Ways That Recruiters Leverage Online Networks to Source Candidates

A recent ExecuNet newsletter discussed the results of recent research that indicates executive recruiters are making more extensive use every day of both social and professional online networks such as LinkedIn to expand their networks and open new avenues for sourcing candidates. There are a number of groups on LinkedIn that cater to recruiters and human resource professionals, and the list is growing rapidly.

ExecuNet's research provides some interesting insights into how specifically recruiters are using these networks:

45.7% use their online network connections to generate referrals to potential candidates.
39.1% use them to engage potential candidates.
15.2% use them for purposes of business development.

The take home? Nearly half of recruiters are actively using online networks to source candidates. If you are an executive who strives to proactively manage your career, it's definitely time for you to make your presence known in the online community.

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Executives Finding Jobs Faster

ExecuNet recently released research indicating that the average time for an executive job search has been declining steadily since 2004. For executives at director level and above, candidates reported that it is taking approximately 9.5 months on average to obtain a new position, versus the high mark of 12.8 months in 2004.

On a related note, ExecuNet's 2008 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report found that for the third year in a row the South/Southeast and West Coast regions of the country have produced the most senior management jobs. The Mid-Atlantic region (especially Washington, DC), which had placed third as recently as 2006 now does not even appear in the top 5 regions. Following the South/Southeast and West Coast are the Southwest (including Texas), Midwest, and Northeast/New England.

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What to Expect from Recruiters

When you forward your resume to recruiters you know or send it via e-mail to a targeted group of recruiters you have identified, you may get one or more calls immediately, or you may experience total silence--at first. A former internal recruiter in a professional forum that I participate in indicates that she held on to resumes of quality candidates for one or two years or even longer, waiting for a job requisition to come up that was a match. I have personally had numerous clients and friends who received calls months or years later from a recruiter, many times resulting in an exciting career move. So liberally plant those seeds; you never know when one will sprout.

On a related note, while statistics generally quoted say that recruiters fill just one to three percent of jobs, when you restrict the universe to high-level management and executive jobs, that picture changes. Think about it: If you were to suddenly vacate your current position, what would be one of the first steps your company would likely take to start the search for a replacement? More than likely, they would retain a recruiting firm.

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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How to Sabotage Your Job Search with Your Resume

An article entitled "25 Things You Should Never Include on a Resume" published a few days ago over on HR World's blog made me chuckle. Not because most of the items on the list seemed so unbelievably obvious and stupid for a job candidate to include in a resume, but because of the fact that I have actually seen most of them at one time or another in the thousands of executive resumes I have reviewed over the years. I notice that HR World's blog writers took some flack in a few of the comments on that blog entry because of the common sense nature of their advice. It's unfortunate, but I think that most of the "don'ts" mentioned seem to somehow escape the "common sense radar" of a fair number of folks out there.

About the only category I would disagree on is hobbies. Certainly you do not want to clutter your resume with irrelevant or frivolous interests. But many a door has been opened and many an interview set on the right track, prompted by the interviewer's noticing that the candidate has a similar interest to theirs (for example, avid amateur golfer) or particularly unusual or outstanding hobby or skill that is a good conversation starter (such as climbing Mt. Everest, circumnavigating the globe in your own sailboat, competing and placing in triathalon events, etc.).

The only one out of the 25 that I cannot recall having seen in a resume is blatant expression of a prejudice. So, while the items on this list may be obvious to most, clearly there are some folks out there who would do well to pay them heed. You can view the full list at HR World.

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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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Many Employers CANNOT View Your Windows Vista or Word 2007 Resume!

I was alerted this morning in one of my association newsletters to an issue that could have very serious consequences for executives sending their resumes to recruiters and employers as a document file, which has largely replaced physical delivery via a "hard" (printed) copy. Do you use Word 2007? Have you recently purchased a new laptop or PC? It probably came with the recently released Windows Vista operating system and Word 2007 on it. Or you may be one of those on the leading edge who has already updated your existing PC to Word 2007 and Vista. New technology is wonderful, but there is a very real caveat pointed out by one of my colleagues at The Career Management Alliance.

Be aware that any documents you may be forwarding in connection with an employment opportunity (executive resume, cover letter, etc.) that were created on Word 2007 software (which is the version bundled with Windows Vista Operating Systems) CANNOT be opened on another computer that does not have Word 2007. So, any employer that has an earlier version of Word on their systems will not be able to open them! This probably means most employers, since companies are generally reluctant to jump too quickly on the bandwagon of new software versions and also because upgrading an entire company to a new operating system or application version is no small task.

With the high volume of resume submissions received on most openings, it would not seem likely that an employer or recruiter would take the trouble to notify you of the issue and request your documents in a compatible format. Far more likely is that they will just discard your e-mail.

The solution is simple. Apparently the problem is not Vista itself but the version of Word (2007) that is used on it. If you select the Word compatibility feature in Word 2007, you can create and save your documents in Word 1997-2003 compatible format, which I would recommend until Word 2007 and Vista are more prevalent. I do not have Word 2007 on my PC, but a colleague tells me that you can address the problem similarly to how it is done on earlier versions of Word: When you save your files, do a "Save As" instead of "Save," and select Word 2003 from the dropdown menu.

Microsoft is working on the compatibility issue, and they do offer a free download of a product called Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to address it. You may wish to visit the following page on Microsoft's site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

There is a demo you can view to tour the Virtual PC 2007 product. If desired, you can then download the product and install a version of Word (1998, 2000, 2003 or 2007) that will allow you to create compatible versions of your resume, cover letters, and other documents you are using in connection with your career transition.

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Monster.com Site Hacked: Be Alert for Phishing Scam!

Hackers successfully breached security at Monster.com this week in one of the largest such online incidents in recent history, stealing personal information on more than 100,000 job candidates who had posted their resumes on the site. This breach was followed by phishing attacks via e-mail designed to compromise users' online financial institution security and/or infect their PC's with a disabling virus.

For more information, see my article "ALERT: More than 100,000 Monster.com Users' Personal Information Plundered" on the CareerHub career experts blog.

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Scammers, Spammers, Spoofers, and Phishers: Dangers in the Online Job Search Jungle

Online job search has truly revolutionized career transition in many ways, and I have personally witnessed many success stories of those who have leveraged job sites to identify leads, win interviews, and land great positions. However, in the past several weeks, I have been disheartened to hear the sad tales of several prospective clients whose employment search efforts using the Web had resulted in financial and personal identity damages.

It is truly a jungle out there on the World Wide Web, and if you are an executive who plans to use the Internet in your job search, you will want to be very, very cautious. Before you post your executive resume online, I recommend you read my article published this week on the CareerHub career advice site.

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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.

Don't Expect an Executive Recruiter to "Market" You

One of the most misunderstood aspects of executive job search among executive candidates seems to be the nature of recruiting firms and how they operate. I have addressed this topic on several occasions, but the fact that I continue to encounter clients who have major misconceptions regarding the recruiter community tells me that this is a message worth repeating:

"Do not expect an executive recruiter to 'market' you!"

A recent thread on the Career Masters Institute e-mail forum examined the fact that most companies and recruiters do not even acknowledge resumes they receive, let alone have any interest in actively working to place any individual candidate. They are very task oriented toward fulfilling current job orders, and if a candidate's qualifications are not a very close match for the requirements, they have no interest.

One member mentioned that a speaker at the recent Kennedy Conference in Las Vegas pointed out that 90% of job seekers will not receive a response of any kind when they submit their resume--whether they send it to a recruiting firm or directly to a company. Even among companies that rank high on "best places to work" rankings, 30% do not acknowledge resumes or applications submitted online through their websites.

Another colleague had a recent client who had done a large e-mail campaign to more than 800 recruiters who specialized in his area of expertise and received a measly 40 auto-responses. A former recruiter pointed out that in his experience there will be no response unless an unsolicited resume is an exact match for a current assignment. He also said that recruiters do not try to "place" candidates because there is simply no money in it.

So definitely do contact recruiters who recruit at your level and in your specialty areas. But do not expect them to "market" you or in most cases to even acknowledge your contact. An additional caveat: It is best NOT to follow up by phone. This is an annoyance and pet peeve of recruiters.

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A New Resource for Company Research

According to Weddles.com, there is a new and free online resource that can be of help in researching companies during your job search. Of course, traditional resources such as Vault, Wetfeet, Brint, and Hoover's Online offer a great deal of valuable information, some of it free, but much of it fee-based.

The new resource is ZoomInfo. They have introduced a feature that enables you to find detailed information regarding more than 3.5 million companies through their proprietary business information search engine. Using this tool, you will be able to find companies by name, products or industry, market niche and a variety of other variables. Available for review are detailed descriptions which may include specifics regarding revenues, acquisitions and recent news, bios of key employees, etc.

Be sure to include this tool in your research efforts before going in to interview with a prospective employer. Displaying your knowledge of the information to be found there may be just what's needed to position you above your competition! It could also be put to good use in writing a cover letter to accompany that dynamic executive resume you are submitting. Nothing makes a hiring executive sit up and take notice more than a candidate who shows far more than cursory knowledge of the company, its competitors, its challenges and opportunities.

Recruiters Finding Candidates in Unlikely Place

I received some interesting intelligence through the Career Masters Institute in an e-newsletter on Friday. Recruiters are finding good talent in a place that most executives would probably not even think about: Craigs List.

Many of you are likely familiar with Craigs List as an online community site where classified ads for furniture and housing, personal ads, and discussion forums are to be found. There are also jobs listings, but the surprise is that recruiters are using it as a primary resource for candidates. According to a presenter at a Northwest Recruiting Association meeting where the best tools and sourcing strategies were under discussion, the following was revealed at a recent ERE recruiting conference:

"Craigs List - not Monster - is now the best place and most often used place to find good talent."

ERE should be "in the know" about this. Initially conceived as an email discussion list for recruiting professionals over 9 years ago, ERE.net is a popular source of information and networking opportunities for recruiters and HR professionals on the Web.

A fellow CMI member who is seeking a recruiting position validates this, as she has found her listing on Craigs List to draw far more interest than on any other venue, including Monster and Career Builder. Coincidentally, while interviewing one of my clients today who is a general management/operations executive, he mentioned that his company has used Craigs List extensively in its recruiting efforts.

So if you are leveraging the Internet in your employment search, you may want to consider perusing the listings and/or posting your resume on your local Craigs List, as well as those for other geographic locations of particular interest to you.

Craigs List's forums that span 450 cities worldwide draw more than 7 billion page views and 20 million users per month, placing it at #7 ranking, behind only Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Google, eBay, and Newscorp. More than one million new job listings are posted per month. If any doubt remains, I encourage you to view this page with statistics comparing Craigs List with Monster and Career Builder:

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/about/job.boards.html

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Does Your Cover Letter Come Across as Pompous?

An article in an E-Newsletter from NRWA (one of the professional associations I belong to as an executive resume writer) really struck a chord with me today. The fact that many job seekers compose cover letters (and resumes, for that matter) that come across as pretentious and verbose is something that I witness every single day.

Certainly a cover letter for an executive will have a more sophisticated tone than one for an entry level worker, but neither should be flowery or seem to be obviously trying to impress the reader with multi-syllable words where simple ones will do just fine. I cannot tell you how many times I've read letters and resumes that use formal HR or government-ese, with such phrases as "Responsible for such and such, to include: ..."

Good wordsmithing strives to move from the complex to the simple, rather than the reverse. Don't use 5 words where 2 will do the job. This has the added benefits of making your letter or resume a quicker read and reducing the length.

The recruiter or hiring executive reading your executive resume or cover letter will react to their overall tone. Keep it conversational and appropriately cordial, rather than stilted, pretentious, or wordy and you will likely see an immediate improvement in response. Read it aloud to see how it sounds and ensure you have not created a tongue-twisting exercise! Do you come across as an attorney droning on to make a case in court, or as a consummate salesperson enthusing your audience about the features and benefits of your product (you)?

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Free Advice for Your Job Search ... Interviewing, Resume Writing, etc.

This simply cannot be beat! If you would like some free pointers on how to write your executive resume, how to ace that interview, or just general job search techniques, you will want to visit the CareerHub blog. With a click of your mouse you may download any one or all of the free PDF eBooks authored thus far by the group of leading career experts who are contributors to this blog. More are expected to be published at intervals, so you'll want to check back frequently.

I also recommend browsing the site as a regular part of your career development research. It is brimming with insightful commentary and strategic advice you will find invaluable in your employment search.

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Job Functions with Best Prospects for Executives in 2007

ExecuNet's projections for job functions that will be in most demand at the executive level for 2007 are out. According to their 15th annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, results from 121 employers indicate that demand will be high for executives with strong operations, business development, and finance experience and will most likely outstrip supply.

This is good news for executives with strengths in these areas and is a wake-up call to make sure your executive resume effectively highlights them. Functional expertise in sales, marketing, and general management is also expected to comprise a large share of management hires made in the coming year.

Here are the details regarding job functions that will drive the most growth in executive hiring this year, as cited by ExecuNet:

Operations: 16.4%
Business Development: 13.6%
Finance: 10.5%
Marketing: 9.8%
Sales: 9.4%
General Management: 9.1%
MIS/IT: 7.7%
Engineering Management: 6.3%
Research and Development: 5.9%
Consulting: 5.2%

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Clean Up Your Digital Dirt!

To all my executive resume writing clients: The problem of digital dirt (unfavorable information about you on the Internet) is not something to be ignored if you want to ensure the long-term health of your career.

You may want to check out this site where you can verify your online reputation and also clean it up: www.reputationdefender.com. The site points out that according to a study conducted by Purdue University counselors, one third of employers screen job candidates using Google, MSN, and Yahoo, and 11.5% search social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Xanga. It was recently mentioned favorably on Good Morning America as a provider that helps people to clean up their digital dirt to help ensure no negative effects are exerted on their "hireability."

Since the majority of companies and recruiters do "Google" prospective candidates' names, proactive action to ensure what they find is not damaging is only prudent. If you do not wish to use a paid service such as the one mentioned here, I strongly encourage you to search on your own and remove any items you have placed on the Web yourself that you would not want a potential employer to read (entries on a personal blog, for example). You'll also want to contact sites that may have inaccurate or unflattering information about you and request that it be removed or modified.

In What File Format Should I Send My Resume?

As I discussed strategy for his employment search with one of my executive clients today, he posed a question I frequently hear: Should I send my resume to recruiters and companies as a Word file, text document, or PDF? Coincidentally, this was also the subject of a recent thread in a career professionals forum in which I participate.

From my research on the subject, my colleagues' opinions, and surveys of hiring professionals, I would say that both text and Word formats win out over PDF files, despite the clear advantage that PDF's have in terms of WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get). A colleague in Maryland indicates that his survey of HR professionals at a recent SHRM meeting indicated a nearly unanimous opinion: 90% did not accept PDF files.

Several of my colleagues indicated that recruiters seem to prefer Word format for ease of editing and tweaking for the particular job order they are working on, which confirms my experience. A neatly formatted text document is also welcomed by most recruiters, but this does not mean doing a "save as" of your Word document to text and sending it as is! Your format will be a terrible mess and, besides making a bad impression, will be very difficult for the recruiter to manipulate. Typically, I recommend sending your executive resume in both text and Word formats when dispatching an e-mail. The text version can be placed inline (in the body of the e-mail below your message) or attached as a .txt file.

If you are sending your resume in Word format, beware that word processor files are notoriously subject to format damage when brought up on a system other than the originating one, due to differences in word processor settings, fonts, etc. That resume you so carefully and nicely fit into two pages may now carry over an awkward 2 or 3 lines on a third page. Or a comical or difficult-to-read font may be substituted for the attractive, conservative font you used.

So take care to use relatively simple but attractive formatting that will tend to translate smoothly on other systems, avoiding complex tables, columns, etc. Use fonts that are fairly universal on Windows systems (some are Verdana, Tahoma, Garamond, Futura, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook, Times New Roman, Arial). I personally balk at using Times and Arial because they are so "ho-hum," but sometimes it is necessary in order to have reasonable assurance that your resume is going to look anything like you intended it to when your recipient views it.

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Executive Level Turnover Slowing a Bit

An article this month in eWeek indicates that this year shows a slowing of turnover at "C-Level" compared to 2006, based on statistics compiled by a New York-based management research firm called Liberum on February 6. Compared to 12 months ago, overall executive level turnover declined 16% in January of this year, and for CEO's the drop was 20%. Boards of directors experienced less churn as well, at a 14% decrease. However, The report maintains that overall change at the top levels is still high. This is believed to be due to domestic and international companies competing for a limited talent pool, Sarbanes-Oxley impacts, and shareholder activism. Overall, 2,240 C-level moves occurred in the first month of this year.

So, while turnover is down a bit, there certainly seems to be plenty of potential for top executives to make major career moves this year. This is corroborated by continued increases in overall payroll employment of 1.8 million in 2006 (Bureau of Labor Statistics) and the fact that employers are expected to become more competitive in both recruitment and retention this year according to statistics from a survey by Harris Interactive reported by Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.com.

I continue to advise my executive resume clients to keep their documents polished and ready to respond at a moment's notice. You never know when that phone call with once-in-a-lifetime opportunity may come in!

IT Executive Gender Gap Reversal

An article featured on eWeek.com for January 24 reports some interesting findings on salaries in the IT field, particularly with relation to Information Technology executives.

The long-standing gender gap favoring male workers in the IT field, similar to across-the-board differences in the work force, continues. However, it seems that the pendulum is swinging in the other direction among executive-level IT professionals, according to a results of survey conducted by DICE.com, a well-known IT and engineering careers website.

While women IT workers on average earned 9.7% less than men in 2006, female IT executives including CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, vice presidents, and directors earned on average 1.4% more than their male counterparts, at an average salary of $109,912. In particular demand (based on the higher salaries reported) seem to be those with expert knowledge in ERP (enterprise resource planning), Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and CRM (customer relationship management).

The highest salaries for IT professionals from entry level to executive (male or female) were reported in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, and Baltimore/Washington, D.C., with San Diego, Los Angeles, and Seattle also showing strength.

Employers Competing for Executive Talent and Compensation is Rising

Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) is an economic indicator that looks at job expectations, vacancies, compensation of new hires, and competition for recruits. Featured recently on the SHRM.org site and quoted by ExecuNet in its latest executive compensation survey, the latest figures seem to bode well for executives in career transition.

As the supply for talent tightens and demand increases, more and more organizations are using employment contracts, guaranteed bonuses and severance, and stock options to recruit candidates. Forty-five percent of packages offered in 2006 included a guaranteed first-year bonus, versus 27% in 2005. Thirty-nine percent included signing bonuses in 2006, versus 34% in the previous year. Stock options and equity were included in 50% of offers for 2006, in contrast to 42% in 2005.

Clearly companies are finding that they must raise the stakes in order to attract talent in an increasingly hot executive job market in which recruiter activity has increased for ExecuNet's network by more than 20% this past year. During 2006, most executives held expectations of a 15% or more increase in compensation should they change jobs.

Insider Tips on Working with Executive Recruiters

I recently attended a seminar sponsored by Career Masters Institute and presented by Shelly Goldman (a published recruiter and career coach) providing insights into how to work with recruiters in your executive job search.

I came away with confirmation of much of the knowledge I have about recruiters, and some things that were startling revelations. Here are some points that executives in career transition will want to keep in mind:

• A retained recruiter typically will NOT recommend a candidate for interview for several positions at a time, whereas a contingency recruiter will.
  
  
• Retained recruiters normally work at executive level exclusively, while in general contingency recruiters also work extensively with more junior level candidates.
  
  
• Contract-based firms and staffing services may be a good solution for a candidate with a great deal of movement in the career background, but they do not work extensively with senior level positions.
  
  
• Internal recruiters have a thankless job and are overwhelmed with candidates to interview and screen for referral to the next level in the process. It is important when talking with an internal company recruiter not to give away your salary requirements and defer this discussion until an offer has been extended. There is only one reason these internal recruiters ask for salary requirements--to screen candidates OUT.
  
  
• Conversely, you MUST reveal the salary range you are looking for to a contingency or retained recruiter. They do not want to waste their time with a candidate who is going to turn down the best offer a company is willing to make and will drop you from consideration if you are stubborn on this point.
  
  
• The best ways to find a recruiter to work with are through referral or by contacting one with whom you have worked before, perhaps for filling positions on your staff or in a previous career move.
  
  
• Before speaking with a recruiter, prepare a list of questions for them to see if they really understand your market, industry, and function, as well as to see if there is rapport and you feel you can trust them.
  
  
• Determine if the recruiter is networked well. If they have strong relationships with their hiring companies, they may actually "market" your resume even when there is no specific position available at the moment.
  
  
• You must have prepared a 30-90 second response to the "Tell me about yourself" question, and you must NAIL it when the recruiter asks it.
  
  
• Do not expect loyalty or follow-up from recruiters. It is not unusual to hear from an enthusiastic recruiter and then never hear from him or her again (especially true with contingency firms).
  
  
• Sometimes recruiters will throw your resume into a mix of ones referring to the hiring company, not because you are the strongest candidate but just to have enough candidates to refer. Both retained and contingency firms will do this.
  
  
• It is an absolute MUST to build ongoing relationships with recruiters, even when you are not actively engaged in executive job search. If you are not right for a position proposed, think about passing along referrals.
  
  
• It is ABSOLUTELY OK and even necessary to work with more than one firm.
  
  
• If contacted by a recruiter scanning job boards, before answering any questions about salary, find out if they are retainer, contract, contingency, or internal. Your answer is dependent on what type of recruiter you are talking with.
  
  
• There is no such thing as guaranteed confidentiality. Reputable recruiters and firms will attempt to keep your search confidential, BUT, see the first sentence in this bullet.

Turnoffs and Show Stoppers:

• The candidate refuses to share his or her compensation requirements with a retained or contingency recruiter.
  
  
• LYING to the recruiter. Just don't do it.
  
  
• Circumventing the recruiter and going directly to the hiring company to handle things that should be handled by the recruiter. For example, do not talk compensation requirements with the hiring company or increase the requirements you had told the recruiter. Also, scheduling of the next interview should be handled by the recruiter.
  
  
• Sending your resume to a recruiter and following up with a phone call (unless you obtained that recruiter's name through a referral). Imagine how many calls a recruiter would get when they receive dozens to hundreds of resumes A DAY!
  Exception: It is okay to follow up with recruiters who are internal to a company, but not too frequently. One follow up after sending a resume is fine.
  
  
• Accepting jobs and then deciding not to start... leveraging one offer against another.
  
  
• Poorly written executive resume or other documentation.
  
  
• Failure to send a strong and targeted cover letter.
  
  
• Inability to verbalize precisely what want.
  
  
• Negativity.
  
  
• Contact information that is not up-to-date and accurate. Must include e-mail address and phone numbers, and check e-mail and voice mail frequently throughout the day.

A Valuable and Free Online Job Resource

As an executive you are most likely familiar with The Ladders, a premiere $100K+ employment search website. (If not, I encourage you to check it out!) You may not be aware that The Ladders offers a series of free webinars annually that feature the latest in online recruiting, job search best practices, and contemporary perspectives on recruiting by top recruiting experts. The good news is that if you missed this year's "Seek Week," you can still listen to the archives at this link:

The Ladders Seek Week Archives

The line-up for 2007 is:

Making Passion-Driven Career Decisions: How to Achieve Success On Your Own Terms
Speaker: Richard Chang, CEO, Richard Chang Associates; author: "The Passion Plan" and "The Passion Plan at Work"

The Resiliency Factor: 4 Foundations for a No-Fail Search
Speaker: Susan Britton Whitcomb, Executive Director, Career Masters Institute and President, Career Coach Academy; author: "Job Search Magic"

A Simple Click Is Never Enough
Speakers: Gerry Crispin, CareerXroads and Mark Mehler, CareerXroads

Getting What You Want at Work: How to Incorporate Your Personal Needs in Your Professional Career
Speaker: Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire; workplace contributor, ABC's Good Morning America

Ask a Recruiter (Almost) Anything
Q&A Panel Discussion with top recruiters
Speakers: Wendy Dembin, National Sales Recruiter, Talent Management COE, Pitney Bowes; Russell Murphy, PHR, Recruiter, Circuit City Stores, Inc.; Brian Toland, Executive Recruiter, Microsoft Corporation; Lisa Anderson, Director, Strategic Staffing, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Archives from the 2006 Webinar series are also available at:
http://www.theladders.com/seekweek

Get insider tips on executive job search strategies, executive resumes, working with recruiters, building and leveraging your network, etc. You won't want to miss out on the invaluable advice of executive recruiters, hiring executives, career professionals and others that is free for the asking through this website!