The Art of Managing Your Job Search Downtime

A last minute call cancels a networking meeting.  You have another meeting close-by, but it does not make sense to drive home and back.  For whatever reason, you have an extra hour or two on your hand.  Now what?

When we are employed, there is generally a well-stocked backlog of activities that fill any extra time.   When unemployed, we can adopt a less urgent focus on time, as we seem to have all day.  Yet, time is a search’s most value asset to be invested wisely.

Those extra hours happen more often than you like and the number can add up pretty fast.  If you allow ten hours of prime ‘job search time’ to go unused, that’s ten hours you take out of time needed to keep your psyche strong (being with family, volunteering, consulting, etc.)

A colleague of mine, Tom Kulikowski, once remarked “He stayed ruthlessly organized” during his search.  The ruthless organization was as much for eliminating unnecessary work as it was for keeping his weekly search time under 40 hours a week.    It is easy to occupy 60+ hours a week, but after 40 hours, both your productivity and effectiveness drop off like a rock.  Trust me, I know from both being ineffective and seeing in fellow candidates.  Working smarter instead of longer applies regardless of your employment status.

To use that extra hour, my activities fell into the following areas.  While not presented in a ranked priority, I always gave precedent to preparation for meetings/interviews and follow-up. For which, the tools were my calendar for the last month and upcoming two weeks and my Targeted Company list.

One: Upcoming meetings – Have you determined what you want from the meeting and how you can offer your contact something to make you memorable?  Use the time to fill in a “Networking Meeting Checklist” for each of our upcoming meeting.   

Two: Empty Spots in Your Calendar – I would check my progress on my Targeted Company list and figure out who I needed to meet to either within the company or to help me get in the company.  Then I would send out my invites, suggesting the times that were open in my calendar.  Having a roadmap makes it much easier to reach your destination, so I recommend you use a Targeted Company List.

Three: Follow-up to past networking meetings is what takes them from interesting to relevant.  Your follow-up on commitments and reminders of theirs is critical especially for demonstrating action on your part.

Four: Sharing or creating content that demonstrate your skills highlighted in your resume.  Early in my search, another colleague, Peter Van Nest, showed me the examples of his work for use in networking and interviews.  He was right in that an actual example of your work was significantly more powerful in proving you can deliver that just telling someone about it.  I now have two dozen examples that I share.

Five: Professional research to keep you up to date or expand your understanding of an area.  One of the reasons I like Proformative so much is the depth of content and practical advice from fellow finance professionals.  There are many sites for each professional area for sharing, not to mention the different groups within LinkedIn.

Six: Read the local business news to see what businesses are growing or changing.  I got into more companies simply because I followed up on a news article with an e-mail.

These items were more than enough to fill an hour and you can do every one while still enjoying a large coffee.

Good luck today!

Mark Richards
www.candidateschair.com



http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

Good Question: Do Cold Letters Work?

I answer job search questions on Proformative.com, I like to share the good questions from their members.

Original Good Question:

Given the job market we are experiencing, do you recommend sending a letter to a business that does not have an advertised position posted? Are cold letters such as this viewed as irritating to the business leaders?

My response:

If you recommend sending a letter, should it be very brief merely asking about a job or should it accompany a resume to inform the business of your skills?

Is a Cold Letter Effective?

A cold letter is generally ineffective because there is not an immediate need to fill, therefore, no reason to look at talent.  Also, without a referral or introduction, it is difficult for someone to dedicate time from their day to review the letter (e-mail, etc.)

No Advertised Position - How to get in:

To get into companies with no advertised positions, I have used two steps with success

First, I have looked for 'events' that could trigger need for people with my skill set (new products, funding, acquisition, etc.).  I looked at events within the last six months - it's usually a series of small events, not a major one.  While that seems like a big window of time, a company may need an extended period to determine what it needs.

Second, I find a way to get a referral or connection to remove the 'cold' - just to give your letter a chance to be read.  Remember, regardless of how strong a referral, your letter may go unread. 

I think the book "Take the Cold out of Cold Calling" (www.takethecold.com) by Sam Ritcher is a great tool for finding connections.

Letter versus E-mail:

Use an e-mail; you are more likely to get it read.  Letters are good for follow-up.  I like to send notes like this on Sunday night, when people begin to scan e-mails on their smartphones in prep for the week, but their Inbox is not jammed.

What's in your e-mail:

As what to include in the e-mail it's all about addressing a need.  In addition to using your network to get a connection, also seek insight into what's happening in the firm and specifically for the person you want to meet.

Here's what I've included in my e-mail. 

1) Should be to a specific person (e.g. CFO)

2) Reference your referral by name (I include in the title of my e-mail)

3) Identify the need that person has from the event (e.g. integration of accounting post-acquisition).  When I say need, what do they think about are those tasks they personally need to accomplish to remain successful.

4) In short, mention only background that is relevant to the addressing the need (e.g. I've done 4 integration projects).

5) Ask if they would like to meet, at a minimum you can share insight from your background.   

Your objective is to have them take a meeting.  Give them a compelling reason why to meet - anything more simply gets in the way and diminishes your chances.

Include the URL to your LinkedIn profile instead of a resume and leave out asking for a job.  You want to avoid making someone feel like they will have to say "No" to you regarding a job (Who wants to take a meeting like that?)

There are no advertised jobs for a reason, they are not looking.  But just because they are not actively looking does not mean they do not have a need to solve.  What you want to do with your e-mail and meeting is highlight the need.

While these are generally longer-term plays, the interesting part is very few people use this method to get in - 

especially when it comes to stringing together several events where the cumulative effect could be significant.

Hope this helps.

Mark

www.candidateschair.com - sharing ideas from candidates for candidates to keep your psyche strong and search focused. 

http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

Pitching Your Startup Experience to an Non-Startup Audience

Question: Does having a start-up or early-stage experience help or hinder your resume’s appeal?

The answer: Depends on the reader.

I know that’s a crummy answer, but it’s the truth.

If the reader has a background with firms that were with startup/early-stage, entrepreneurial, fast growing or rapidly changing business, they can see how the experience effects what you can offer a potential employer. If not, it’s more difficult.

Think of it like working outside your home country, it’s tough to truly appreciate until you cross the border.
Since you may move between established firms and start-ups, understanding how to position your experience to a non-Startup audience is important.

Having worked in and with start-up/early-stage firms for the past five years I can share some of the key upsides and downsides. There are loads of both, but these items that come up most frequently in either discussion with colleagues or what I’ve experienced firsthand.

UPSIDES:
These are the items to emphasize in a cover letter, pitch or within body of resume.

Fine tune your view of the customer: Without all the meetings, processes, etc. this is where you focus all of your attention on understanding the need, design a product to fulfill it, understand their motivation to buy, how to find them and convince them to put money in your wallet. There’s not a company on the planet that does not want to serve their customer better. This is the best thing going for a start-up, that ability to get to the absolute essentials of bringing revenue into the business.

Visibility to the entire business process: This is the second best thing going for a startup; you get to see the entire delivery process to a client – from product, pricing, operations through collection of cash. You learn both what’s truly essential to running the business and when to add functions to your company.

Expand and Understand Your Skills: Titles are given, but generally optional when it comes to getting the work done. Those skills you were good at become great; those skills you were okay at become better. My titles have been CFO, but my tasks have including designing web pages, developing a social media plan, creating sales tools, and operating manuals. I’d never say you’ll become an expert, but you certainly learn to use what you’ve got and how to deal with situations where you have little past experience. In a small firm, you are pretty open about your strengths (also it’s hard to hide) and when to ask for help – which makes you a more effective member of a team to accomplish a given task.

Speed of Decision-Making/Risk Taking: Due to a variety of constraints, you learn to move quickly with less information. More importantly, you learn to focus on the ‘right’ information. How you approach risk is also finely tuned, because you learn to balance the need to move quickly and the risk that a bad decision can sink the firm. You move to try new ideas quickly, but you move to shut down rotten ideas with equal speed.

Problems = Innovation: There’s always some problem or roadblock to overcome. Whether it’s too little capital, change in client behavior, your solution did not work exactly right, or new competitors, you learn to adapt your original vision of what you bring to market. Because of their frequency, you become enamored with what you can deliver, less on how it’s delivered. Innovation extends well beyond the initial idea into how to make the idea commercially viable.

DOWNSIDES:
A non-startup audience may often view the following items as less than favorable because of how they differ from their typically established company perspective. I describe the traits and how to offset it in your pitch, etc. When it comes to the downsides, my advice is to assassinate the assassin, by directly addressing the issues that may derail your chances.

You could not get job in big firm: There is a common belief that traditional firms were not interested in you, so you went to a start-up.

Offsetting argument: The reality is that given the risk of capital, the investors, board and management tend to be very choosey as to who gets hired. They have both capital and reputation on the line, and when it comes to raising capital for their next deal, protecting these is critical.

Failure or non-performance of start-up: It’s the nature of the beast and no one is immune. You are defining a new product, new market or both and with this come higher risk.

Offsetting argument: It’s this risk that enables the upsides noted above, however, without a roadmap, processes or history – you are likely to make mistakes. You can compare a start-up success rate to a number of projects, products in a large firm.

Nomadic lifestyle: People will see that you may have worked with a number of start-ups in a short period of time. There are three primary reasons why this might be true. First, it can take several tries to find the right deal and you may have to jump in to figure it out. Second, not every start-up needs your skill full-time after launch; your work can be a project to get the business launched. Third, the business does not succeed or grow, so it’s time to try a new one because they cannot afford you or there’s no upside.

Offsetting argument: Start-up investors lay bets on a large number of start-ups with the belief that 1 in 10 or 20 will have a significant return that more than offsets the deals that goes sideways. They go into deals knowing that many will not succeed; the tough part is that they don’t which one up front.

CAVEATS:
Before pitching someone, learn their background and their firms. For their firms, remember that big does not always equal stodgy, and may view itself as very entrepreneurial for their size.

The non-startup audience is not wrong in their view of skills, simply different than you. It’s your responsibility to help them appreciate the startup experience.

Your experience will vary in scope and depth. Before you head out to pitch yourself, take an inventory of your experiences – you’ll be surprised at what you’ve learned!

If your start-up hit it big, then skip the above and promote the end result, you’ve punched your ticket.

Good luck today.

Mark

www.candidateschair.com/blog

http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

Interview Performance: In Transition Candidate Versus The Employed Candidate

Have you ever wondered if being in-transition makes you less attractive in an interview?  The answer may be “Yes”, but not for the reasons you may think.

My colleague Marcia Ballinger from Keystone Search and I were having coffee and we got on the topic of interviewing.  She shared some amazing insight into how in-transition candidates effectively derail their chances during the interview.

Marcia has submitted many in-transition candidates for her clients’ consideration because they have the right skills and experiences that make them attractive to a client – regardless of their employment status.  Also, Marcia’s firm has sat in interviews as an observer for the past five years, so she has seen both types of candidates in action.

She noted distinct patterns of behavior from the in-transition candidates derailed their chances for the role because they made themselves an ‘outlier’ compared other candidates – but in the wrong direction.

Much like that old joke about when you and buddy are being chased by a bear, you don’t have to run faster than the bear, just your buddy.  When it comes to hiring, the candidate selected is not the best at everything, they are simply better than the other candidates. 

Here are the traits that Marcia has seen from in-transition candidates are going to get you caught by the bear.

• ·         They talk more and listen less. 
• ·         They are very quickly convinced that an opportunity is “perfect” for them, even when they don’t have all the facts.   Marcia said that she frequently has in-transition candidates proclaim that they are ‘perfect’ for a position, even before they have seen a job description.  (Writer comment: For an executive position, these can be literally ‘million dollar’ decisions given the potential impact of the executive on a business.  Who makes million dollar decisions with no information?) 
• 
  
• ·       They lean forward.
• ·         They don’t always wait for the speaker to finish answering the question.
• ·         They are glib, surface, and less “thoughtful.”
• ·         They talk faster, as though they are trying to “squeeze” more in.
• ·         They seek to persuade, not to understand.

Having interviewed during my own transition, I’ll admit to being guilty of these behaviors.  At the time I felt as though I was displaying my eagerness and interest, but now I see it was my anxious feelings shining through.  

How does someone with a job behave during an interview?  Here’s what Marcia has observed:

·         These people are picky.  They are choosey.

·         Instead of trying to convince, they are waiting to be convinced.

·         They are genuinely interested in learning more and investigating whether the opportunity could be a fit.  But, they do not come in convinced that it IS a fit.

·         There tends to be more mutuality in the discussions with employed candidates.  Employed candidates see themselves as ‘peers’, so the interview is more like two business people having a meeting.

·         For the hiring executive, it feels more like a regular meeting between a boss and a staff member, and less like an outsider, or a “salesperson.”

For you and me, these types of ‘insider’ insights are pure gold since its behavior from fellow candidates – both what’s working and what’s not.  However, Marcia made another point which I think is more relevant: The in-transition candidates’ behaviors arise from their circumstances and build over time; therefore, they need to work harder to suppress these behaviors.

The employed candidate comes into the interview with the ability to walk away, which gives them a position of strength.  They feel less overall risk and certainty no reason to push or persuade.  This is why the discussion is more relaxed and interactive.

Can an in-transition candidate give themselves the walk away power?  While perhaps not at the same level of the employed candidate, you can get close if you go into an interview with this mindset: I don’t want to be interviewing a year from now; therefore, I need to be sure this is a job where I can truly succeed and will be retained.

If this approach helps you avoid being back in-transition in the near term, it’s a powerful motivation to help you make sure this is the right position.  (If you are at the point, either financially or emotionally, that you to just get into a role please see: The Art of Settling for Less).

My thanks to Marcia for sharing this amazing insight that will help all of us get the most out of our interviews.

Good luck today!

Mark

http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

Good Question: How to Avoid Networking Burnout

I blog on Proformative.com (on-line community for finance executives), this is one of the questions that I was recently asked.

Good question:

I have been in interview mode for about 8 months. How do I refresh from this process so that I don't start to sound like a "canned speech". I am networking and in interviews, phone and in person probably about 25 hours per week. Selling yourself starts to become tedious.

My answer:

Before I begin, if you are feeling burned out - take a break. Cancel your networking meetings. You only have one chance to impress and no matter how you try, if you feel burned out - it comes through to whomever you are meeting. Trust me, I've been on both sides of this equation. No one buys from a sales person who lacks confidence - and you are your number 1 sales person!

I found that burnout is a combination of three factors: low psyche (from not getting a role or being treated poorly in process), repetition of process (different people, same pitch) and too many similar meetings (all hat, no cattle).

1.       For the low psyche - two ideas:

·         Define 'success' as those actions that got you an interview or moved the hiring process ahead. If you only define success as getting a new role, then it's tough to feel like you accomplished anything. Keep a running list of accomplishments for each week - 2 or 3. It's these little accomplishments that will add up over time. (Also see my post on Redefining Success)

·        Pick a project that you can accomplish in short-time. Whether as volunteer, contractor or at home - I had a list of projects I could knock out. Gave me the rhythm of being at work, where I had the sense of moving things ahead.

I know both of these two may sound like parlor tricks, but the first is about what to expect from yourself and the second reminds you that bring value to a firm. I've given this advice several times and had good feedback - I've also used it for myself.

2.       Repetition:

What varied this for me was practicing the "80% Rule", where 80% of my networking was focused on the other person. This strategy is a long-term investment in building a relationship because you are focusing on what you can do for that person - but I can guarantee it never gets boring.

You will get your chance to pitch, but it's usually not the same - because most people return the favor and start to ask different questions and the networking becomes more collaborative. (See the resource "Networking Checklist" and blog post "Making Networking Effective - Your Timing is Everything".)

3.       Too many meetings:

One of my mistakes in search was too much networking. I was taking too many of the same meetings or not making the most of my meetings.

For taking too many of the 'same meetings', try the "Daily Point System". This tool will help you allocate your time to those meetings which make a difference.

For not make the most of my meetings, see the blog post "Roadmap to the Hiring Manager", this was my discovery of aligning my request for help with the networking contact's level of relationship with the hiring manager.  In short, asking for help that they can truly deliver.

This is just a starter and I hope this helps.

Good luck today.

Mark

www.candidateschair.com - Networking and job search advice from candidates for candidates.  Please take a visit to get free tools and advice.

http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community