas: Connect, Learn or Influence.

Connect: People who have limited information about the company or hiring managers, but can make introductions to others who are inside the firm, understand the firm, or have a relationship with individuals who can influence the hiring manager.  

Learn: People who have a good working knowledge of the business who could teach me about the culture, business model, view of the department where I want to work, and hiring practices.  These insiders can also can make connections to individuals who can influence with the hiring manager.

Influence: People who are close to the hiring manager and can carry the message of how I can serve the company to the hiring manager.

Ranking of contacts:

I considered two factors.  The first was knowledge of the company.  The second was their strength of relationship to hiring manager. 

A company insider who does not know the hiring manager, is great to learn from but has little direct influence.  The same goes for service providers who work in the hiring manager area or former employees of the firm.  

An outsider who is a good friend with the hiring manager will not have a strong working knowledge of the company, which limits their ability to match you against the current needs of the firm.  This is why they behind the hiring manager’s peer, in terms of influence.  My highest ranking goes to the person who manages the hiring manager. 

Learn versus Influence:

Do you need both? Yes.  Meet with “Learn” contacts first, so you can determine if the company/role is a proper fit and then get ideas on how to fine tune your pitch.

Where to start:

Ask for any type of connection, but the priority of contacting them would be learning before influencing.

Again, the roadmap to the hiring manager will be unique, but you will still connect, learn and influence – if you understand where each networking contact fits, you are more likely to get a better result.

Good luck today.

Mark

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Arguments for Hiring Someone in Job Transition – Skills You Will Not Find on a Resume

November 2, 2010 By

If you were to change Newton’s third law of motion, which states “To every action there is always opposed and equal reaction”, to fit job transition it will sound like this: “To every job search experience there is always an equal learning you can use again.”

After meeting 250+ candidates and my own transitions, I have seen traits and skills that are learned in job search.  A candidate may not put these skills on a resume, but they are a huge benefit to the hiring company.

1 – Eager to Work: Businesses always want to find a ‘motivated’ employee.  Knock. Knock.  We’re here.

2 – Ability to Network: It’s more than learning networking techniques like LinkedIn, but the willingness to invest into building a network and the hard work of reaching out to others, and learning how to improve your ability to work with others.

3 – Value of Network to Business: A network is not just for finding a job.  It is a wickedly powerful tool to find and connect to clients, vendors, investors, candidates and advice, often with a national or international reach.

4– Communication Skill: Besides developing an effective pitch, it’s also delivering it in multiple forms: in person, e-mail, blogs, Twitter, resumes, etc.  Most important, candidates know how to keep it short.

5– Broadened view of business/Awareness of trends: When else in your career will you just focus on meeting loads of people, seeing so many businesses and learning about the market.  Networking can be a like a mini-MBA of learning.

6 – Understanding of their skills: The virtually continuous feedback stream from networking and interviews, gives a sharp view of skills, including those which are stronger than a candidate may think.

7– Open to new ideas: Search forces a candidate to think differently about a career path, how to find answers, what skills to use and living in new financial world… and they successfully lived through it.

8 – Not afraid of risk: How often do we complain of people not willing to take a bit of risk? Candidates try new ideas almost daily with their most precious resource: themselves.

9 – Dig up the Answer: No roadmap on how it should get done.  No problem. Candidates get creative to find connections, get inside companies, learn the language and get to know who will interview you.

10 – Ability to deal with adversity: Search is a war of attrition between what’s it like out there and a Candidate’s psyche.  Unlike work, everything is personal, which makes every defeat that much tougher.  If we survived this, a project that goes off course is a piece of cake to fix.

11– Constraints inspire innovation: No corporate support, limited finances and less than welcoming marketplace.  Candidates are not going to quit, so they make constraints a source of innovation.

12 – Local community contacts: Most networking is done locally and these are great for working in the community for non-profits and corporate awareness.

People currently employed can also see these items, but there is a greater frequency and heightened awareness when in job search that cements these traits into a candidate.  Of course, no two candidates will have the same level of these traits – but they will be there (and many others as well!).

Job search always gets a bad rap, so we all tend to hide our efforts while looking for a job.  So let’s promote how job search has improved us and what we can bring to a company.

Good luck today.

Mark

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Job Search: Take Two – Guest post from Dave Opton

November 1, 2010 By

The following is a guest post from Dave Opton the founder of ExecuNet.com – he and his team have been providing amazing insight into career management and networking since 1988 – so he’s done a few laps around the track!  Dave was gracious enough to agree to write a post for CandidatesChair.com.  Many thanks Dave! - MJR

Ever since I can remember, there has been a “factoid” making its way around the career management world about how long someone should plan their job search will take. What I can’t recall and never remember seeing is the source from which this “factoid” came. In any event if you are in a job search, you have probably heard it too. It goes something like: You should plan your search to take about 1 month for every $10,000 you seek in salary.

 I haven’t the slightest idea nor have I ever seen statistics that indicate whether this rule of thumb is right, wrong or anything in between, and I have been roaming around the career management space since (dare I say it?) 1961.

 That said, in talking with ExecuNet members, this is a subject that comes up with great frequency. Certainly not surprising, as most executives tend to be more type A’s than B’s and as such focus on objectives to be reached within a specific timeframe and get pretty impatient if and when it doesn’t look like that is happening. In addition, as leaders, they are used to being in control (more or less), and if things are not going the way they want them to and fast enough, they can make the needed changes.

In truth, I believe the foregoing is a major reason why we all find the search process so frustrating. There is only so much of it we really can control, and a great deal of it that we can’t. When you are “action oriented” and you feel you are in a situation when you can’t “make things happen,” to say it is frustrating doesn’t do it justice.

Also, how much time a job search is going to take is also one of those questions where I am not sure that an actuary could really give anyone a meaningful answer. There are so many variables involved, such as geography, age, function, industry segment, compensation needs, and the economy just to name a few.

Armed with the foregoing, hopefully you can understand why it is when someone asks me to guesstimate a timeline that I try to say this is one of those questions where “the answer is, there is no answer.” But of course, most people think that this is just a cop-out on my part and ask for a number anyway.

At that point I am likely to say something along the lines of, “Well,” and using my own personal experience as a starting point, “I can tell you that whatever length of time you think it will take, you are probably underestimating it significantly. It is kind of like when your wife says she is going to do some redecorating and she estimates the cost at $X and as a seasoned pro you immediately make a mental note that it is much more likely to be at least $2X+.”

 While we can all try to smile at our spouse’s budget estimates, translating that to a job search isn’t so funny. It is, however, very important in this sense: Part of trying to manage your way through a process as frustrating as a job search is to set realistic expectations. For without them, people tend to set goals that reality will make it very hard to attain, and when they are not attained, they feel it is somehow a sign that there is something seriously lacking in themselves when, of course, that is not the case at all. Easy to say but much harder to internalize.

I talk with members almost daily whose searches have been going for several months and in many cases more than a year, and aside from looking for ideas on handling the frustration, they also want some ideas on what they can do to try and re-energize the quest.

There is a lot that could be said on this subject and even more that’s been written, but for whatever it’s worth, here are a couple of thoughts for those who might be in this situation:

  • Keep in mind that this is essentially a sales process, and as such, do what companies do if a product they have introduced to the market is not producing the results they expected – repackage it. As a candidate, that could mean a résumé makeover, tuning up your phone and/or in-person interviewing skills, making sure you are doing really thorough research in terms of target companies, and certainly working harder to expand your personal and professional networks.
  • Make sure that because things have gone much longer than you wanted them to that you don’t fall into the trap of locking yourself in your home office and spending your days “clicking and praying.” It is counterproductive both strategically and emotionally.
  •  Get out, about and involved, both online and especially offline. Relationships can start online, but trust, which is the tipping point in personal referrals, comes much more often from face-to-face relationships built over time. If you are not already actively involved in at least one professional organization and one civic organization, do so. Keeping yourself intellectually “tuned in” is really important in terms of both attitude and energy, both of which are critical in terms of how others react to you.
  •  Since most people get jobs as the result of a linkage process (i.e. networking), everything you can do to give yourself the opportunity to create those links is very much worth the time and effort. If you are a member of ExecuNet, you have long heard us write and talk about effective networking being built on a foundation and attitude of “giving, not getting.” Approaching both people and/or events with the idea that you’re there as a resource to others does a lot to get your focus on the right stuff.
  •  If you are someone who has trouble doing some or all of this revamping yourself, you might consider getting an executive coach to help. It is certainly nothing to be ashamed of and from an accountability and structure perspective can be very helpful in getting things back on track. At ExecuNet, members frequently ask our help in finding such a resource, and we are happy to refer them.

And don’t ever forget what every salesperson will tell you: every “no” is simply one step closer to “yes.”

Dave Opton, Founder

ExecuNet

Blog: Six Figure Learnings

www.execunet.com 

Twitter: @Oppy

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Rewrite Your Pitch with the Most Used Skill from Your Work

October 20, 2010 By

If there was a skill I admired watching, it was a colleague take a product idea and strip out the features, functions, etc. until they got down to what was most valuable to our customers.  The items removed were good ideas; but they cluttered up a client’s path to what they really needed.

This is an example of the most used, though unrecognized, skill from your work: Understanding what’s relevant.

Think about it for a minute.  How many times did you look at projects, new products, task lists, presentations, etc. and remove the items that got in the way of what needed to be done or were out of order?  My guess is that it was a daily task and you were probably pretty good at it – because it’s the engine behind making things happen.

Now how can this skill help your pitch?

I’ve heard enough pitches (including my own); to know that they become muddled because we don’t want to leave anything out and then start to incorporate ideas from others.  Each point is valid, but when all together, it’s less than a clear statement to the reader of what’s most important – no matter how many times we reorder, bold, change font or italicize.  More data = Less information.

A good pitch is like your favorite website.  It was easy to figure out what the site does, the features you want are logical to use, and it’s easy to navigate.  Because the designers did not overwhelm you, you’re hooked.  For your pitch: Provide the most relevant information in a simple form.  Then you’ll hook them to want to learn more.   Less data = More Enticing Information.

Okay, so how do get there?

To start, create four lists to summarize your last few roles.   Just write down everything that comes to mind, don’t worry about editing it. 

List One: Work situations you faced (big shifts in market, competitive change, new product launches, merger, international markets, etc.)

List Two: Outcomes achieved

List Three: Skills regularly used, new skills learned or improved

List Four: Lessons and Mistakes

Next, imagine you had to hire someone to replace you.  Scan each list and then circle the three most important items from each one – what you would want to see on their resume.  Just put your “what’s relevant” skill into action.

The end result is your pitch: What situations you can handle, the proof of your success, the best skills you bring and how you apply them.

One last thought, I like to start with the situations and accomplishments, because people don’t ask for “10 years of experience”, they ask for “Someone who can handle sales in 10 states”.

Good luck today.

Mark

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