Careerism

As I prepare to head west for this year’s IABC World Conference and then east for the Communitelligence conference, I am thinking a lot about networking and follow up. At this stage of my career, networking is the main reason I attend conferences.

Networking also continues to be a primary reason people join associations and other groups and attend conferences. Yes, the programming is important and recognition of excellence is good. But, finding colleagues who know stuff – well, that’s the real prize.

Where I sometimes, like others, fall short is in the follow through. So, here are some tips for those of us heading off to conferences in the next few weeks.

• Get their business card – don’t rely on the other person to follow up with you to acquire their contact information
• Ask if they are using Twitter or LinkedIn or another networking tool where you can connect
• If you decide to add them to your contact list, add a note about where you met and what you discussed in that first meeting
• If you send them an invitation to connect from something like LinkedIn, customize the message – you won’t appear to have tried very hard if you use the default message alone
• If they are on Twitter, follow them for a while – maybe they’ll follow you back
• Send a personal note (handwritten is very nice but uncommon, making e-mail the preferred choice these days) about how much you enjoyed meeting them
• Include a link to an interesting article in your note
• If you committed when you met to call (“I’ll give you a call…”) then call – don’t commit and then bail out
• If you committed to follow up at some time in the future, put a tickler in your calendar so you don’t forget

Networking is important for communicators at every career stage. Obviously, right now it is really important if you’ve lost, or are at risk of losing, your job. But we should always be looking out for those new great connections. Always building our catalog of talent we can turn to in a pinch.

If you’re a consultant or independent, you know these chance meetings can turn into new clients. If you hire sub-contractors, that new acquaintance may be the next perfect person to add to your team. If you work in an organization, you might have just met your future boss, or a future co-worker, or a consultant who can help make your next project shine.

Last tip: never go anywhere without a couple of business cards in your pocket. I even hike with them.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

RE: Great networking is all about diligence

Great comments! Agree that you should always have business cards on you. For example, in a casual conversation with one of the humans at the dog park, I learned that her best friend worked for Great Places to Work. At the time, I was wanting to connect with someone there. The dog bond, aided by a card, made it very easy!

Posted on Sunday, Jun 07, 2009 – 05:58:00 AM CST  lizguthridge

RE: Great networking is all about diligence

Stacy … this is a good list of to-dos as you get ready to trek off to a conference, where we will both be in a few weeks. I am always struck by the serendipitous meetings and idea exchanges that occur in physical meetings, vs. those that take place online. The other interesting thing to me is that one small meeting in person is enough to keep a virtual relationship going for years. I’ve got to get better about getting cards and organizing them after I get back home. (Summer resolution).

Posted on Thursday, Jun 04, 2009 – 09:26:00 PM CST

A young communicator interested in consulting asked me recently “how do you know what to charge?” It occurred to me that this is an important skill for all communicators, not just those in consulting or freelancing. If you don’t know how long it takes to do things, setting the expectations of internal clients may be impossible.

Paying attention to how long it takes to get things done is your first step. Even before I became a consultant, my team and I would track how much time we spent on certain activities. How many hours does it take to get the mid-year series of six focus groups done? How many hours does it take to draft content for the newsletter? The more you track, the more you learn.

Some go so far as to document the hours so they can look them up from an old project next time they get a similar request. Planning and scoping projects for your internal clients becomes much easier.

There are two important reasons to do such documentation of hours. Knowing how long it takes to do communication tasks

1. Helps you plan a schedule and calendar for projects, making it easier to set timing expectations with clients
2. Provides insight into the value of your team’s time and effort as compared to external resources

You know you and your team offer tremendous value to the organization, but can you prove that ROI to company leaders? Can you point to what it would cost if they went outside for help? Track the time, document it, and you’ll find yourself better able to plan, communicate, anticipate and prove your value.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

Maybe it’s the first time you’re standing in the doorway to a room of people you don’t know—swallowing hard because there’s no saliva in your mouth, and clutching your business cards in a sweaty hand. Or maybe you’ve been in that doorway many times (but chances are, you’re still exhibiting a milder form of both symptoms).

They don’t call it “NetWORKING” for nothing!

Looking for a new take on this standard business tactic, I attended “The Wonders of Intentional Networking” at the Wright Business Institute in Chicago (http://www.wrightexcellence.com). Here are three of my lessons learned—and some new tactics you and I should both be using.

• Trick #1: Walk In with a Goal. It probably shouldn’t be one of these: 1) the number of business cards you give out or get, 2) finding a new client or employer, or 3) closing a sale. This is tough. Most of the time we (force ourselves to) network because we’ve got a business need and we want to create an opportunity.

Experience taught me this kind of desperation leaks out your pores—turning off any chance of a meaningful exchange with someone who could be interested. And I’ve also walked into plenty of rooms with no real notion why I’m there (besides I should be) and come away disappointed.

So set a realistic goal. If you’re a new networker or shy, that could be speaking with at least two new people (rather than finding a friend or one person you meet and attaching yourself to him or her all night). If you’re a regular networker, your goal could be to locate someone you’d like to add to your “life team”—people you can cultivate and count on for good advice and support.

It’s that law of attraction: going in knowing what you want increases the chances that you’ll get it. Take an extra minute to do this before you arrive.

• Trick #2: Be Unselfish. Having cut my teeth in networking at Business Networking International (BNI), I’m a true believer in the “givers gain” philosophy. Enter a room ready to make connections to help the people you meet. This means you have to listen. It also requires you to ask non-directional questions: letting the person talk about what he or she wants—rather than what you want.

This is hard for me. I interview people for a living. My tendency is to “gather information.” Often my questions are targeted at learning about something that speaks to me. Now I’m trying out a new tack. More often, my questions and comments will include these: “How’s it going? Tell me more about that. Go on. That’s interesting. How so?”

Let the other person talk about what interests her or him. This actually leads to a deeper level of conversation, where you can learn more about a person’s issues or needs. And if you can connect the person to someone else who can help—or provide the help yourself—you’ve done a service that will be remembered.

• Trick #3: Be Selfish. There’s one person who comes to every networking event. Verbally and in body language, she screams “me-Me-ME!” She only wishes to speak about herself, her business, her family, her activities. She hands you her card before she asks your name. If she takes your card, you’ll find she’s left it on the table after departing—or has enrolled you in her e-newsletter the next day without having asked your permission.

When faced with her, remember your goal for this networking event. If listening to and assisting her will help reach your goal, then stay in the conversation. If it won’t (which usually is the case), then find a polite way to disengage (“Thanks for telling me about what you do. I’m sure there are other people you want to meet, too, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”). Then shake hands and move on. Trick #2’s being unselfish doesn’t mean being a doormat—so watch out for yourself.

Think about it: your best networking experiences happen when you have meaningful conversations on subjects people care about. And when you find ways to help others get to their goals, they’ll want to do the same for you. Then it becomes “Networking.”

Lynn Franklin says she started Lynne Franklin Wordsmith 16 years ago because …”I was in danger of being made a partner at the world’s largest investor relations agency.  Or because a tarot card reader told me to.  Or because I wanted to prove my theory that wearing pantyhose didn’t make me more productive.  All of those would be true.”

I spent three hours today rehearsing with a client. She is doing 10 individual podcasts to support their benefits open enrollment. The video will be married with a handful of simple slides.

When I told her rehearsal would be necessary, she was doubtful. She’s a newbie – never done video before. And these pieces are tough because she must hit each 2- to 3-minute script with no breaks. The individual pieces cannot be edited.

She’s got to get through each one cleanly.

It’s important to note that she’ll be using a teleprompter tool. She will see the text as she reads it. She also knows her content really well.

While we rehearsed, we added places to pause. We added returns to draw her attention to different bits of text, or text she was struggling to get through. We bolded some text to prompt her to give it emphasis.

We changed some words, sometimes making it grammatically incorrect. She couldn’t say “contracted” so we used “negotiated.” She struggled with “benefits enrollment” so we dropped “benefits.” After the first 90 minutes she turned to me and said, “I am so glad we’re doing this.” She had wanted to just practice on her own.

We talked about her vocal tone, where to go down, where to go up, where to sound stronger or let the voice trail off. We timed her so she could be more conscious of her speed.

All in all, it was time well spent, and she had new respect for those who do video well. “It takes a lot of work and practice. I’ll practice more over the weekend.” Now, she knows how to practice.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

“Do you ever cook the same thing twice?”

My mother-in-law asked my husband. I smiled. She gave me 10 years of Bon Appetite magazine. I saved them all. 1990-1999.

Last year, I decided we just didn’t have room to keep 10 years worth of magazines. Plus, we’d never made a truly concerted effort to try everything we wanted to cook from them.

So, I embarked on a great effort. One-by-one, I would pull every recipe with potential, and we, as a family, would try them. Thumbs up, thumbs down. As a result, for the past year, we’ve cooked an original recipe approximately five times each week (when I’m in town).

The last 10 days was pork with a fig sauce, wine braised cabbage, beef with a horseradish crust and last night’s big winner mixed vegetable salad (with goat cheese and veggies from our garden).

Why do I share this with you? Because, trying new things leads to greatness. The more you experiment, the more you push the envelope, the bigger the discoveries. Without experimentation, would we ever have discovered that social networking inside the organization leads to greater collaboration, internal hiring and higher engagement? How would we have known that blogging is great for team development?

If you do the same thing, you never know what you’re missing. The fact that my six- and ten-year-old children have come to accept this cooking approach as “sort of normal” is testament.

In today’s environment filled with strange new communication channels, if you’re using only the same stuff you used even five years ago, shame on you! If you’re using that stuff in the same way, I’m embarrassed for you!

Today’s skill lesson is this: try new things, be adventurous. Do not allow mediocrity to control your whims. Be brave.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

How many consultants or independent practitioners out there? How many of you work for the man, but view the man as your client? This is for all of you.

If you weren’t flexible before, you certainly have become more flexible in the past 13 months, right? Clients want to cherry pick what they can afford, sometimes opting to do more themselves. Some want to stagger project stages to fit a challenging budget. Some want to pre-bill, others want to delay billing.

The more flexible you can be, the better able you’ll be to survive in this tough environment. Here are some suggestions.

• Offer options for how your time is used and how it gets billed
• Work with subcontractors and vendors to flex their involvement and billing
• Be ready to work as part of the client team, with you doing some pieces and the other team members doing other pieces
• Be ready to teach others how to do stuff, rather than doing it for them
• Think in terms of smaller chunks of work that can be done incrementally
• Understand the dependencies between those smaller chunks of work
• Create a calendar of your work that shows all the time overlaps (Gannt Chart) so you can see how you might move things around to accommodate client’s changes
• Be ready to tackle those outlying projects during the down time, and be ready to spin up fast when too much work comes in at once
• Delegate where you can (budget allowing, of course)

For those working outside their client operations, I want to suggest a great book: Bag the Elephant, by Steve Kaplan. Its focus is on how you can operate in a way that makes it easier for large companies to hire you. The ideas work well for a client of any size, and some work well for those serving internal clients. It’s a short, easy read you’ll remember for a long time.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

I’ve learned a few things about selling a house. I know, for instance, that much depends on timing (economic timing as well as the time of year you put the house on the market), and of course the mantra “location, location, location” is still paramount. I’ve also found out that a property needs “curb appeal.” That is, it needs to make a special, positive, and instant impression when prospective buyers first see it.

So when I read Drew Westen’s fabulous book, The Political Brain (about the role of emotion in politics), I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that curb appeal is also crucial in political campaigns.

Of course, Westen is referring to personal curb appeal. According to Westen, “One of the main determinants of electoral success,” he explains, “is simply a candidate’s curb appeal. Curb appeal is the feeling voters get when they ‘drive by’ a candidate a few times on television and form an emotional impression.”

Research shows that personal curb appeal can be assessed quickly. Psychologists Nalini Ambady and Bob Rosenthal conducted experiments involving what they called “thin slices of behavior.” These studies have been referenced in numerous writings – most famously, in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink. In one such study, subjects watched a 30-second clip of college teachers at the beginning of a term and rated them on characteristics such as accepting, active, competent, and confident. The results were startling. Raters were able to accurately predict how students would evaluate those same teachers at the end of the course.

Personal curb appeal is also primarily a nonverbal process. When Ambady and Rosenthal turned off the audio portion of the teachers’ video clip, so that subjects had to rely only on body language cues, the accuracy of their 30-second predictions remained just as high.

How’s your personal curb appeal? When your co-workers, clients, and business partners “drive by” you, how do you come across? If you’d like to improve, here are five tips to keep in mind:

1) Dress for success.

Joyce is a successful educator and entrepreneur. One of the secrets of her success is the way she dresses. Even when traveling for a vacation, Joyce is in a business suit and heels. Her motto: “Wear great clothes. You never know whom you’ll meet!”

When it comes to curb appeal, the way you dress matters. A lot. Clothing has an effect on both the observer and the wearer. It has been proven that people are more likely to give money (charitable donations, tips) or information to someone if that person is well dressed. And, if you’d ever watched actors at their first dress rehearsal, you’d be convinced of the power of the right costume to powerfully impact what the wearer feels.

Dressing for success doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to wear a suit to work. Many organizations have a more casual dress code. But it does mean that whatever you wear should help you make the statement that you are a competent professional.

2) Maintain positive eye contact.

Eye contact is most effective when both parties feel its intensity is appropriate for the situation. This may differ with introverts/extroverts, men/women, or between different cultures. But, in general, greater eye contact — especially in intervals lasting four to five seconds –almost always leads to greater liking.

Looking at someone’s eyes transmits energy and indicates interest. As long as you are looking at me, I believe that I have your full attention. In my book, The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work, I offer a simple way to improve your likeability factor: Whenever you greet a business colleague, remember to look into her eyes long enough to notice what color they are.

3) Learn to speak the body language of inclusion.

Back-to-back doesn’t do it. But belly-to-belly – facing people directly when talking with them – does. Even a quarter turn away signals your lack of interest and makes the speaker shut down.

Remove barriers between you and the other person. Take away things that block your view. Move the phone or stacks of paper on your desk. Better still, come out from behind your desk and sit next to the person you’re dealing with.

Use palm-up hand gestures when speaking. Keeping your movements relaxed, using open arm gestures, and showing the palms of your hands — all are silent signals of credibility and candor. Individuals with open gestures are perceived more positively and are more persuasive than those with closed gestures (arms crossed, hands hidden or held close to the body, etc.).

Synchronize your body language to mirror your partner’s. Subtly match his stance, arm positions and facial expressions. You may not realize, by the way, that you do this naturally with people you genuinely like or agree with. It’s a way of nonverbally signaling that you are connected and engaged.

4. Use your head.

The next time you are in a conversation where you’re trying to encourage the other person to speak more, nod your head using clusters of three nods at regular intervals. Research shows that people will talk three to four times more than usual when the listener nods in this manner. You’ll be amazed at how this single nonverbal signal can trigger such a positive response.

Head tilting is another signal that you are interested and involved. As such, head tilts can be very positive cues when you want to send messages of empathy and understanding. But a tilted head is also subconsciously processed as a submission signal. (Dogs will tilt to show their necks in deference to a more dominant animal.) And in business negotiations with men, women – who tend to head-tilt the most – should keep their heads straight up in a more neutral position.

5) Activate your smile power.

A smile is an invitation, a sign of welcome. It says, “I’m friendly and approachable.” The human brain prefers happy faces, recognizing them more quickly than those with negative expressions. In fact, a smile is such an important signal to social interaction that it can be recognized from 300 feet — more than a football field away.

Most importantly, smiling directly influences how other people respond to you. When you smile at someone, they almost always smile in return. And, because facial expressions trigger corresponding feelings, the smile you get back actually changes that person’s emotional state in a positive way. This one simple act will instantly and powerfully increase your curb appeal.

Drew Westen found that, after party affiliation, the most important predictor of how people vote is their emotional reaction (gut feeling) toward the candidate. I found similar results in the work place. We all want to do business with and work for people who come across as friendly, trustworthy, competent, confident, and empathetic.

I can’t guarantee you’ll win a political election. But improve your curb appeal and I will guarantee that you’ll be more successful in your career.

If you’ve been asked to give an example of a project you aced, a lesson learned or another slice of your work life, you’ve been on the receiving end of behavioral interviewing, a technique that’s gained popularity during the past decade. Here’s why:  some of the “old school” questions such as “Tell me your greatest strength” or “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” tended to elicit pat, formulaic responses that didn’t help with assessing candidates or making decisions. 

The theory behind behavioral interviewing is that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, so interviewers can better predict your success by drilling down into specific examples from your past jobs.

Done correctly and with a little panache, it leads to good discussion that helps both candidate and employer. Done poorly, it can feel like you’re being assaulted by a firing squad.

The question for today is, how can you employ this tactic to get what you need out of the interview. Think about the last interview you went on and the kinds of questions you asked when given an opportunity. You’re smart enough not to have used the time to ask prematurely about salary, vacation time, etc. But you may have used the opportunity to show how smart you are by asking impressive philosophical or industry questions that showed you were smart and savvy – which the interviewer probably got already – but yielded little useable information to help you figure out if you actually wanted the job if offered.

Here are some questions to help you get the real scoop:

• For advancement potential:  can you give me an example or two individuals who joined the company or department at this level and how they progressed within the role or the company?   On the flip side, can you think of an individual who didn’t work out and why? 
• For measurement:  how will you know in six months whether I’m succeeding this role? What are the three biggest changes you will look for in the output of this function? 
• For compatibility:  Can you describe the interpersonal style of an individual who has been an A player here?   
• For managerial style:  How have your direct reports described your strengths and weaknesses in 360 degree performance reviews? In your years of managing this department, can you describe the behavior of staffers that really got under you skin? How did you resolve these cases? 
• For leadership support of function:  Was there a moment in the past year where you really felt that Communications had accomplished its mission?  What projects or initiatives received the most support from your CEO? What was your greatest disappointment this year? 

And so on.

Good behavioral questions are open-ended. They probe for specifics. And the answers generally invite follow-on invitations:  “Can you tell me more about that?”

Final words of caution:   do not deliver these questions in an officious manner that suggests you are the HR expert (even if you think you are). Use a conversational manner. Remember that the best interviews are just that – good conversation, give and take. Keep your tone light, but probe for the information you need.

Good luck. 

By Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc

Self-delusion #1:  Our company has such a great reputation/product/leadership team/fill in the blank that anyone would want to work here.

Self-delusion #2:  We’re very selective about who we hire so we will make our candidates jump through lots of hoops, then make our decision. Our process is our process, and the right candidate will do it our way. 

Self-delusion #3:  Who’s the right candidate? We’ll know it when we see it.

The labor market ebbs and flows. Most say it’s getting tighter again which is good news for candidates. No one is partying like it’s 1999 but the sniff of multiple offers is back in the air. So how do you keep pace with the candidate market, striking the right balance between promoting your job and conducting due diligence on the contenders?

Tip #1:  Start at the Finish Line

First, fast forward to the end of a successful hiring process. What will you need to make a decision? Not just from the candidates, but from within your organization.

Who needs to give input into the final job description? Who needs to actually interview the candidate? Separate true voters from politically correct buyers-in. Both are important, but each has a different place in the line-up and in how you manage expectations for their input.

Do you have true time committed from the voters? What authority – or contingency plan – do you have to move ahead to make an offer if you need to move quickly and someone is not available?  For example, is there a surrogate decision-maker? If not, can you get agreement that a phone or video interview will suffice?

Will you require an exercise, presentation or any other kind of test to decide among finalists?

Are your HR people on board with compensation parameters, relocation assistance options, timing for background checks and other reference checking? Do you have a clear chain of command and a commitment to a reasonable time frame if exceptions need to be made to get the right candidate?

If all this sounds tedious and time consuming, it probably will be. But if you can put this in place before you interview the first candidate, you will have the leverage of a real game plan and the support of your colleagues to make the hire happen. There is little more frustrating than losing the candidate you want because the process did you in.

By Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc

It’s back-to-school September, an ideal time to brush up on your interview skills.

No, not as a job candidate — as the interviewer.  Think back to the worst interviews you’ve ever gone on as a candidate. Probably a big part of what made them so bad was the manner in which the hiring manager, HR person or other associates posed questions to you as well as the content of the questions themselves.

What’s more, as a communication professional, you have higher standards than most job candidates and are more attuned to interviewer gaffes. From a recruiter’s perspective, here are some of the most common mistakes I see well-meaning interviewers make every day:

1)      Not focusing.  Candidates notice right away when interviewers appear hurried, distracted and even disengaged. It’s a real turn-off.  Think about the candidate who has taken a chunk of valuable time off from work  — or personal time – only to find that “no one is home” at his potential next employer.  As the hiring manager, it’s your ultimate responsibility to make sure that everyone on the interview agenda is prepared to invest in the process of talking with candidates. Eliminate the weakest links.

2)      Asking repetitive questions.  Not only does this frustrate candidates, but it also does your fact-finding process a disservice. Instead of leaving the interview process wide open, consider asking each member of the interviewing team (including your boss) to focus on a specific area with each candidate. Perhaps one veteran colleague excels at sussing out cultural fit, while another has an exceptional ear for evaluating communication planning. Play to the strengths of your interview team members and you’ll instantly find them more engaged and therefore valuable to you in the process.

3)      Sounding like an interrogator.  An interview, by definition, is an exchange. While you want to manage risk by ruling out undesirable candidates, making the candidate feel like he is on the witness stand is both daunting and counterproductive. The best information comes out when everyone is as relaxed as possible in what is already a high-stakes and often uncomfortable process.

4)      Not giving the candidate a turn.  While there is no need to cede control of the interview to the candidate, it is important to strike the right balance between asking and answering questions. A good rule of thumb is that the candidate should do 80 percent of the talking and the interviewer 20 percent. Be sure to make the most of your 20 percent – this is where you can demonstrate to the candidate your own grasp of your organization’s challenges, your managerial approach, and perhaps most important, who you are as a human being.

5)      Giving fuzzy answers.  Just as candidates who dodge your questions or speak in fluent jargonese frustrate you endlessly, your responses to candidate questions can be confusing or off-putting.  Common candidate complaints include glaring inconsistencies in how interviewers describe the role and its priorities; a seeming inability to describe with any specificity the nuts and bolts of what the role requires on a day-to-day basis and interviewers who defer questions for follow-up and then do not make themselves available.

In truth, for all the self-help books out there about how to interview better as a candidate, the interviewer has the harder job. The interviewer must serve as part ambassador, part journalist and even part psychologist in an effort to make the most informed assessment and decision possible. The best way to get better at it?  Seek out candidate feedback, whether through your internal recruiting representative or an outside recruiter helping with the process.  Think of your candidate base as a key constituency; the more you listen, the more you win.

By Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc

Being a candidate is not an easy job. You send your resume in response to an Internet posting – or even a recruiter call – and don’t hear a word for weeks. Even when an organization is sincerely interested and invested in your candidacy, you can wait what seems like eons for feedback between steps of the hiring process. It’s only natural to think at some point, “Do I really want to work someplace where it takes so long to make decisions?”

When a recruiter is involved in the process, there is a live person to tell you about the inevitable delays. This doesn’t always make it less painful but at least there is contact and information (even if it is sometimes non-information).  When there isn’t, how do interpret the signals? Who should you call or e-mail?  And what’s going on here anyway?

There are many reasons for lapses in the hiring process, some justifiable, some not. Let’s look at a few common scenarios and what might be going on behind the scenes.  

Scenario #1: You respond to an Internet posting on a broad job board such as Monster or a more targeted board for a communications association.  Although you think the job has your name on it, it’s been three weeks, and you haven’t heard a word or even received acknowledging e-mail.

What may be going on:  Organizations that post a job on one of the general boards are deliberately casting a very wide net. They may receive several hundred resumes in response to a single posting, many of them wildly inappropriate. It’s time-consuming for an internal HR person (who is probably working on 79 other positions at the same time) to sift through and make an initial cut for the hiring manager to review.  If the company plans only to contact the candidates it intends to pursue, it should say so. Back in the day, print want ads often contained language to this effect. This isn’t all that unreasonable or out of proportion to the search method.

For a more vertical communications forum, you should expect a slightly higher rate – and pace – of response, since presumably the audience is savvier and the search campaign more targeted. However, again, resumes can get bogged down for weeks before they go to the hiring manager.

If you see a job on the Internet that you really believe you are qualified for, consider taking the plunge and tracking down the direct hiring manager (through networking or research) to make a personal pitch. After all, the worst that can happen is it ends up back in HR! And best case, you’ll attract more attention because your credentials are coming across multiple channels.

Another strategy: if you know –or can find—someone who works inside the organization, find out if that person can also forward your resume. Most large organizations provide incentives for employees to refer candidates. Once your resume comes across as an employee referral, it usually moves up a notch (assuming your credentials fit the role).

Don’t do all this extra work for every posting; consider it a numbers game and save your energy for the roles you really want to pursue.

Scenario #2:  You apply for or are recruited for a position. You agree to the first step, a phone screen with a recruiter (either internal or external). You are told that the organization is talking with several candidates and that you’ll hear back within a week or so about next steps. After two weeks, nothing. You e-mail the person who screened you and get no response.

What may be going on:  The organization may be approaching this as a “slate process,” i.e. evaluating a group of candidates comparatively and then making recommendations on next steps versus passing candidates through the process one at a time.  Often, organizations are well-intentioned but notoriously over-optimistic about time frames. One week quickly becomes three.

As a hedge against this, try asking the screener what steps to take – or what to infer – if you don’t hear from him or her after the estimated time frame. Is better to call?  To e-mail? By taking responsibility for the milestone on your end, you demonstrate how you would behave on the job.

Another possibility:  the search has been de-prioritized or is on hold and this hasn’t yet been communicated to candidates in the process. Is this fair?  No, but organizations are made up of human beings and some are better project managers than others. Is it fair game to conclude from a frustrating process that this is how everything works at the organization?  Probably not. If this is a role you really want, it may be worth hanging in and reserving judgment until you collect more “evidence.” If it’s not a job you are all that interested in, again, conserve your energy and move on. 

Scenario #3:  You have now been through at least one round of in-person interviews and are told you are a finalist. You’re expecting a call about another round of meetings and nothing happens. Is this how an organization that is now courting you behaves?

What may be going on:  While it’s counter-intuitive, interview processes often slow down as they move forward. Think about it. Earlier in the process, you may meet with the hiring manager and an HR person. But as the game continues and a larger cast of interviewers joins in, schedules can be nightmarish to coordinate. The higher you go, the worse it is. Your best strategy is to keep the hiring contacts current on your schedule, for example, notifying them right away if one of the days you have been holding open is now off limits. There’s nothing worse than putting together an itinerary with 7 people only to have to start from scratch.

Focus on what you can control – continue to research the organization, learn more about the new geographic area if the move will require relocating. And if you have other opportunities on the horizon that are moving more quickly, let everyone know. Hiring organizations can often be flexible in converting some in-person meetings to phone or video interviews, drop off less critical interviewers, etc. Just be sure to use this leverage when you really have other viable irons in the fire.   

While no one can take all the “pain” out of being a candidate at times, you can learn to shift your perspective and to correlate your expectations with both the scope and stage of the hiring process.

By Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc

Part 1 of 2

So many of you ask how to crack the code to get hired at employers of choice. How close does your background really need to be to stated position requirements?  How much initiatitive is admirable and how much is a turn-off? We posed some questions directly to communication hiring managers at organizations with established infrastructure and regular hiring activity in this area.

In this piece, we speak with Tracy McKee (TM), Head of Internal Communications at Aetna Inc. and Alison Davis (AD), President of Davis & Company, a national employee communication consultancy founded in 1984.

Communitelligence:  Is there really such a thing as a “created hire,” when the perfect person walks in the door and you somehow find or shift funding to make a hire happen?

AD:  Yes, at least for a small firm like ours. There have been several occasions in our 20-year plus history when we met someone we thought would add value to our firm and created a position just for them. We’ve also had a couple of occasions when two finalists for a position were so good that we didn’t want to choose – so we hired them both.

TM:   Yes, some of the best jobs evolve this way. The beauty is that these kinds of roles often work out very well for the individual and the hiring company. It takes imagination and courage on both sides – I’m impressed with a candidate who really understands her strengths and career goals and isn’t afraid to describe a “perfect fit” role that looks different from the one on the table.

Communitelligence: How do you feel about candidates who take the initiative and call you directly? Is this an annoyance or a point of differentiation?

 AD:  If we have posted a job, with a clear process for applying, and someone calls me directly, I do find that annoying – it means the candidate is not respecting our process and is trying to make an end run to reach me. I’m less annoyed is someone sends me an e-mail because it’s less intrusive:  I just reply quickly and forward the info to our HR manager.

TM:  Perseverance is a funny thing; you want to see it in a person once they have the job but too much of it before an offer feels like pressure and if anything, can have a negative impact. Do your homework before the interview and you’ll set yourself apart from everyone else. Trying too hard to close the sale after the interview but before an offer is too late.

Communitelligence:  What do you believe is the right balance between probing and selling the candidate during the interview process? 

 TM:  If it’s a bench strength role, I do a lot more probing and listening than selling in the initial conversation. I would never sell someone on a role that isn’t a fit and I don’t know that unless I really listen to what they say.  On the flip side, if they’ve done their homework and they are clear on their own goals, they’ll be probing to see if I have an opportunity that could add to their personal portfolio of skills and experience. If they aren’t asking equally insightful questions, then that tells me a lot about their confidence level and personal clarity.

AD:  My role in interviewing is 50 percent sales (“you should work here”) and 50 percent probing (“what would you bring to the party?”) Other people in our interview process are focused almost completely on probing, so I rely on them to judge the candidate more than to sell him or her on the merits of the company.

Communitelligence:  If you could give candidates just one piece of advice to present or interview smarter, what would it be:

 AD:  Be prepared to convey specific stories/examples as case studies:  the challenge you faced, the approach you took to meet that challenge, and the results you achieved. That brings your experience to life and gives your potential employer a sense of how you think.

 TM:  Do your homework…I once had a candidate ask me before his interview to send him all kinds of information that was available on our public website. I canceled the appointment.

Also, know what you are good at and what you want to do.  When you are asked about these things, don’t give a long list of accomplishments – try talking about what you learned and what you got out of it and how that relates to the kind of work you want to do.  It sounds soft, but it proves two very important points:  1) you actually did the work and 2) you have a passion for it. Otherwise, how do I know it was really your accomplishment?

By Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc

 In our next installment, Commuitelligence will speak to:  Christopher Mykrantz at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Lisa Jarmoszka at Buck Consultants and Thomas Hill, who is currently engaged by Chevron.

As a veteran executive recruiter – with an earlier hands-on career in my area of specialization – it’s tempting to reach a point where you think you’ve seen or know it all. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. At the end of the day, the most comprehensive oral interview processes across organization levels, diligent 360-degree reference checking and even predictive psychological assessments can’t give you the whole picture. 

More and more, we’re advising clients to include a job simulation piece in the candidate evaluation process. While you can’t re-create every aspect of the work environment and job content, you can construct a representative experience that will help the candidate as well as the hiring organization assess whether this will really be a match “on the ground.”  Too often recruiters (present company included) get so caught up in the HR jargon of our job descriptions and integrating interview feedback from multiple sources that we move away from the basic question:  can this candidate really do — and does he or she want to do — the job at hand?

Because we recruit communication professionals, measuring on-the-spot writing skills is one example of this, asking all candidates in the process, for instance, to complete a timed exercise illustrating how they might respond to a particular client challenge. Administered effectively, this type of exercise can demonstrate not only core written communication competency but how an individual approaches and prioritizes issues – the thought process.

And there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to simulation, even in the same field. When one of our clients, a management consulting firm, was hiring a senior vice president and national practice leader for one of its key service lines, the simulation was a business plan presented to the organization’s leadership team. Through this process, the candidate learned quite a bit about how the executive team asks questions, integrates feedback and communicates with each other. Seven years later this individual is with the firm and has grown the practice significantly.

In another instance, we suggested to a client who was on the fence about hiring a finalist candidate that this individual spend another day in the office, not interviewing but shadowing the hiring manager in representative meetings. As a direct result, both the candidate and the client decided this was not the right fit, and saved everyone a lot of time, money and heartache in the process.

Job simulation exercises may not work for every hiring process but it’s worth thinking through whether this additional piece can add predictive value for both parties. 

By Janet Long

The job interview is considered to be the most critical aspect of every expedition that brings you face-to- face with the future boss. One must prepare for it with the same tenacity and quickness as one does for a fencing tournament or a chess match.

This oldie-but-goodie article has been excerpted from “PARTING COMPANY: How to Survive the Loss of a Job and Find Another Successfully” by William J. Morin and James C. Cabrera. Copyright by Drake Beam Morin, inc. Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Read the article.

1. Don’t assume that everyone has time to meet over coffee. Networking contacts are doing you a favor. Please take into account their free time and schedules. Ask them what is best for their schedule.
2. Once you have an appointment, don’t break it! If you must, explain to your contact why you must cancel the meeting. Leaving a message saying you are busy or something just came up, doesn’t cut it. These people are just as busy and don’t have a lot of time.
3. Once you have the appointment, be on time. If someone is putting you into their schedule be respectful of their time.
4. If you asked for 15 minutes to ‘pick their brain,’ don’t take an hour, don’t take more than the time you asked for or were given.
5. Call the contact on the phone. Many companies, particularly those in the financial services area, have their emails monitored and are asked not to work on personal emails in the office.
6. Be prepared. Have a list of questions about the industry or firm. You’ve made the appointment to gather information so know what you want to ask.
7. Your networking connection can help you with specific information. They can’t help you decide what you want to do or solve the problems of the world.
8. If you want to make a career change, ask you contact if they can help you in advance. Don’t make an appointment and ask for something the contact can’t or doesn’t feel comfortable giving.
9. If a contact gives you additional names, let the person know that you have contacted them, met with them etc. It’s common courtesy and will also keep you in touch with your contact.
10. Keep in touch with your contacts. A short note advising someone of good news, interviews within the industry or current freelance work that might be of interest will keep you in your contact’s thoughts.

By Marie Raperto, Cantor Executive Search Solutions

1. When contacted, ask the individual how you can be help them and what they expect from this meeting.
2. With this information, be honest as to how you can help.
3. Decide how/when/and for how long you want to meet. Let the individual know you can meet on Tuesday mornings for 20 minutes over coffee.
4. If you can’t help them, tell them.
5. If you don’t like to give out referral names but are willing to share information about your company or industry, tell them.
6. If you think that someone you know might be a better contact, explain why and give the contact’s information.
7. When you meet, run the meeting like a business meeting. It’s your time so take control.
8. If you have names or information you think might be helpful, have it handy.
9. If you think of a name or contact but don’t have the information, let the individual know you will call/email them with the information or ask them to follow up with you as a reminder.
10. If you want/don’t want your name used with any contact, be specific with the individual.
11. When the meeting ends, let the individual know if you want to hear from them again or not. Let them know to ‘keep in touch’ or ‘wish them well in their quest.’

Well don’t do it!  Step back and review your current resume.  If your resume is over two years old, if you have a new job, if you’ve been promoted, then it’s time to redo your resume not update it.

Keep in mind that your resume is:

— an advertisement for your career

–not a job description

–a document that show progression of your career

Now look over your resume with a very critical eye.  Delete anything that you don’t really need, have repeated elsewhere and that you have done in an earlier job.  Remember, you want to show progression.  If you did the same thing earlier in your career, you are not progressing.  If you are now managing the function, make sure it shows up that way.

Your next step will be looking at the current format of the resume.  Is it showing you off to your best advantage.  A chronological resume, which lists your work experience in reverse order, is the standard format.  A skills-based resume highlights your  accomplishments and downplays any gaps in your work history.  A combination resume will highlight your skills and show your employment history.

Once you have your format decided, start to think about your objective/summary.  It is perfectly acceptable not to have one of these on your resume but it has become very popular to do so.   An objective will state the type (s) of positions you want.  A summary/profile gives an overview of your career.  Think of your summary as your written ‘elevator speech.”  Keep it short and to the point.  Avoid a long paragraph and descriptive adverbs and adjectives.

Regardless of your format, if you wish to highlight some of your qualifications, make sure they are skills-based.   Some examples would be:  strategic planning, media relations, social/cause marketing.  Avoid things like good listener,  project manager.

Remember to proof, proof and reproof.  Then send it to friends and family.  Try to send it to someone outside your field.  If they don’t understand something, you might want to rewrite it.  The person reviewing resumes might not always be someone from your profession.

By Marie Raperto, Cantor Executive Search Solutions