Social Networking Sites Are "In" with Those "In the Money"

A recent ExecuNet newsletter cites results from a Luxury Institute Wealth Survey revealing that "60 percent of wealthy Americans with an average income of $287,000/year and net worth of $2.1 million participate in online social networks, compared to just 27 percent a year ago." It was found that on average they had joined about 2.8 networks. Affluent individuals with $300,000 or more in annual income were even more avid participants, belonging to 3.4 social sites. If successful people are this enamored with online networking, it bears our attention.

There are 100 or more social networking sites, some purely for recreation and personal socializing, and others dedicated to professional or business interaction. (For a list of notable sites, visit Wikipedia.)

Computer World did an analysis recently comparing the features and advantages of the two most prominent sites, LinkedIn and Facebook. They formulated 6 business scenarios to solve, and assigned writers to compare results on Facebook and LinkedIn. As might be expected, each site excelled in different areas, and neither was the clear overall winner. Scenarios tested include Looking for a Job Without Your Boss Knowing, Finding Information about a Job You're Interviewing For (LinkedIn was the winner in both of these), Solicit Ideas and Discussion from Team Members (Facebook won this one hands-down), and Keeping Track of Former Associates (yielded a tie).

So which site is best, and should you join more than one? There are so many, but for professional and business purposes, LinkedIn seems to be winning the war for members right now. I encourage my executive clients to maintain a LinkedIn profile as part of their ongoing professional networking as well as for building a digital signature. A web presence is becoming increasingly important in job search, as candidates are commonly googled--often before a recruiter or hiring manager initiates the first contact.

In executive circles, it seems to be almost an assumption now that you maintain a profile on LinkedIn. Adding to its utility for career management and job search is its recent integration into the Simply Hired job search engine, as pointed out by Louise Fletcher in a recent Career Hub blog post. What could possibly be more convenient? You search for a job, and then click on a button to find out who in your LinkedIn network may have an "in" at that company. Although Facebook has recently moved from being strictly a social tool to a business tool as well, it seems to be the preferred platform for social interation with family and friends. Its wider range of services and third party applications concern employers as a likely distraction for their workers.

While online networking is an increasingly important part of an overall career management strategy, one thing to watch for is devoting too much time to joining every "hot" new site with a flashy interface, maintaining your profiles, building your contact lists, and interacting with your networks. As with most things in life, there is a danger of "too much of a good thing." The ExecuNet article highlighted a Global Secure Systems estimate that employers in the UK lose 3 weeks per year of work time on employees' social networking activities during business hours.

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Are You Over the Job Market Hill?

A concern frequently expressed by my executive clients and prospects is regarding the age factor. Many fear that they are going to be subject to age discrimination as early as age 40, and either be let go by a current employer in favor of a younger hire or passed over by potential employers who want fresh, young talent that they can mold in the company’s approach and methods. Just this afternoon, I spoke with a dynamic young executive who was concerned that his age at 45 was going to close the doors to many opportunities.

A recent Herman Trend Alert explores the age issue, with news that I think should provide some encouragement to job seekers who fear they may be “over the hill.”

Approximately one million people reach age 60 each month, and as the baby boomer generation ages, it is estimated that the number of workers in the U.S. between the ages of 55 and 64 will increase by more than 50% by 2010. With life expectancy now at 77 and many enjoying better health during their increased longevity, many more people are staying in the workforce long past the traditional retirement age of 65. This is driven in good part by boomers’ realization of the potentially high health care costs they face as they age and the fact that many have insufficient savings to fund a lengthy retirement.

Both government and industry do appear to be waking up to this reality, with AARP observing that an increasing number of major employers and government agencies are actively seeking to hire candidates 50 years plus. The wealth of experience and skills that older workers can bring to a workplace are seen as increasingly valuable, as well as their maturity of judgment, stability, and turnover rates lower than typical of younger workers.

It would seem that employers' increasing interest in and appreciation of these older workers combined with the smaller pool of talent in the “baby bust” generation cannot help but benefit those workers in their 40s and 50s by altering perceptions of exactly when one makes that trek “over the hill.” According to an AARP-commissioned report from last year cited by Workforce Management, "Replacing an experienced worker of any age can cost 50 percent or more of the individual's annual salary in turnover-related costs, with increased costs for jobs requiring specialized skills, advanced training or extensive experience--qualifications often possessed by 50-plus workers." That’s a powerful financial incentive to keep aging workers on the payroll.

Unless You're a Purple Squirrel, Update Your Online Resume!

"Purple squirrel" is recruiter-speak for a candidate whose qualifications are rare and for which a recruiter can charge a higher fee to the company due to the difficulty of the search. When sourcing candidates, recruiters will look first at resumes posted in the last 1 to 2 weeks and will generally not look at older resumes, unless they are searching for that elusive purple squirrel.

Looking at it from the recruiter's perspective, you can understand why this is so. Recruiters are playing the odds, and they cannot afford to waste time contacting candidates who have already found a job or for some other reason are no longer in the job market. Time is money, and this is particularly so in the recruiting profession.

The take home on this? If you have posted your resume online, be sure to tweak or otherwise refresh it at least once a month, preferably every two weeks. Otherwise it will effectively become invisible to most recruiters, like those billboards you see on the highway that have become blocked by overgrown trees.

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Beware of "Career Marketing" Predators

Recently the topic of career marketing firms came up as I was talking with one of my executive clients, who indicated he had been contacted by several and wasn't sure what to think. He said, "I was contacted by Bernard-Haldane, McKenzie-Scott, and Montgomery-Gray Associates. They all have the exact same tactic. Fear. They build fear about the career situation, tell you the resume is horrible and then they have the answer."

After I e-mailed him my thoughts on the subject, he observed, "I did my research on ExecuNet and the horror stories were in parallel to what you have said. You must publish [this], because it is exactly how I felt." So reprinted below are some things executive candidates will want to consider before engaging a career marketing firm:

"It's important to realize that these firms are NOT recruiters. They are retail outtplacement or direct mail firms. I receive inquiries from many clients about this type of firm and have always advised them to be very cautious and make sure exactly what you are getting for your money before signing any contracts. I've accumulated a number of horror stories over the years. I have yet to work with a client who felt the $5,000, $10,000, or more spent for one of these types of marketing services was well spent.

60 minutes and other news outlets have done multiple exposés over the years. I have had clients come to me defeated and depressed after having spent as much as $25,000 (yes, that's 3 zeroes) on "marketing campaigns" with not a single response. The quality of the delivery of the services is highly variable from firm to firm and market to market.

You may want to consider the following fact: A recruiter will get from 20 to 33% of a candidate's first year salary as a commission for placement. This is industry standard. If a candidate is worth say $100K a year, then he's worth a potential $20,000 to $33,000 in commission. If he or she is worth $200K, that’s a $40K to $66K commission. So why don't these firms just go after the real cash for placement? I mean, if they know where the jobs are, then they should know where the money is.

Some very savvy clients have asked me about these services, flattered at being contacted and mistakenly thinking these were high caliber recruiting firms eager to represent and place them. I have also had clients for whom I've prepared excellent resumes meet with them, only to have their professionally prepared resume ripped to shreds. Fortunately, they have enough confidence in what I've done for them to see through this tactic. I've also re-written many resumes for clients who had inferior, boilerplate 1-page resumes or "marketing letters" prepared by such firms and then spent well into 4 or even 5 figures having themselves "marketed" (mass mailing), for little or no response.

Career marketing scams are not new, but the number of complaints against these companies has increased dramatically in recent years. A quick search on Google will verify this fact. If anyone promises you that they have access to "the hidden job market" and to "hiring decision-makers" that will allow you to bypass normal job interviewing processes, run, do not walk away. It is well known that any legitimate recruiter will be paid by the company, not the candidate.

The Web has info and resources for people who have been burned by career marketing firms and executive marketing firms, also called retail outplacement or advance-fee placement firms. There are discussion groups for well-known firms such as Bernard Haldane, McKenzie Scott, and ProSavvy. Complicating the issue is that the most aggressive of the career marketing firm scammers continually morph into new companies and change their names to escape the bad press and law enforcement interest they have generated.

The appeal of a firm that tells you they will do all the marketing for you and find you a fantastic new job is obvious. However, the reality of job search is that it is work, takes time, and that there are no guarantees even for the most qualified person with the best resume in the world. For higher level positions, the standard formula for many years has been that it takes approximately one month per $10K of expected salary for the search, and although that has thankfully decreased somewhat in the current market, it is still not far off the mark.

Candidates who actively build and heavily leverage a professional network in their search are generally the ones who land a new position most quickly, as well as those who pursue a variety of approaches to the search (traditional and e-networking, cultivating recruiter contacts, efficient use of job boards, researching and individually contacting a selected group companies of interest to them, etc.), rather than depending on one avenue.

You'd think I don't have a very good opinion of career marketing firms, wouldn't you ;-)? All of this is certainly not to say that there are no reputable firms out there. I would just be very circumspect before agreeing to work with one. If you decide to go with one of these services, I strongly urge you to get in writing exactly what they will provide for the money, and especially the terms for a refund. You should have a contact assigned to you and should deal with that person exclusively. That person should be reasonably accessible. You should inquire about their contacts and track record in your career field. And ask if they will prorate the fee if you find a job quickly on your own."

Following are just a few articles and resources that provide further information on career marketing scammers. (Beware that there are some pretty unhappy consumers commenting on some of these sites, and their language may be offensive.) If you do a quick Google search, you will find much more information.

http://www.rileyguide.com/scams.html http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/teeth20031013.htm http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/gv010822.htm http://www.pissedconsumer.com/consumer-reviews/employment-agencies/mckenzie-scott-complaint--employment-services-2007040196582.html

There is also quite a bit of commentary and discussion in the blogosphere, such as the following: http://randomconvergence.blogspot.com/2006/03/rest-of-mckenzie-scott-saga.html

Please understand that I do not personally endorse what is said on any of these sites and that I have not personally had a bad experience with any of these firms. However, I feel that the consistent negative experiences related to me by clients and prospective clients over many years, input from numerous career transition professionals in my network, along with articles written by career experts whom I consider reputable and reliable make it incumbent on me to make sure my executive clients are aware of the potential dangers out there.

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Free Career Networking E-Book

CareerHub, a group careers blog I co-author, has released a series of free eBooks featuring advice from some of the country's top career experts.

The latest is on networking--which is a valuable skill whether you are currently in the job market or happily employed. As one of several co-authors of this eBook, I know that it contains valuable information from the first page to the last.

If you'd like to grab your copy of this or one or more of the other free titles, just click below and download the PDF--no sign-up required.

LINK: http://careerhub.typepad.com/main/2007/04/free_job_search.html

Happy reading!

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Is the Online Networking Craze All It's Cracked Up to Be?

All the buzz in career professional circles these days seems to be around the emergence of online or virtual networking through social and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ryze. I've attended several seminars on the subject, and read new articles almost daily about the phenomenon.

Is online networking something that you as an executive need to be involved in as part of your career management strategy? All the statistics seem to show that career transition and advancement for the executive is most likely going to occur through networking or referral, so taking advantage of the ability to network in cyberspace seems like a "no brainer."

For more on this topic, see my recent post on the CareerHub blog: Virtual Networking: Does It Live Up to the Hype?

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Executive Job Search Length Shrinking

According to ExecuNet, now may be the best time in the last 15 years for executives to launch a search for a new position. Their 1992 survey results showed that on average 13 months were required to land a new job, and the situation seemed to be approximately the same as of 2004. For quite some time it has been the conventional wisdom that an executive could expect to wait at minimum one month for every $10,000 of annual compensation, which of course for the $120K executive meant a long year of searching and for the $300K+ executive painted a pretty discouraging picture.

Executives can take heart, because the trend appears to be on a downswing. According to ExecuNet research, “it now takes under 10 months to find comparable positions” for high earners at director level and above. With a tightening employment market where the candidate seems to have taken the driver’s seat and companies seem to be losing their fascination with young hotshots and waking up to the value of baby boomers, your prospects appear brighter than they have in some time. Now may be the time to start working that network and circulating your executive resume.

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Top 10 Online Job Sites

Are you using the Web as just one item (I hope) in your comprehensive executive job search toolkit? If so, the following rankings of the most popular websites gathered by Weddles will interest you. These are the sites gaining the most user votes as of July 15, 2007, the halfway mark for the upcoming 2008 list. Note that they are in alphabetical order, not rank order:

Absolutely Health Care
AllHealthcareJobs.com
craigslist
Dice
ExecuNet
Monster
6FigureJobs.com
TheLadders.com
VetJobs
Yahoo! HotJobs

For the complete list of the Top 30 from the previous survey, see Weddles 2007 User's Choice Awards.

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How Recruiters Treat the Resume You Send

Wondering what happens to your resume when you e-mail it to an executive recruiter as part of a job search campaign?

Contrary to long-standing conventional wisdom, many recruiters are actually more receptive to receiving unsolicited resumes than used to be the case, and they do generate some good responses. Most will at least give your message a quick look and decide whether it holds potential immediate interest for them or at least may be something they'll want to keep in their files for possible future reference. Of course, there are still many who will ignore any resume received in this manner, preferring to source their candidates through networking or their own research.

ExecuNet's 15th Annual Job Market Intelligence Report offers the following statistics showing the shift in recruiter attitudes in the past 15 years:

Then/Now:

Selectively Respond: 45%/75%
Answer All: 24%/8%
Do Not Respond: 21%/3%
Other (such as postcard) 10%/15%

You can see that a large proportion do selectively respond, which tells me that (1) You want to make sure your e-mail message and resume are attention-getters, (2) Since most do at least briefly review the resume, lack of an immediate response does not mean all is lost--yours may be in the reserve-for-future-consideration pile, (3) It is to your advantage to actively network with recruiters when you DON'T need them for your own job search, so your name will be familiar and your resume welcome when you send it.

What Strategies Really Work in Executive Job Search?

I continually advise my clients that it is important to use a variety of strategies and resources in conducting an executive employment search, as one never knows from which source that great opportunity will arise. But as I work with my executive resume clients, they frequently ask me which in my experience are the most productive methods.

Conventional wisdom has it that networking is the way most executive opportunities are identified, with estimates that jobs found in this fashion account for anywhere from 30% to 60% of hires. Recruiters generally place candidates for about 20% of executive positions, so it is definitely worthwhile and relatively inexpensive to get yourself on their radar screens. Posting your executive resume or submitting it in response to publicly posted job openings in newspapers or on career sites such as ChiefMonster, SixFigureJobs, CareerJournal, ExecuNet, ExecutiveRegistry, Netshare, or RiteSite is also a relatively inexpensive route that produces about 10% of filled positions.

Then there is direct mail. Direct mail has received a bit of a bad rap in recent years, due to the plethora of mass mailing firms out there that indiscriminately blast poorly prepared one-page resumes to companies with no selectivity whatsoever and with a dead-giveaway, cookie-cutter look that often includes postage applied by postage meter.

However, according to Mark Hovind, owner of "JobBait.com" (a targeted direct mail house for executives), a high-quality, custom-prepared direct mailing to a carefully selected group of CEO's of companies in your field of interest can yield up to an 85% success rate when 3,000 letters are sent for each hundred thousand dollars in salary. Mr. Hovind says that from his experience direct mail is the most expensive but least time-consuming strategy. A direct mail campaign in this quantity at various vendors runs between $5,310 and over $13,000.

(Note: Many career experts say this strategy may not work as well for someone seeking a CEO position, since most mailings target the existing CEO, whose job you would be seeking. However, see a contrary view below this post.)

For executives with salaries in the $100,000 to $1M+ range, you can see that direct mail costs add up very quickly based on Mr. Hovind's formula. Still, for those with deep pockets who really have little network to work with and are not willing or able to build one, targeted direct mail to companies may indeed be a viable way to go.

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Postscript added 7/23/2007:

Mr. Hovind at JobBait.com commented to me via email recently that he does not concur that direct mail is ineffective for the CEO's job search. He makes the point that a CEO at a smaller company may very well be looking for a successor in order to move on or retire, for instance. Also, for those of you who are CEOs of smaller companies, perhaps contacting the Board Chairman of target companies could be fruitful, and you might well fit in as a Division President or COO of a larger company.

Some executives cannot afford to wait through the typical lead time for executive-level search (some say this averages a month for each $10K of income, meaning someone at $200K could have a 20-month search). In this case, accelerating the job search to conclude within 90 days with a $5K to $15K investment in direct mail may well be worthwhile. Here are your 90-day odds of success as stated on the JobBait.com site:

85% with Classic Direct Mail
30% with Networking
1% with Recruiters
1% with Resume Posting
1% with Job Boards

Lastly, Mr. Hovind mentions contacting money brokers (venture capital firms, investment bankers, etc.), which is a target audience I have long recommended my clients pursue (including my CEO clients). I recommend you visit his site at JobBait.com and see what you think. After all, the proactive executive candidate evaluates all options and pursues a variety of strategies that suit his or her particular situation.

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Job Search for the CEO

Once you have reached the top of the heap, the dynamics of employment search do undergo some changes. While you will still want to circulate your resume among a select group of retained recruiters and monitor online resources for opportunities, the opportunities are fewer and parties on both sides of the table are necessarily more selective than for lower level executives. At this level, "Who You Know" becomes not simply an important factor, but a critical one.

An interesting fact about working with headhunters, especially at this level, is that oftentimes they already have a short list of potential candidates that their client has indicated interest in - they already know about these candidates but want the headhunter to handle the transaction. This makes the strategy outlined below even more important, because it will go a long way to making sure you are on the radar screens of both recruiters and the clients they serve.

You certainly cannot contact the CEO of a company that has captured your interest and inform him that you'd like to take his job away! The people you really want to talk to are the Board, but it can be difficult to get contact information for these individuals, who understandably do not want to be bothered with many inquiries. So what do you do?

Your approach must be made in a roundabout way. You will want to zero in on individuals who have influence with and work with or service that Board. This includes bankers, accounting firms, venture capitalists, attorneys, and others. Developing these insider contacts is critical to your strategy.

The time you invest in developing these contacts is well worth it and may pay dividends in unexpected ways. Both the board members themselves and those who work with and serve them have inside knowledge of and access to a variety of companies. They may very well put you in the running for an opportunity of which you were unaware and with a great company you had not even considered.

As always in networking, leverage the contacts you do have to establish communications, and avoid where at all possible "cold call" contacts. You want to be able to say "so and so suggested that I contact you" when you are writing that letter, sending that e-mail, or making that phone call.

Another good resource are venture capitalists, especially for candidates who thrive in start-up, entrepreneurial, or turnaround environments. You can develop contacts with them through the network you are building. A selective direct mail campaign to this audience can also yield results. You'll also want to find out where and when events that attract venture capitalists will be held in your area, and be there to meet and greet.

Work/Life Balance: High-Power Executives Need a Break, Too

In a recent Herman Trend Alert, it was noted that it is becoming increasingly common to take a "sabbatical" from work, and the forecast is that increasing numbers of men and women at all levels in their careers will opt to take a break from their careers for periods ranging from 2 months to a year or more. I believe that our heightened awareness post-911 of just how fragile life is and the greater focus on what really matters in our lives that grows out of that awareness will drive this trend.

The article notes that "Some executives are now negotiating such time off as part of their compensation arrangements when they are recruited." Taking time out to care for elderly parents, pursue that degree, realize your dream of global travel, write a book, turn your beloved hobby into a business, or just refresh your mind and body – all of these can be excellent reasons for such a break. Executives in career transition may wish to consider this option in career planning, bearing in mind the well-worn but oh-so-true cliche – "You can't take it with you."