Create your own job security. How executives get control over their careers.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “40% of all executives leave their jobs within 18 months.” And every one who does potentially causes serious long-term career damage.

Employers believe people who stay in jobs 4+ years are better than those who move around. The first thing anyone who views a resume checks for is the pattern of longevity. Any candidate with a sturdy work history aces those without.

Example:

Of five career coaching clients, two had less than 3 years in four recent jobs, two had a pattern staying 6+ and one had 11 years with the same company.

11 years = Job opportunities came to him which were all significantly more senior than current roles. He went from GM to CEO in a 3-month process. He was approached about six unique CEO options and more would have been forthcoming had he not taken a new position. Investors have him on their radar.

6-year pattern = Hiring authorities and investors tapped them for similar roles to the current role with greater responsibilities and or more $$. Any would be significant career moves.

Less than 2 years in more than 2 recent jobs = No one reached out and their job search was long and difficult. Only second tier companies were interested and compensation was not as high as in the other two scenarios. First tier companies where they were referred in only considered these candidates for positions lower than the ones they left.

There are no reasons or circumstances employers accept when faced with a choice between short- and long-tenured candidates. Preserving your resume is critical to your career success and financial gains.

To protect your resume and career, you must avoid taking the wrong job.

Problem:

Employers are very good at telling an executive candidate what they want to hear. The Board is in on the game and because they pride themselves with hiring the best, tend not to feel one pang of conscience.

How do you know your prospective employer is the right employer for you?

When you interview, everyone is in “sales” mode to keep you interested in working for the company. Even if they tell you about challenges, they don’t tell you the real downsides to working there and every company has downsides. They distract you with manageable issues and encourage you to focus on solutions which are easily achieved. Don’t be fooled.

Why is finding out the dirt so important?

Your career/resume are sacred. Employers want to know you have lived through the results of your decisions and have built collaborative relationships; that you have staying power.

Most people change jobs for reasons other than money. Which means vetting your prospective employer is vastly more important than negotiating every last dime. It’s not how much money you make, it’s about how successful you can be in that job.

Solution:

To get past the sales pitch and learn what the company is really like, talk to the techies. Once you are in serious consideration for an opportunity, ask to talk to the QA manager and both the Sales Support and Customer Services Managers.

When you talk to the Board and ‘C’s, be fearless in your questions. Once you are at the second or third interview stage, it is about acquiring information to decide if this is the right company/job.

Ask pointed questions. For example:

1. Are there personnel changes in the works or near term I should know about?
2. The unique visitors number looks good, is it going up or down?
3. What is the pattern and what affects it?
4. What is the strength of those variables?
5. How are decisions made?
6. Tell me about the last crisis and how it was handled and the results.
7. What part of the house is on fire?
8. Are you in talks with investors or prospective buyers?
9. What keeps you up at night?

Give the top line management every chance to reveal what is actually going on. Let them talk without interruption. The more silent you are, the more they will say.

Want to dive deep?

Talk to the customers, former customers and people who have left the company. Then talk to the sales person whose numbers are in the middle of the pack. Don’t let them force the high roller on you. Ask about the challenges, the competition, resources and anything else related to making or preventing the sale.

Other thoughts:

Take a look at glassdoor.com and other sites where employees comment on their employer confidentially. Don’t use them as the ‘be all to end all’, only as an alert and guide for questions. To test the sites, see what people say about your current or most recent employers and do a reality check.

Use LinkedIn to find former employees. Invite them to chat with you confidentially.

Use the search engines to find blogs that comments on that company. Check Digg, Gist and other news aggregators to discover who the executives really are and what is top of mind for them. Find out what others say about the management team and Board members.

Are the investors well thought of? Will second or mezzanine financing be easy to get because of good press?

What is their financial run-way? A company with only 9 months spendable may be a short term employer. One former client was told he was the right person for the job and the Board and ‘Cs’ were unanimous. Checking online revealed the company was in serious financial trouble and they needed my client’s reputation and connections to gather new investors. Imagine his response had he taken the job and not known this.

Get a bead on their financial health from sites like Yahoo! Finance or Hoovers. For public companies, read their 10K and financial rags.

Observe employee morale. Do folks walk around and chat; are they smiling? Is the rest room clean? What does the lunch room look like? Are employees encouraged to engage with places to congregate? Are there office recognition traditions? What is the turn-over like, especially the sales force?

Since every company has a downside, keep a pros and cons list to provide balance in your decision. Consult your Go/No-go list to make sure none of the concerns rule this employer out of consideration.

It’s not about winning by getting the job, it’s about winning the right job under the right circumstances.

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More information on creating your own job security can be found here:

Personal brand for job security

Job security made simple

Job Security through career planning

Job Security sometimes means, just say no to a job

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For support on career development and job search methodologies, consider career coaching and/or reading my books filled with examples, scripts and advice from hiring authorities.

Clients who take my advice get the promotions they are after and the jobs they want. In the last 3 years 98% of my clients achieved their goals within six months. In the last two years 100% achieved their goals in well under that time.

Contact me to discuss your specific challenges to see if coaching is the right solution for you. Not certain? Want field tested guidance? Read Job Search Debugged and Networking Debugged

Building job security is simple but it sure isn’t easy.

“Are you adding real value or merely passing information along? How do you add value? By continually looking for ways to make things better. …Every hour of your day should be spent increasing the output or value of the output of the people for whom you are responsible.” Andy Grove on job security.

Why do  some people appear to be bullet-proof when lay offs and bad economic times force many very talented executives onto the unemployment lines? Your value to the company is based on many attributes, but the bottom line IS the bottom line. As the CEO of your career, how you contribute and how you invest in the contributions of your team are critical factors for career stability.

It’s not about you. It’s about your perceived value to the company.

Invest in your corporate personal brand. During a particularly difficult economic downturn, one of my clients feared he’d be laid off as the company downsized. Instead, he was offered more responsibility and a better title. His peers were dismissed and even his boss was asked to leave.

How did he manage to hang on? His internal brand was “consensus builder” or “collaborator.” He had accomplished significant tasks that required intra- and extra-departmental cooperation. For example, he was the first executive to get product management and engineering working smoothly. And he made darned sure the CEO and his manager knew about it.

He didn’t brag. He simply kept progress towards that goal in their radar. The whiteboard where both teams tracked their sprints was open for public viewing. The CEO frequently browsed the board to reassure himself things were on track.

He acknowledged the teams’ progress through corporate recognition, celebrations and public awards (Starbucks played a heavy role) and certificates for milestones. He submitted quarterly reports in which he called out challenges and solutions and progress towards resolution.

And he implemented a program where every one of his people knew exactly what was required of them at all times. They could measure and improve their own performance without managerial oversight; morale was high and laughter and applause were often heard from the products area.

There were no surprises. Since everyone knew precisely what their performance must look like, they were keen to point out obstacles and possible solutions.

At the end of the day, his products group had no unwanted turnover, morale was high and productivity, exceptional. The bottom line? More product innovations, better product stability and new releases more often. The sales force applauded their efforts and the customers were happy.

Ultimately, he did as Andy Grove recommends. He focused on adding value, not simply passing information.

Keys to his success: He invested in training his team to know their job, how to communicate obstacles and he created a tradition of recognition that kept his personal brand alive and well.

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Would you like support creating your own personal brand? Contact me to discuss executive coaching. Let’s create your own job security.

Jobs are like busses, if you get on the right one, you arrive at your destination

Abstract: Career planning for job security – Visibility, choosing the right employer, your brand and importance of a Mentor.

Are you in the career you planned when you were in college? Have you had more than one career? Do you know where you want to be in three, five or seven years? Do you know how to decide? Do you know how to make it happen?

My most successful coaching clients are able to articulate short and long-term goals. They are courted by hiring authorities, recruiters and peers. They know their brand, their  value to prospective employers and exactly how to articulate that value. And they know when to say ‘no’ to an opportunity, no matter how seductive, because they have a plan.

Just as a vision is critical for the success of a company or product line, so too is it critical for the success of a career. And just as with a product, when course corrections are made due to unforeseen opportunity or risk, the right changes are made and the career is not derailed.

Managing your career means you are likely to earn more money over your lifetime.

Example: Rod S. is a Seattle area IT executive known locally for fast problem resolution and innovative solutions for back office tools. He works for a recognized leader in delivering products and his team makes that happen.

Rod is 41 years old and eager to leverage his reputation into a higher paying job that will get him closer to his savings goals. When a NYC company came courting with the promise of a $200k increase in his paycheck, he was ready to pounce.

Rod’s long term goal is CIO of a Seattle technology company. The job is for a non-technology company that needs someone to get them up to speed in their IT deliverables. He has the skill set and knowledge to do that. He knows he can do it and convinced himself it is a good move, even though it is not in Seattle.

Risks: Moving to NY to a non-technology company takes him out of the mainstream IT arena. His network is diminished, his work hidden from view. He cannot later leverage the ‘brand’ of the company, nor his personal brand as an IT leader since his work will be invisible to the outside world. He loses the kinetic momentum of Seattle peer relationships and, while he will have a larger pay check, his expenses will also be higher. In truth, the job is seductive only on paper.

If he takes that job, he delays or kills his opportunity to be CIO of a technology company because it does not move him closer to his goal in any way.  And worse, because non-technology companies are notoriously resistant to technology innovation and change, he will probably self select leaving within 18 months, thereby corrupting his resume with a short tenured job, out of state from his intended home.

Net: Can I be successful here is more important than how much money you I make. You are building a career, not just taking a job.

Your resume and your career: The Wall Street Journal reports that 40% of executives leave their jobs within 18 months.

And every one who does potentially creates serious career damage. Employers believe people who stay in jobs 4+ years are better than those who move around. The first thing anyone who views a resume checks for is the pattern of longevity. You can offer all sorts of reasons for leaving but the fact is, any candidate with a sturdy work history aces those without. [For more detail.]

There are no reasons or circumstances employers accept when faced with that choice. Preserving your resume is critical to your career success. Thus, career planning is critical to avoid taking the wrong job. Knowing how to vet a prospective employer is equally important.

Employers are very good at telling an executive what they want to hear when they want to hire them. It is incumbent on candidates to dive deep to discover the real truth. Job Search Debugged lists the criteria investors use to vet a company and also talks about how you can get to the truth.

Example:

Of six recent clients, two had less than three years in four recent jobs, two had a pattern staying six+ and one had eleven years with the same company.

Eleven years = Job opportunities came to him which were all significantly more senior than his current role.

Six year pattern = Hiring authorities and investors tapped him for similar roles to the one he had with greater responsibilities and or more $$.

Less than 2 years in more than two recent jobs = No one reached out and their job search was stressful and frustrating. Only second tier companies were interested and compensation was not as high as in the other two scenarios. [Read ideas to overcome this issue]

The importance of the kindness of strangers. Determine where you want to be in three-five years and know how to get there.

I have always found it somewhat magical that anyone aspires to a given job without actually knowing what that job is about. Sure, we talk about titles, but do we really know what tasks the individual does?

Get to know people who have the job you want in five or more years. Ask to shadow them, ask questions about how they got to where they are and what worked, what they would do differently. There is no better preparation for a new role than knowing what it requires in more than the theoretical sense. You need a roadmap.

Mentors: Those clients who have a mentor tend to be promoted faster and receive accolades more frequently. One such individual was commended by the CEO for having contributed to the betterment of the corporation because of the processes he brought into his own department which were then duplicated elsewhere. His mentor guided him towards that outcome.

Your personal brand opens doors.

Think you can just call an established executive and ask them to your board? Think again. They have to feel supporting your efforts will make them look good. And for that, you need a highly visible track record.

That’s where your brand comes it. You have a brand whether you created it purposefully or not. Get control of it using social networking opportunities and any public forums or speaking opportunities. Job Search Debugged speaks to building your brand, step by step without making it so time consuming you have little else to do. Know your brand and use it when people ask what you do or where you work. It is your elevator pitch for social circumstances.

In Summary: When you are branded and networked, jobs come to you. When people know you they refer you and invite you to participate. There is nothing like an excellent personal relationship or strategic introduction to overcome ageism issues and career obstacles.

You are judged by the company you keep. Work hard to maintain your brand, stay in the radar of the right people, chose the right opportunities and your career will be resilient and lucrative.

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For support on career development and job search methodologies, consider career coaching and/or reading books filled with examples, scripts and advice from hiring authorities. Clients who take my advice get the promotions they are after and the jobs they want. In the last 3 years 98% of my clients achieved their goals within six months. In the last two years 100% achieved their goals in well under that time.

Contact me to discuss your specific challenges to see if coaching is the right solution for you. Not certain? Want field tested guidance? Read Job Search Debugged and Networking Debugged

“At a certain point in the process, no credit will be given for predicting rain. The only credit will be for helping to build an ark.” Ben Horowitz

Last night I spent 45 minutes talking a client down from a rant about how negative his team had become. They were demoralized from all the customer complaints and additional workload that entailed. The Q/A team complained the developers showed them no respect and the Product Managers continued to give the developers poor stories for the sprints; all common complaints for a VP development of a small Agile/SaaS company.

His team had developed the habit of predicting rain. They shot down ideas and came to meetings with objections and new problems they asserted could not be resolved. The gloom and doom was doing harm by demoralizing the team and impacting productivity.

My advice to him was use the first rule of robotics. In Asimov’s first rule of robotics, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Insert the term team or company for human and you have an effective rule for management.

When folks come to discussions with negativity, inaction and reports on what won’t work or what is broken and neglect to offer solutions, they bring harm. Even if they are the wrong solutions, they start the discussion in a positive, let’s-solve-this sort of way. It builds the team, keeps morale high and eventually results in a solution that works.

Teams are more likely to collaborate. Success comes both internally and across the company when people are solutions oriented. If they feel embittered and demoralized because their product or process isn’t working, they tend not to reach out.

Building a solutions-oriented team renders immediate results. People feel empowered and creative. They get things done and try new things. The simple idea of finding solutions instead of merely reporting problems is the basis on which the Japanese car manufacturers achieved their astounding success and turned around their industry years ago.

When everyone becomes part of the solution, they are no longer part of the problem. It is as simple as permitting no complaints or problems without also offering a solution or work-around. When that rule is enforced and the example is set, even a demoralized team can start building the  ark.

Impostors need not apply

“The Imposter Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.” Wikipedia

Is your success just luck? Do you feel if people really knew, they’d know you are really a fraud and it is just a matter of time before they are found out?

Are you proving to yourself you are worthless and a victim by avoiding the proper steps towards finding a new job?

Or worse, do you overcompensate for your feelings of inferiority and take every opportunity to tell people you are a thought leader of grand stature and remind them of your accomplishments? Are you sabotaging your job search efforts to prove to yourself you are not who you appear to be?

Think hard on this one.

Do you have Imposter Syndrome? Take this test

Dr. Valerie Young, Author of How To Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are uses a test to help people identify their tendency towards feeling like a fraud:

• Do you secretly worry that others will find out that you’re not as bright and capable as they think you are?
• Do you sometimes shy away from challenges because of nagging self-doubt?
• Do you tend to chalk your accomplishments up to being a “fluke,” “no big deal” or the fact that people just “like” you?
• Do you hate making a mistake, being less-than-fully prepared or not doing things perfectly?
• Do you tend to feel crushed by even constructive criticism, seeing it as evidence of your “ineptness?”
• When you do succeed, do you think, “phew, I fooled ‘em this time but I may not be so lucky next time.”
• Do you believe that other people (students, colleagues, competitors) are smarter and more capable than you are?
• Do you live in fear of being found out, discovered, unmasked?

Why now? A tendency towards imposter syndrome is exacerbated for some people by looking for a job. The stress of the unknown in a job search and all the rejection are hard for anyone, but for those with self-esteem issues (another characterization of the impostor syndrome), job search provokes damaging behaviors.

Dr. Young points out, “I would say to executives who are women or people of color seeking jobs in organizations where they would either the first or one of the few executives who are not male or pale, that it is especially understandable that they would experience feelings of fraudulence… being in the spotlight and having to often represent one’s entire group adds an additional burden to “prove” one’s competence in ways others do not.”

You have so little control over events and outcomes it adds to the feeling of worthlessness. There is nothing like the terrifying affects of powerlessness to make a person feel like a fraud. Those feelings are often circumstantial and do not have to be career limiting.

Examples:

Some people react to these feelings with a need for perfectionism or self-aggrandizement. No one else can see the solutions they do and they are quick to say, “I wouldn’t have done it that way.”

When asked about interviews or job opportunities they enumerate all the ways the employer approaches their project wrong and make their own views the focus of their job search. Their never-ending stream of judgmental comments makes them unattractive and unemployable.

Nathaniel Branden, author of How to Raise Your Self Esteem writes, “…The true nature of self esteem is that it is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self-esteem is not expressed as self-glorification at the expense of others, or by the quest to make oneself superior to others or to diminish others so as to elevate oneself. Arrogance, boastfulness, and the overestimation of our abilities reflect inadequate self-esteem rather than, as some people imagine, too much self-esteem.”

Those convinced they are impostors are reluctant to change their methods of job search and often feel most jobs are beneath them so they don’t pursue likely prospects and often focus on jobs above their skill or experience level.

The impostor often feels they are so different from others, that the rules and processes others follow to land a job simply don’t apply; that they just need to ‘be themselves’ and they will get job offers. Of course, when the offers fail to materialize, it is because, in their view, the hiring authorities are not smart enough to ‘get it.’ And secretly, they believe it is proof of they are frauds which makes accepting the reality of their own accomplishments even harder.

They trivialize their accomplishments or worse, simply refuse to own them. These people complain, I can’t brag in an interview, that’s unnatural to me. And yet, the description of their accomplishments in terms of the employer’s needs is precisely the data required to land a job. Self defeating–but again, they prove themselves right.

Another aspect of the fraud syndrome is what I refer to as, “Magical Thinking.” Candidates believe their credentials are so strong and compelling, none of the traditional and proven job search techniques apply. They waste time on job boards and send resumes out randomly. They believe their blog and ‘name’ are sufficient to attract the perfect job. They maintain their comprehensive experience is so stunning that their phone will should be ringing with offers. The fact is, they have never hired anyone who used that technique nor have they ever heard of any executive who has. But they remain committed to failure-guaranteed activities. Their belief they are in fact a fraud and a failure is proven again.

Is this you? Technology professionals often manifest the syndrome by conducting interviews that stress what they lack, whether asked or not. Believing they are talking in the spirit of honesty and not wanting to misrepresent themselves, they mention skills they don’t have instead of focusing on what they do have that qualifies them for the job.

The self-fulfilling prophesy: Researchers have found the imposter syndrome often results in desire to avoid situations where people felt vulnerable. They believe the motivation is to avoid doing poorly, looking weak, being compared or judged. It is especially handicapping to feel you won’t live up to other’s expectations. Thus, they don’t engage in activities others have proven to work in a job search, such as networking, attending conferences and other personal branding activities.

They avoid or delay any activity that prompts comparison. Instead, they invent new approaches they are convinced are creative and ‘out of the box’ when in fact, they simply don’t work. They go to a mall to hand out their resume or they use LinkedIn to broadcast their frustration or worse, send out thousands of unsolicited resumes. Often, they are suckered into paying for dubious services, in fact whole industries have arisen to prey on people who feel helpless or fraudulent.

Taylor Lindstrom of MenWithPens, opines, “You may be afraid of success, but it isn’t because you don’t want it for yourself. It’s because you’re afraid other people don’t want it for you. And you know what? Screw ‘em. Your success belongs to you. And it’s nothing to be afraid of.” And I believe she is right. Many of my clients mention their parents never believed in them or encouraged them. They spend their lives hunched under the yoke of proving to themselves and their invisible parents that they are worthy, that they are not worthless. But, unfortunately, no accomplishment silences the voices and sadly, these people remain encumbered by ancient history.

Take Heart: Researchers discovered true imposters are unable to ask for help. By definition, if you are reading this, you are seeking help and therefore, you are not an impostor, or at least hope to recover from the syndrome.

To become more aware of impostor thinking, Dr. Young,  suggests, “Look for stereotyping and self-defeating attitudes that can be reflected in speech, such as women prefacing sentences with disclaimers like “This may not be right, but…” and discounting accomplishments with “Anyone could have done it” or “It wasn’t much.” I’d add to that list, “I was just part of the team,” and “I was only a co-inventor.”

Evelyn Kalinosky of Forbes Women mentions these warning signs:

1. dismissive attitude when praised
2. feeling that peers with the same responsibilities are more mature [successful]
3. reluctance to accept new responsibilities or challenges for fear of failure [or making them highly conditional]
4. unnatural reaction to constructive criticism [even when asked for]
5. worrying that others will begin to realize their shortcomings [which they enumerate often]

Your job search suffers. A classic self-esteem/impostor self-defeating job search trick is the refusal to reach out to people who can help, or worse, to denigrate their wisdom or process. While at turns the individual hides their light under a barrel and then engages in self aggrandizing comments, they spurn the help from the very connections most likely to help saying, that won’t work for me.

Another common career-limiting behavior of those who believe they are impostors is the constant barrage of commentary, mostly unbidden, about how others do things wrong. Each time such a judgement is articulated, it says, “I am smarter, better and more creative than the dufus who did, said or invented that,” and it broadcasts the speaker’s low self esteem which often results in the listener walking away. Proof again; impostor.

Actions to counter feelings of being a fraud or impostor

1. List examples and outcomes of accomplishments from your resume.
2. Don’t compare yourself with those younger and/or more accomplished than yourself.
3. Take a full accounting of the you who has achieved the success you have today and define accomplishments out loud and on paper.
4. Keep a list at hand of 3-5 significant tasks you excelled at and reread it every time you have to pick up the phone or otherwise interact with job leads.
5. Brag to a loved-one about each day’s accomplishments, no matter how tiny.
6. Create a daily to-do list of reasonable and achievable tasks.
7. Remind yourself you are more than your career. Focus on those who love you.
8. Stop complaining. You don’t need to hear all that negative chatter.
9. Engage in your hobby to offset frustration and negative feelings.
10. Forgive yourself for not being perfect.
11. Forgive others as well. Be aware of every judgmental word you use and stop using them.
12. Remove ‘deserve’ and ‘should’ from your vocabulary. Both are damaging and judgmental.

In my view, a real boost to ones self esteem is derived from setting realistic expectations. The first step towards that is forgiving yourself for those times when you don’t get it right. Not one baseball Hall-of-famer ever batted 1000. Yet there they are, in the Hall of fame. A few missed balls did not mean they are impostors and neither are you.

Want to disengage from the impostor manacle? Create a compelling job search and do what other’s have proven works. Read, Job Search Debugged and Networking Debugged for field-tested advice for executives.

While crafting this post I relied heavily on experts as well as my own experience coaching executives past ‘impostor’ behaviors. My degrees in counseling and psychology do come in handy occasionally.

Career development is not something most people think about. Most people are job-focused and ignore the impact today’s job has on tomorrow’s opportunities.

Why implement a career development strategy?

• Managing your career means you are likely to earn more money over your lifetime.
• As you age, excellent career development can alleviate ageism issues.
• With a career development plan in place, job search becomes easier. It is your hedge against unemployment.
• Your personal brand precedes you and jobs more often come to you.
• Career development planning reduces the risk of layoffs and obsolescence.

Most people lope along in their careers opportunistically. They respond to recruitment pressures and get swept up in the concept of winning the competition for a new job without evaluating the long term consequences of that job. Or worse, they are forced to do a job search unexpectedly and respond to which ever offer comes first. Both tactics can result in career-limiting decisions.

Example:

Ronnie was offered what she thought was a magnificent opportunity as Director of Finance in a Chicago company. The money was good and she’d have a larger team to manage in a lower cost of living geography. She accepted the job and four years later, when it was time to return to California for family matters, she found job hunting excruciating.

• Her California network had dried up
• Her experience was no longer relevant because she had learned no new skills
• Since she had not worked directly with investors or orchestrated strategic alliances and acquisitions her experience didn’t map
• Her experience with a no-name company did not impress and could not be leveraged
• Her compensation was out of sync with California salaries and the relocation expenses an issue

She finally landed a new job in California, but it was almost identical to the one she left which meant, her long-term goal of CFO, was thwarted, perhaps forever.

Where did she go wrong?

Had Ronnie evaluated the job the recruiter presented in terms of her long term goal to be a CFO in the medical equipment world, she would have passed on the opportunity. She was swept up by the momentum and flattery of being courted. Instead of asking if this was the right move for her, she responded with what do I have to do to win. The result was, she won the job, but lost her career momentum.

• Is the company in the medical world?
• Is the company respected and revered by future prospective employers?
• Will the job help me grow my skill set?
• Will I work on strategic alliances, taking the company public or other momentous and differentiating accomplishments?
• Will I have the visibility and acknowledgement in my field to grow my network and personal brand?
• Will the resources and team quality permit me to execute to the best of my ability?
• Is this a company where the challenges and culture are sufficient for a tenure of at least four years?
• If the company is early stage, how is the company viewed by other investors?

When I work with executives who decide to change jobs, and even those for whom the decision has been made by others, the first task is making a go/no-go list. Career objectives drive which opportunities, which people and even which locations will be considered. They focus on how any opportunity can support their long term goals and have a ready ‘no’ for those that don’t.

Knowing and focusing on the career objective means clients can articulate clearly to any prospective employer exactly which opportunities would be appropriate and saves them from burning bridges by pursing opportunities that don’t. They build their brand around their goals and when they are recruited for the right jobs, they know it.

Please share your own career development stories in the comments section. Let others learn from your experience.

Are you in the Seattle area? Want to learn more about career development? Come to the free session on August 17 from 7-9 for: Career Development Hurdles: What they look like and how to scale them, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

All are welcome to this free event but do sign up in advance since space is limited. Come with questions and I will try to get to as many as possible in the time allotted.

If a brief one-on-one session appeals to you, purchase Job Search Debugged and Networking Debugged and schedule a 15 minute pre-event session. You can even let me know in advance which aspect of your career you’d like to discuss so we can use that time to give you the substantive advice you want.

Executives: Create your personal brand to self-insure against economic downturn and the job hopping label

Career management for six figure executives is about building and maintaining a personal brand. Take it from Audi and Iron Man. Sales for the very high priced custom-made car jumped 10% after the release of Tony’ Stark’s latest adventure. It’s about product placement. It isn’t about one incident on your resume.

Today, I received a request for information by a reporter doing a piece on job hopping. His premise, all too familiar, is that the current economy = job hopping.

Of course, this contrarian takes exception to that concept because I know many people who were laid off had been in their jobs for more than three years; layoffs and company closings are equal opportunity career killers.

To assume that a layoff or two in ones recent history signals to recruiters and hiring authorities you are a job hopper is equally bogus. It is the pattern that is evaluated. If you held jobs in your past for longer than 3 years and that is the pattern prior to the layoff, you are not seen as a job hopper.

Companies have always cleaved to the notion that an executive who has been in place long enough to see the results of decisions, make course corrections, learn from mistakes and leverage success are more desirable as employees than those who have not. With the fragility induced by the current economy, this policy is even more important.

Those executives with a visible track record will always triumph over candidates who do not have examples of their efforts to which they and others point. And that’s where you have control over your career. Establish and maintain your brand and you can overcome a few incidents of short tenure.

This isn’t a call to action to hire a branding expert or buy branding products and books. Branding for your career is straightforward and has only a few basic elements; it’s simple, but it isn’t easy.

First, establish your brand identity. What is it about your background that renders you unique and required by employers? Now, don’t slide into the typical empty phrases your competition uses: Bottom-line focused executive with track record delivering on-time, on-budget. Not only is that warn out, it is only your opinion and does nothing to distinguish you from all those other executives going after the same brand and jobs you want.

Powerful brands state your domain and special prowess: SaaS and cloud computing pioneer, world’s first scrum master, Strategic alliance guru, Career Coach with 98% success rate w/in six months for all clients, CFO who takes companies public, Director of products who gets PMs and engineers to collaborate.

Get the word out. Now that you know for what you want to be known, let the world know. Establishing a brand doesn’t happen over night. Take the steps that establish you as a thought leader in your domain.

Use Twitter. Select a name to indicate your domain. SaasGuy, MarketingMaven, PMwrangler. Get creative but make it speak for you. Then post links to articles and blogs on point to your domain. Make pithy comments and retweet other’s posts. Amass a community of shakers and movers in your domain. Be careful to be careful. Don’t post anything that may disrupt the view of you as a professional in your domain.

Use Facebook. Same as above. Manage your profile to include your recent success in your domain.

Create a LinkedIn profile. Create your presence as marketing tool for your domain. Learn to use LinkedIn to promote yourself, especially important when NOT looking for a job. Offer advice and support for those who are. Update your status frequently with links to posts and comments that indicate you are a thought leader in your domain.

Build and maintain a blog on topic. Don’t write well? Then don’t do it. Instead, use your blog as a directory to articles and blogs and commentary of others.

Comment on blogs and articles. This is a terrific way to communicate your expertise and find others who share your domain. Connect with them on Facebook and LinkedIn where possible. Forge email connections if it makes sense.

Volunteer in your domain. If you are a quality assurance executive, offer to help companies or people who struggle to get their Q/A teams up to speed with Agile. Perhaps you can conduct seminars on using social networking for marketing, or monetizing a blog.

Join LinkedIn groups. Chose those that support your domain and where other experts can be found. Participate in discussions and news.

Create LinkedIn ‘Answers’. Collect and connect to those who respond who are likely to be in positions of authority.

Write and promote white papers. Make sure it is on point and well edited. Then get your Twitter and Facebook friends to promote it for you. Invite all to use the ‘share’ function on your posts. (You can find a share bar online which you can incorporate into your piece.) Don’t want to write a white paper? Find those you feel are valuable and help promote them. Be sure to add your own comments on the value of said paper.

Volunteer at presentations and seminars. Your goal is to become part of the event and get invitations to speak or moderate at future events.

Attend local business events. Be a fixture at three or four ongoing events. Forge new friendships and don’t hang out exclusively with folks you already know. Make it a point to meet those who are standing alone. Volunteer to organize or promote such events that focus on your area of expertise.

Subscribe to HARO. Help a reporter out sends requests for experts on a huge variety of topics. Watch it daily for opportunities to be quoted in the media.

Read a book. Then go to Amazon and etc. to write a review.

Watch the local online technology press. Comment on articles where possible. Use your LinkedIn and Twitter addresses along with your blog URL.

Help others. There is nothing better to endear you to the hearts of fellow executives than lending a hand when they are in need.

Maintain and become active in your sports or country club. Hanging out with peers and those more senior in a non-work environment goes a long way towards building quality bonds. When folks ask what you do, use your brand statement. [I take companies public, I launch new products, I monetize high traffic sites, I sell advertising.]

Volunteer and take a visible position in a local charity. Those who are associated with charities are often featured in the press with mention of their day jobs.

Building your brand is important insurance against becoming invisible. Promotions come faster with higher pay when you appear to be a pillar of your domain’s community. Even during a recession and company downsizing, employers hire. They hire those people most visible with a track record that assures the hiring company you will be successful putting out their fires. Your brand is ‘fire fighter.’

More on personal brand:

• Click here to learn why your brand is critical to your job search Installment One
• Click here for installment two on Digital Job Search and Branding.
• For discussion of how to discover how the world sees you: installment three.
• Click here for installment four to discover your current identity.
• Click here to start your branding efforts for your job search installment five
• Just starting out? Here’s good advice on branding for recent grads from Quint Careers.

Inc. Magazine posted an article by the founder of Zappos on why he sold to Amazon. The article bears reading for many reasons, but I was struck especially by its emphasis on ‘happy.’ I think that is an error in focus.

The whole idea of an employer making employees happy is presumptuous, in my view. There are too many variables not in the employer’s control. And an individual’s view of their happiness quotient changes, constantly.

As mentioned by both Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and Tony Hsieh, Zappos founder, rarely do people know what will make them ‘happy.’ Happy may be an allusive goal, some folks have it, others don’t.  Happy isn’t an achievable outcome.

Control what you can control. Perhaps instead of happy, consider satisfied. (Some research indicates ‘happy’ is something one is born with.) Employee satisfaction can be ascertained, measured and even controlled. Beyond the formal testing/metrics, there is much you can learn just by being observant.

A few indicators to track employee satisfaction:

• Is there employee-traced vandalism?
• Is turnover high?
• Are people working productively?
• Do they volunteer for extra hours?
• Do they volunteer new ideas?
• Do they attend company sponsored events?
• Do they pick up after themselves?
• Do they refer their friends?
• Is there excessive absenteeism?
• What do employees say on exit interviews? Are they angry?

A coach’s view. I can share what is absolutely true and measurable. The reason most people leave their employer/job is they don’t feel appreciated. The corollary is also true. Many people accept jobs or stay in jobs where they are underpaid or perks missing because they know they can make a noticeable contribution will be appreciated, acknowledged and celebrated.

Change is simple. One client noticed the Friday pizza meetings attendance was down. He instituted an informal certificate of performance tradition wherein he awarded the certificate and told the story of the accomplishment. Attendance doubled within two months. Telling, that.

Appreciation comes in many forms, be it money, great perks, acknowledgement, awards or a pat on the back. But constantly cancelled projects, ideas not being heard, lack of due credit for ideas or project and lack of avenue for input, head the list for unhappy employees; employees who leave.

Rarely is leaving a job about money; though it is given as the reason. Managers who consider the needs and ambitions of their employees tend to have lower turnover, a sure sign of employee satisfaction. Those managers who systematically acknowledge contributions by team members tend to have more support during crisis times. Happy? Nope. But truly a part of the team? Yes. And that is satisfying to most individuals and passed on to customers and between teams.

Perfect, profitable example. One only has to look at how Costco employees treat their in-store visitors to know they are treated well by their management. The company experiences the lowest turnover in retail. They do anything to make visitors feel welcome and important. And year to year, visitors encounter the same Costco employees. They stay because they feel appreciated. I asked.

Client 1: Granted interviews with every company (10+) to whom he was introduced. Was told his resume was impressive and organized. Of seven options, it was he who declined to go forward with six companies, not the prospective employer. Once he decided on the two companies where he’d most like to work, received offers from both. Negotiations improved the offer of his choice.

Client 2. Targeted only one employer. They commented on his clear and well organized emails. Made it past a series of seven executive interviews and was told his answers and questions were the best of the lot because they could visualize his experience. He gave examples, not theory and was rewarded with an outstanding offer.

Client 3. Used his network to get to the hiring authority and bypassed all of HR and a flurry of candidates. His resume was handed to the hiring manager by a peer and the rest was history. He was subsequently redirected to HR because of company protocol, but HR only talked to him about senior positions spot-on to his credentials. He took the original job and is happy to be part of this large corporation. He is also happy he didn’t have to go through all the usual hoops he had faced in other large companies just to get the employer to see him as a director, not a manager.

Client 4. Knew he lost an opportunity because of interview style but had no idea what to fix. We worked on his process, he became more comfortable talking about his experience rather than theory, learned when to stop talking and nailed his next set of interviews. Offer pending.

Client 5. Works in a company where promotion to executive vice president could only happen if someone left the company. He worked long hours and was the darling of the executive suite but could not get any indication of how the company viewed his career. We discussed his options, prepared a cogent argument for his employer to revisit the promotion/create a job proposition which they declined. Client’s mindset now ready to leverage his incredible track record (highly visible, I might add) for a ‘C’ spot in a smaller company.

Client 6. Just needed the sounding board to improve his management style. Weekly sessions provided new techniques and insights. He is now in line for a promotion six months earlier than expected. He told me he couldn’t have done it without my support because I enlarged his thinking and gave him entirely new skills with which to solve problems and motivate his teams.

Client 7. Rejected my advice at almost every turn. He had no faith in referrals. He told me his friends didn’t use the techniques I suggested and they got jobs. He also refused to believe his network would provide introductions for new jobs or that using LinkedIn was of value. I fired him. Really, I returned his money. Three days ago (three months after I fired him) I received a thank you note and apology from him saying my advice worked exactly as I described and he has a new job thanks to a referral from someone his connections introduced him to.

Is it your turn to improve your vocational lot?  Contact me to discuss your challenges and goals to see if coaching is the solution.

What coach do I need?

My friend Michael told me he had been ruminating about his possible need for a coach. He told me he wanted someone well connected who could provide introductions and who could help him define what he wanted to do. He considered he could use someone to help him bring his management game up a notch as well.  I think his is a common desire.

Unfortuately, it is not a realistic one. No professional coach would offer connections and introductions to a client. The coaching relationship is changed significantly if the coach takes such an active role in the coachee’s career.

Plus, the likelihood is low that a person actively engaged as a coach is actively engaged in your niche employment market. Instead, a good coach teaches how to make those connections and knows enough about how business works to guide you through your leadership challenges. Someone who has worked in your industry, preferably as an executive would be a good resource to consider.

The second part of his coaching proposition is equally flawed. If you are an executive and you don’t know what you want to do, you need to talk to someone qualified to administer personality tests and such; typically a psychologist. A coach helps you get you where you want to go and while a good coach helps you refine that goal, they do not engage in helping you select the destination.

Clarification:

Life Coach: This is a very recent addition to the coaching scene and appears to be a catch all for miscellaneous aspects of ones life. The Internet features many pay for click options to be come a Life Coach which seems to attract a lot of people who have burned their bridges and are casting about for a new profession. Many focus on spirituality and aspects of life not directly related to landing a job or improving your career options and leadership.

Executive Coach: Ongoing coaching to perfect your executive talents. Many people like to have someone watching their back, others have challenges they are trying to overcome. A confidential relationship with an Executive Coach can make the difference between just slogging away at a job and enjoying your career. It is not unusual for a company to hire an Executive Coach on behalf of an employee to up their game or correct a problem.

Job Search Coach: Works with you to master all the resources needed to get a promotion or new job. Highly targeted and mutually agreed on goals are clear at the outset and a road map to succeed includes life skills. Look for a coach who has been an executive, does more than rewrite your resume and who understands your market niche.

Psychologist: Runs test to help you determine with where you might succeed. Psychometric/Vocational Tests are often administered by non-accredited practitioners. No matter what the battery of tests, it is the interpretation that makes the difference. Be cautious of charlatans who push their favorite tests at great expense to the client, it is often the case the testing company pays them a commission.

Also popular are books on finding your bliss or designing a parachute. If you are an executive and not ready to retire, your needs go far beyond happy-talk books. You need step-by-step guidance to marshal your resources and skills to inhabit the best darned career choices you can make.

Career coach: Often used to mean Executive Coach, a career coach will help you build or repair your career. This title is often used to include job search coach but does not guarantee special expertise in that task. Be warned, anyone can call themselves a career coach. It is incumbent on you to vet career coaches very carefully. If they are graduates of an on-line career coaching program, run away.

My career coaching clients typically want to refine their techniques, learn to navigate the executive waters for promotions and recognition or just make their jobs/reviews better. On occasion, a company will invite me to work with a specific employee to overcome a bad habit or two. The reasons for using a career coach are as varied as the people who use them; and that is as it should be. Customized programs are required to make career coaching work.

Now for reality. Lines of all four types of coaches are often blurred because, other than the psychologist, there are no governing boards, licensing agents or industry standards. Anyone can call themselves a coach. And that’s the problem. Some have a standard package, others offer such basic assist as not to make any difference. And then there those who get into your issues to help you overcome, achieve and win.

If you suspect you could benefit from the services of a coach, you probably can. My best clients, those who achieved goals beyond their imagining came with an open mine, willingness to learn and ability to share what they know about themselves. If you want to rise above the norm, a well-vetted career coach or job search coach is almost a guarantee win if for no other reason than you have a sounding board with a person who will not say what you want to hear. And that’s a good place to start.

It is up to the prospective coachee to determine their needs, vet the prospective coach and have clearly defined objectives and metrics for success. Even then, Caveat Emptor.

Return to this post for details on how to vet a coach.