"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
No question about it. Consider this corollary:
"An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of panic."
And this one:
"An ounce of promotion is worth a pound of patience"
Most people can agree with the logic of statements like these. Yet few can bring themselves to act on them. If you're one of the exceptional few, you'll gain a lot from this chapter.
Knowing the available techniques, let's apply them to the three degrees of job-changing interest you may have throughout the rest of your career:
- Happy where you are,
- Unhappy...but you can't show it,
- Unemployed.
Sorry about that!
But you're no stranger to hard work. The trouble is you're doing 100% of it for your employer. Divert some to building a career investment in yourself.
If now's the time to move, do everything you can to make the best possible move. Every subsequent job...by promotion or by stepping outside will build on your next one.
On the other hand, if everything's going great, now's the time to make yourself known. You won't be called and tempted with leap-ahead opportunities, if the most relevant people in the world outside your company don't even know you exist.
What to Do Now, When You're Happy and Not Looking
Connect yourself with the outside world. Tap into the communications system. Prepare yourself to receive incoming calls.
You're Happy: Begin work on your retainer recruiter network.
Would you like to have the leading firms doing the most good they possibly can for you from this day forward? Invest some speculative effort now when you're not under pressure, and you can go a long way toward that goal. If you insist on waiting until you do want to change jobs, there's no way you can accomplish anything comparable.
Here are the five obstacles that block you from getting what you want from the world of retainer recruiters. Even though not removable, all five can be minimized through foresighted action:
1. Any firm that can readily fill its assignments without looking for you won't bother to do so. Partial solutions:
Identify yourself to many firms, so that statistical odds will favor an occasional call from one of them.
Become a personal favorite of individual recruiters in those firms, so that you'll get more than your share of the firm's calls.
2. Each retainer firm will show you only one job at a time, blocking you from all the others it's handling. Partial solutions:
Become known to many firms, so that sporadic single opportunities from just a few will be all you need.
Forge trusting relationships with recruiters, so that they may be willing to break their rules to help you.
3. Firms that have your company as an "off-limits" client won't show you anything. Partial solutions:
Become known to lots of other firms.
Wait a while. Two-years go by in a hurry. By then your company may have shifted its recruiting business elsewhere.
4. Mailed-in resumes are presumed to come from executives who are unemployed or in difficulty. Disprove the presumption:
Refuse to consider several unattractive offerings over a period of years. After widespread distribution of your initial resume, merely send updates, not complete new resumes.
5. Some recruiters in each firm are much better than average, and others may be beginners and potential "flunk-outs."
Curry the good ones and discourage the others. You're Happy: Prepare a "sales representative" resume.
You'll probably spend several weekends and evenings developing this compelling "credential." Consider it a "dirt cheap" investment, compared with any other self-advancement program you can undertake. Prepared to perfection, your resume can be used now for your "Here-I-am" mailing to the retainer recruiting industry, and merely updated in the future.
You're Happy: Mail your resume to many leading retainer recruiters.
Get into the files of every retainer firm that may someday benefit you. And do it now, while you're strong where you are...and not looking.
Don't sit back and wait, expecting the retainer firms to bump into you on a search. That will seldom happen. If you don't act now to build an ideal "presence" in the files of all these firms, you won't be handy when one of them gets a search you'd love to know about.
Forget the disadvantage of knowing only one-job-at-a-time and the fact that it may not be the right one. If a firm doesn't know you at all, chances are you won't hear about any job they're handling. They might look around and discover you. But if they're busy, and have plenty of others like you in the files, they won't look for you at all.
The greatest irony of your involvement with the retainer recruiting industry is the blessing and the curse of the files. For upper-middle-level jobs...often near and above $100,000 these days...the busy recruiter may not bother to look beyond the files.
And yet when he does "check the files"...especially at top-management levels, where candidates are least numerous...he may find that the most outstanding executives are already assigned to other recruiters and thus beyond his reach. You can't avoid being out-of-reach within any retainer firm. But you can increase the number of opportunities you'll see, by becoming known to many firms.
Therefore, you'll probably want to send your "Here-I-am" mailing to all of the prominent retainer firms listed in Appendix II, and perhaps to several others in your home town who have a good reputation.
Don't worry about being inundated with job-opportunity calls just because you send your resume. It won't happen! Executives who are out of work and desperately hoping for a flood of calls mail simultaneously to these firms plus hundreds more and they only get a handful of calls...perhaps a couple dozen at most during several months to a year of unemployment. With your relatively short list, which is only the cream of theirs, you'll get far fewer. However, two and three years later, you'll still be pleasantly surprised by an occasional "first call" from a firm that had no reason to call sooner.
You're Happy: Take your once-in-a-career-risk now, while it's minimal and you can afford it.
The risk of disclosure when you mail to the top retainer firms is very small. And the earlier in your career you send your mailing, the less risk there is.
Even if several recruiters in the retainer firms are close friends of your boss, your nastiest rival, or your company's president, it would be highly unethical for them to call and say, "Guess who just mailed in her resume?" That's just as verboten as "floating resumes." And it's even less likely, because there's no money in it. Disclosing your resume to a potential employer might net $30,000+. Disclosing mere receipt of it to your current employer would earn no fee. All it would produce is a reputation as a gossip...deadly in the recruiting business.
Several years ago a contingency recruiter serving the advertising industry offered, for an annual fee, to inform subscribing employers whenever she received a resume from one of their employees. Public outcry forced her to withdraw the new "service" a few days later. Employers, interestingly, expressed as much outrage as employees.
Face it. You do want to start career-long "awareness" relationships with a wide cross-section of retainer recruiting firms. Sooner is better than later. Even if word should accidentally leak out of one firm, wouldn't you rather deal with that now, when you're "riding high," than in the future when you might be in jeopardy? Wouldn't you rather "explain" to your current boss who's just promoted you, than to her replacement who may be looking for an excuse to fire you?
You're Happy: Get the unattractive job suggestions out of the way now. Regardless of what you say in your covering letter, every retainer firm you mail your resume to will assume you're either out of work, or afraid you soon will be. That's when and why people mail resumes.
Inevitably, therefore, the first opportunity you hear about from each retainer firm you write to will probably be no better than lateral in responsibility...and possibly unattractive in other ways, too, such as compensation, location, and prestige and stability of the company involved.
Indeed, whenever a particularly unattractive assignment comes in, the recruiter handling it always alerts the research clerk to "comb the write-ins" looking for someone unemployed who might want the position, since nobody happy and secure in a comparable position at higher compensation, in a nicer location, or with a better company would even consider it.
Time and refusal are the only rebuttals to the "out-of-work-or-in-trouble" presumption that dogs every "write-in." If the firm doesn't call you until a year or two after getting your resume, and you're still at the same company with the same title or better, they'll know you're secure. Your letter stated the truth. Similarly, if they call shortly after you "write-in," and you refuse a position comparable to your current one, this too will confirm you're "solid."
The recruiter's phone conversation with you will be duly noted in your file. And even though you "wrote-in," instead of waiting to be "discovered," you'll henceforth be regarded as a secure executive who can't be tempted with anything that isn't a substantial advancement. Let's see what a recruiter writes in your file after such a "first conversation":
"Called him" (date) "to propose VP - R&D of Tacky Technology Corp. Not interested, since he already heads 150-person section of the corporate lab, and is moving up fast, at Blue Chip Corp. Very impressive on the phone. Sent in his resume 'just to get acquainted.' So he's ambitious and probably will move for the right thing-but it better be good!"
The next suggestion you receive from this recruiting firm will be far more interesting.
You're Happy: Help the impressive recruiter.
At the same time the recruiter was sizing you up, you were evaluating him. He quickly understood that you're secure and won't move laterally. Then he agreed with your realistic assessment of the job he presented, and asked you for recommendations. He wasn't dense. He didn't try "high pressure." Indeed, he seemed professional, pleasant, straightforward, and down-to-earth.
As a result, you went out of your way to be helpful. You listened carefully and came up with several potential candidates, plus another person who wouldn't be interested personally, but might identify candidates. Accordingly, the recruiter made an additional notation in your file:
Congratulations! You're well on the way to becoming what they call in the business a "hot file"...someone every recruiter in the firm tries to get access to the minute he or she undertakes something relevant. You'd be a great candidate...and if not, a great help.
Do not, however, help all recruiters equally. If the person sounds like a dope...and some may, even from the most prestigious firms...don't open up to him or her. Any firm may have new and/or inadequate recruiters on payroll, who will ultimately flunk out. No point in going out of your way to help them.
Be most helpful to the most impressive. In each firm, they're the ones you want to have knowing how good you are, and fighting for the right to call you up. They'll be the most discreet with the information you give them. They'll appreciate it most. And they're the most likely to be handling the bigger and better jobs that will interest you in the future.
First let's consider prospects who are above you. If you're in a relatively small firm which might be hurt by the loss of a potential candidate, keep quiet. The company would be hurt, and you would also be hurt.
But if the company has several layers of good management, it probably won't be hurt, and a promotion to fill a vacancy above you may "domino" into a promotion for you, too. Figure that a really good recruiter will dig to find out what she needs to know. If you won't tell her, she'll just keep asking until someone else does.
Even when the recruiter's opportunity could be a career breakthrough for one of your subordinates, you may decide to identify your person and let him know that you're his benefactor. One of the most senior and respected executives at General Electric (now retired) always recommended his best subordinates to me. Several became candidates. But every single one that wound up getting an offer from one of my clients ultimately refused to leave GE. They just couldn't walk out on a boss...and because of him a company, too...with such obvious concern for their welfare.
Of course, the best way to shield your subordinates and others in your organization is to suggest lots of ideal candidates from other companies. That way, the recruiter has less need to probe your place. If you're extremely helpful and she likes you, she'd rather not cause you grief, even though circumstances will sometimes force her to do so.
You're Happy: Keep records on recruiters.
Start your own file on every retainer firm you have any contact with. begin with copies of the initial letter and resume you send out. Then update each firm's file whenever one of its recruiters calls. And start a new file whenever someone calls from a firm you haven't written to.
Years go by and memory fades. You want to know who called from each firm, when, what position was discussed, who you recommended if you weren't interested, and your evaluation of the caller. Armed with this information, you'll always know who is at least vaguely aware of you at each firm. If more than one person from the firm has called, you know who sounded the most competent and with whom you had the best rapport. And if you suggested people who filled the recruiter's jobs, you can later remind him who they were.
Let's see what you wrote down after the conversation on Tacky Technology. It's the first entry in your file marked "Gordon, Rossi & Boodles":
Will Pickham, VP, called to suggest VP - Engineering job at Tacky Technology. Shaky-sounding company. Only 55 engineers. Seemed to think I was in trouble. But then became interested in how well I'm doing, and what it would take to move me.
Told him "no way" on Tacky, and recommended Dan Daring and Rita Ready at Intel and Fred Fearless at Xerox. Also Sally Smart and Peter Plunge. Loved the idea of Sally-said, "Mr. Tacky would flip for someone from Bell Labs." Will was fascinated that 5 years after leaving, I'm keeping current with their people to staff my department here, and could name a young risk-taker over there. Also surprised I'd name one of my own best subordinates, and he let me tell Pete to call him about Tacky, so I could stress having Pete's interests at heart. I also told Will to use my name and call Erna Entrepreneur for ideas, because Erna's company is in the same field as Tacky.
Liked Will! Very professional, yet down-to-earth. Restoring a Model A roadster. Excellent GR&B contact.
Your conversation with Will Pickham has been well documented on both sides. Before we move on, let's look again at the last couple words in Will's notation:
That modest description hardly conveys Will's full enthusiasm for you. In one phone call, you've gone from "just a write-in" to someone Will won't forget when he has another search in your field. Meanwhile, of course, you may be hearing from other recruiters at Gordon, Rossi & Boodles...some of whom you'll like, and help, as much as you did Will. But until someone else comes along that you like even better, Will's your key to GR&B.
You're Happy: Update the records that recruiters are keeping on you.
From now on, whenever you receive a promotion or change companies, send a brief letter to the recruiter with whom you have the best relationship at each retainer recruiting firm.
Or maybe just write something like this across the top of a copy of the official announcement:
Will's secretary will see that what you send gets into your file. As a result, his firm stays continually up-to-date on you without your ever sending a new resume...and therefore without your ever reassuming the "out-of-work-or-in-trouble" presumption.
Chances are, however, that by the time you're announcing your next promotion two or three years after your initial mailing, you still won't have heard anything from four-fifths of the firms you originally wrote to. They:
- Haven't yet needed anyone with your background;
- Didn't get around to calling you when they did have a need; or
- Threw away your resume because they had no need when you originally wrote.
And there you have it...a program designed to bring you maximum personal advantage from the retainer executive recruiting industry, throughout the rest of your career.
A modest investment of effort now, while you're happy, may pay an incredible dividend in future years. It could be as valuable as a lottery win, if it lets you know about a break-through career opportunity you wouldn't have had a shot at otherwise. Even if it only reveals a sporadic series of lateral moves you might make, it could be as good as a lottery win...if it comes at the right time to spare you the unforeseeable future pain of job-hunting while unemployed.
One more thing to do right now: Buy some elegant personal stationery.
Every executive should have engraved stationery listing home address, and (despite tradition) phone number in small type (for future job-hunting). In the office and at home, personal stationery enhances congratulations, condolences, gift enclosures, RSVPs, and correspondence in support of charitable and cultural causes.
Order now, and get the 10-week production period out of the way. Ignore stationery and jewelry stores, and shop the "Yellow Pages" under "Engravers." Get the prices lawyers and accountants enjoy. You may not want to store enough for an emergency job campaign...at least 2,000 Monarch (7**" x 10'/2") and 500 standard (8'/2M x 11") letterheads; plus 500 Monarch and 2,000 standard (#10) envelopes. If so, just buy the "minimum"...probably 1,000 Monarch sheets and envelopes. Your "die" will be cut and on file, and additional quantities will only take two or three weeks.
For less than $800 (including die) your minimum order will provide enough stationery to be a "class act" for the next ten years. And with your die on-file, you'll have an insurance policy against the "production-line look" for as long as you have your current home and phone, and the engraver remains in business. (If local suppliers are expensive, try Dewberry Engraving, Birmingham, AL.)
What to do when you're unhappy... but you can't show it.
Too bad you didn't establish "resume contact" with a wide cross-section of retainer recruiting firms two or three years ago, when you were well situated. There's no better remedy for "unhappy-but-I-can't-show-it" than an opportune call from a recruiter. A maximum program then wouldn't be bringing a flood of calls now. But a few welcome calls would be trickling in...Maybe five or six a year, and that might be enough to solve your problem.
But let's skip the "I-told-you-so's." Now we'll swing into action.../?/// cautiously.
Secretly Unhappy: You can still contact retainer recruiters. But now you must be far more careful to avoid the ones your employer uses.
If you think your employer may be as unhappy with you as you are with him, then you've got to be especially careful not to send your resume to the recruiters he uses. Ordinarily you could accidentally contact those recruiters and there'd be no problem. Professional ethics would prevent their calling your employer and saying, "Guess who I just got a resume from?"
Now, however, circumstances are different. Your employer may have confided his concerns about you to one or more of the firms he uses. Clients usually do discuss key managers' strengths, weaknesses, and probable destinies with trusted recruiters. And after that happens, recruiters will disclose receipt of a resume from an employee previously described as not up-to-par:
Of course you can't be forewarned if your employer is having secret discussions with a recruiter the company hasn't used before. But stay away from any that he and the rest of the company are known to use.
How can you determine which to avoid? Probably only three or four should concern you, and you may already know them. However, before you mail, make some discreet inquiries. And if your secretary is tight-lipped, subtle, and loyal, send him on reconnaissance, too. Provided with a good "cover story," he may get better information than you will.
Moreover, since your situation now is particularly ticklish, you may want to boldly mark both your covering letter and the front page of your resume:
Confidential; I Am Not Unemployed.
This shouldn't be necessary, and looks a little paranoid. Also, it won't prevent disclosure by a recruiter your boss has already talked to about possibly replacing you. But it may offer a slight margin of added protection against accidental mishandling. Probably it will make you feel more comfortable, if nothing else.
Secretly Unhappy: Talk to your best personal contacts.
Obviously, your personal contacts can be trusted. Explain that everything is "hush, hush," but you're beginning to look around. Will they serve as a confidential reference! This request will announce your availability just as clearly as asking for a job or job leads. Yet it avoids the up-front final negative, "Sorry-I-don't-have-anything-and-don't-know-of-anything."
Secretly Unhappy: Consider "targeted networking."
Ordinary networking is obviously out of the question when you're trying to maintain confidentiality. However, if there's a specific target person you want to reach...perhaps a CEO who has a key executive nearing retirement with no obvious successor...you may be able to reach that CEO.
A word of warning, however. CEOs and other executives aren't as sensitive to your need for confidentiality as most first-class recruiters are.
These executives aren't malicious...just less accustomed to professional caution. Try to reach your "target" with no more than one trusted intermediary who knows your "target" personally and will be sure to stress your need for secrecy.
Secretly Unhappy: Your best shot is a secretive direct mail campaign.
When you absolutely must get into action in a hurry...and do it secretly...you should always consider direct mail, with a "sponsor" signing the letters and getting the replies. The method can reach upwards of 1,000 or 2,000 potential employers within 2 to 4 weeks and locate the approximately 3 to 6 among them who, according to realistic odds, currently may need you. If luck and odds are with you, about 1 to 3 of the 3 to 6 will be sufficiently impressed when they meet you to extend an offer.
But please don't ignore the warnings on pages 260 through 267. If what you have to offer-or what you write-won't be persuasive, then you're not going to be any more successful having someone else send it than if you'd sent it yourself.
Unemployed!
A rough time. But at least there's no need for secrecy; all options are open to you.
And knowing what you do now, you'll find a new job far more efficiently than you would have before.
The reason many executives have agonizing difficulty finding another job that fits their talents, background, and compensation requirements is that they don't know what you do.
They're able. And not lazy. Indeed, they work desperately hard.
But they misallocate their efforts, spending huge amounts of time on activities where they've long since passed the point of diminishing returns. Meanwhile they mistakenly neglect other techniques that could be highly productive, because they consider them of little value or even counterproductive.
Unemployed: Approach executive recruiters realistically.
Executive recruiters are the most misunderstood and misused job-hunting resource. Be sure you use them wisely.
Many unemployed executives spend lots of time early in their search hoping to find a recruiter who'll offer to "help." If they're attractive and readily employable, these executives eventually find the harmful "help" they seek...mailing of their resumes to their likeliest employers with a price-tag attached.
You'll deal knowledgeably with contingency recruiters, restricting yourself to the fine ethical firms you're confident will never send your resume or refer your name to anyone without contacting you first and getting your authorization for that specific referral. You'll also keep a knowing eye peeled for suspiciously "helpful" behavior by retainer recruiters.
The commonest and saddest of all errors made by senior executives is wasting precious time by haunting the halls of the largest retainer firms, trying through networking and other cajolery to meet yet another of the firm's recruiters in yet another office. Vainly they hope to find out about more than one-job-at-a-time, among the dozens or even hundreds of appropriate openings a firm of that size is always in the midst of filling. You know that this strategy is impossible, and you know why.
Sadly too, many unemployed executives fail to send their resume to many reputable retainer recruiters, hoping by such misguided "selectivity" to enhance their appeal and usefulness to the small number of firms they choose.
You're aware of the "selectivity" pitfall. So when you're unemployed, you'll routinely submit your resume to every retainer firm you haven't yet sent it to...knowing that no two such firms will ever be working simultaneously to fill the same opening, nor will they ever ask or care which other retainer recruiters you've sent your resume to.
If any retainer firm is already showing you an opportunity, you realize that they're as involved with you as they can possibly be. You won't try to pressure them further. But you will call up the one or two most impressive people you already know at each retainer firm where you seem to be dormant. You'll tell them your current circumstances, and mail them an updated resume.
And when you want to push aggressively into the consciousness of retainer firms that don't already know you, you'll force an appointment by using the clout of someone who spends money with them or who's been a candidate or a helpful source. You won't invoke the name of a competitive recruiter. You also won't waste time on more than one "door-busting" visit per firm, and you won't storm multiple offices of the same firm.
Above all, you won't devote the overwhelming preponderance of your time to recruiters, as so many ill-informed executives do. As you fully appreciate, your main mission is to break through to the vast number of jobs the retainer firms are withholding from you, not merely to pursue the one-job-in-3-or-4-months that each firm may actually show you.
Unemployed: Use personal contacts effectively.
Needless to say, you'll call your closest contacts immediately...and perhaps get together with the best-situated ones. They'll be surprised and pleased when you merely ask them to serve as a reference. Relieved that you haven't asked them for a job, as most unemployed executives do, their long-standing esteem for you will rise even further.
And reminded of what they already know you've done, and apprised of your latest accomplishments, your contacts will think about how they or someone else in their company may be able to use you. Here, too, you've avoided the serious mistake most executives make, by not forcing a closed-issue "unfortunately-we-don't-have-anything" answer.
Unemployed: Use networking. But keep it in perspective.
Now that you're out of work, you can openly indulge in networking But don't over-emphasize it to the total exclusion of other useful techniques. Lots of executives have that tendency....especially when pointed that way by "single-method" outplacement counselors.
Nowadays I can never see or hear the word "networking" without recalling an offhand remark by one of the legendary cynics of the "people business," as he boasted to me several years ago about how much money he was making since he shifted his firm into outplacement. When I asked how he actually helped his outplacees find jobs, he laughed and said:
"I tell them to go network themselves!"
A totally different caliber of person in the "people business" is a psychologist in a fine firm that offers outplacement among its many other services and, likewise, endorses networking as the only worthwhile method. When he and I discussed the plight of unemployed executives, he cited one of his close personal friends as a successful example. A very high-level executive of a top company in a huge industry, the psychologist's friend lost his job when two giants in that field merged:
"Fortunately, networking saved him. After being 'out' for more than a year, he finally found a job as executive director of a trade association in a totally different field. He makes a lot less money than he used to. And I don't think he likes his new work very much. At least I know he's unhappy not to be in his regular field. But without networking, he wouldn't even have the job he's got. Networking saved his life."
Did this man launch a direct mail campaign?
"No, I advised him not to bother. You get very limited response from that."
Did he try to buy a smaller company in his field? There are hundreds of them around...many of them in difficulty these days.
"I don't think so."
Did he try to launch a consulting practice in his specialty? As former head of a large portion of one of America's leading companies, he'd be considered an authority.
"I don't know."
What a classic result of networking-and-nothing-else! This person got the kind of job you'd expect him to get eventually, if he continued long enough meeting and questioning kindly people in the large city where he lives...a job uncovered virtually at random, which has nothing to do with his prior background and current preferences.
If this fellow had spent "more than a year" marketing himself to his regular industry, chances are that's where he'd be working today. Random local networking is ideal for lower- and middle-managers, whose nonspecific skills and moderate compensation fit a broad spectrum of jobs. It's far less adequate for the $100,000+ executive who wants to capitalize on years of experience in his current specialty.
If you're ever unemployed, you'll certainly use networking. Especially when it serves your purposes better than the other available techniques. For example, if you strongly want to avoid relocation, and your skills fit well into a wide variety of companies, and your compensation isn't unusually high, then networking may be the only method you'll ever need to look for a hometown job.
Let's say you're a financial officer who's been CFO, controller, and chief of internal audit in various size companies at various stages of your career, and there are reasons why you must stay in Cleveland. Obviously, you can be useful to a wide range of companies and non-profit organizations. Meeting business people all over town and getting each of them to refer you to two or three others is a good way to find out about all the potential local opportunities.
However, you can speed up the process by adding direct mail, based largely on the Ohio Directory of Manufacturers published by Commerce Register. This book lists about 14,000 companies, either headquartered in Ohio, or Ohio-based divisions and subsidiaries of larger corporations headquartered elsewhere. It doesn't include retailing, wholesaling, travel and transportation, communications, financial, media, advertising, construction, maintenance, entertainment, hospitality, hospital/medical/nursing, education, cultural and other non-profit entities, etc.
Using Commerce Register's Ohio Directory you can identify several hundred local Cleveland manufacturing companies. After phoning to confirm name and title of their CEO and their address, you can have your letter and "sales representative" resume in the hands of all those potential employers within two or three weeks. If companies with sales of less than $10 million...or some other figure...don't interest you, you won't mail to them.
Moreover, just by scanning the Yellow Pages, or any other directories your public librarian may suggest, you can probably come up with another couple hundred manufacturing entities large enough to have a role for you. These possibilities can be phone-checked for name/title-of-CEO and mailed within the next week or so of your all-out job campaign.
After letting the appropriate person in hundreds of local organizations...as many as you can identify...know about you within just two or three weeks, you can then settle down to the leisurely pace of networking. Two or three-a-day networking appointments don't seem so creakingly inefficient after you've used your spy-in-the-sky satellite to scan the terrain. Now a ground-level search for clues on foot and by taxi is the perfectly logical next step.
Indeed, your fast preliminary direct mail scan will help target your follow-up networking campaign. Chief executives who take the time to send you a cordial letter saying they have nothing for you...and some will...can be phoned for the usual "a-few-minutes-to-get-your-thoughts-and-suggestions" appointment. Occupying high-level business positions, and having demonstrated kindness and courtesy, these CEOs will be ideal networking contacts to augment the list of people you already know.
No question about it...meeting you and liking you, some networking contacts who minutes before were complete strangers may feel like digging into their minds for ideas and their address books for contacts.
The CEO who doesn't need you as her CFO or controller may suddenly realize that you'd be the perfect business manager for the symphony and as a member of its Board, she can propose you. Or she may send you to her multi-millionaire tennis partner who owns 18 McDonald's franchises in Ohio...someone who can use and pay appropriately for your talents, but whom you'd never have identified by looking through directories for large Cleveland businesses.
However, if you're a $100,000+ executive with specific background you want to exploit and with a nationwide or global scene to scan, classic networking visits around town aren't quite enough for you.
Targeted networking, on the other hand, may provide a breakthrough. Perhaps you want to meet a CEO in your industry who just lost a divisional president and has, in your opinion, no suitable internal replacement. Now that you're unemployed and have no fear of disclosure, you can freely forge a chain of personal introductions leading to your "target".
Unemployed: Don't be afraid to use direct mail.
Unemployed...or at least out from under any secrecy restraints...you're free to orbit your spy-in-the-sky satellite. Moreover, it can be as blatantly identified as the Goodyear blimp. Scour the whole country, or the world. No need to hide behind a "sponsor." No danger that you'll lose your bird-in-the-hand job as you check out the bush.
When you think in terms of your ability to work full-time openly seeking the best possible job for the next stage of your career, unemployment almost seems desirable. And indeed it can be, if you use it knowledgeably and creatively. Unfortunately, many people don't.
I often run into excellent $100,000+ executives who've been out of work six months or longer and remain totally frustrated in their search for another job. They've long since given up hope of finding a better job. I ask them if they've conducted a comprehensive direct mail campaign:
These very words come back to me again and again from executives who should know better. I remember a phone call from a former VP -Corporate Controller of a merged-and-purged Fortune 500 company, who'd already been "out" seven months. He answered my question about direct mail with...word-for-word...the #1 cliché on the subject (above). And before I could respond with even a syllable of rebuttal, he plunged right ahead with cliché #2:
This guy would be unbeatable on TV's Family Feud. "The #1 and #2 most popular answers," as the MC says. And...bang...bang...in that order! Both of these classic "reasons" for an unemployed executive not to include direct mail in his job campaign are not only erroneous, they both seem subtly related to a common practice most mature young adult males and females engage in: going to college.
"I-didn't-want-to-cheapen-myself-in-the-marketplace" clearly relates to Econ IA, and its "Law of Supply and Demand." After they become leaders of American Capitalism, formerly proletarian college students confuse increasing potential demand (more would-be purchasers who are aware of the product) with increasing supply (multiple clones of the VP in question).
Erroneously they figure that increasing demand will drive the price down. What the professor actually told them, of course, was that increasing supply would do that. Indeed, the professor suggested advertising as a means of making more potential buyers aware of the product (increasing demand) and thus (or so she claimed) driving the price up.
For years I've wondered how so many American executives arrive at the identical misunderstanding of the "Law of Supply and Demand" when applied to the sale of their own services. After all, these are the same people who spend millions of dollars on advertising to increase demand for commercial products and services.
Moreover, I suspect that even in other personal economic matters these same people would not make the same mistake. Suppose they owned a house or a boat and decided to sell it at auction. Would they try to restrict the number of people aware of their property's advantages and availability, so as "not-to-cheapen-it-in-the-marketplace"? Would they try to suppress news of the auction in order to assure a small crowd and thus higher prices? I don't think so.
Why then do these executives get "Supply and Demand" confused only as it relates to themselves...and not with respect to goods and services, both commercial and personal?
My latest theory is still predicated on the pernicious effects of the years in college. However, I've stopped looking for ineffective pedagogy in the Economics Department. The faulty curriculum, I'm now convinced, is not Professor Greybeard on "Supply and Demand." It's Mom's advice on dating. She's repeatedly quoted as saying, "If you seem easy to get, they won't want you so much.'"
Mom's advice clearly presages and parallels the "I-didn't-want-to-cheapen-myself-in-the-marketplace" rationale for not getting in touch with any companies, and likewise being careful to reach only a selective few retainer recruiting firms. Moreover, Mom's principle is adhered to even though the executive knows that no two retainer firms will ever be working on the same job; hence, every firm shunned is potentially a job shunned.
Incidentally, Mom's corollary concern about not getting a "too-avail-able-reputation" can readily be seen as the root logic behind the more colorful, yet enigmatic: "I-didn't-want-to-meet-myself-coming-around-the-corner." Admittedly, that specter is most disturbing. However, like "cheapening-in-the-marketplace," it's impossible.
Unemployed: Consider the "Underutilized Asset Discussion"...an ideal door-opener, if consulting and purchase of a business are part of your exploration.
Absolutely the best way to get an appointment with a chief executive or with any other corporate decision-maker is to have something specific and highly interesting to discuss. Virtually nothing fits that description better than an underutilized asset...a business or other resource she has, that could be put to new, better, or additional use, or could be advantageously sold off.
During the years that you've worked for one company in your industry, you've undoubtedly noticed competitors who aren't making the most of something they have. You've probably even noticed similar examples within your own company, but for political reasons, you haven't been able to pipe up.
As an independent consultant or a prospective purchaser viewing the matter from outside, you have no such inhibitions. You can go straight to the CEO of any company with a letter and follow-up phone call outlining your thoughts. And if you make sense, he or she will probably be interested enough to invite you in for a hearing.
Typical languishing assets you might identify:
Division or product line underperforming for reasons you'll explain. Or appropriate for divestiture or contribution to a joint venture you can visualize.
Trademarks that could be used for quick penetration of new markets, or licensed to other users.
Products of overseas subsidiaries that could be profitably imported. Even as America drowns in imports, U.S. multinationals fail to think of bringing in their own unique overseas lines.
Sales forces and distributor networks that could handle related lines.
Patents, technology, and know-how that could be licensed to users in other industries or spawn advantageous entry into other fields. Or possibly even be shared profitably with competitors.
Under-exploited real estate, air rights, timberland, mineral rights, etc. Also unused plant capacity that other companies might need.
Before you blurt out your analysis which, after all, lacks inside knowledge that only the company itself has, make sure you're on firm ground. Ask questions. Confirm your assumptions, and modify your presentation accordingly. Then show that you've thought more deeply and creatively about the asset than the CEOs own people. Perhaps no one has devoted proper time to it. Or maybe it hasn't had the priority you now demonstrate that it merits.
Propose a consulting engagement. Phase I will be a study of the issues you've pointed out. Phase II, if warranted by Phase I, will implement the recommendations of Phase I. You're prepared to handle implementation totally on the outside, or drawing on inside personnel. Or...stand by for a job offer. The CEO may prefer implementation by internal personnel with you leading the team.
I can't even begin to count the number of executives I've come across over the years who've moved from one corporate payroll to the next, by doing a consulting project so impressively that their client hired them as a permanent employee.
On the other hand, if the CEO is not interested in more aggressive use of the asset you point out...and if that asset is severable and salable... maybe he or she will entertain an offer from you to purchase it.
If so, you have something tangible to discuss with investment bankers and venture capitalists. Start making appointments with them!
Rites of Passage
Well, that's it. That's everything I wanted to impart on the subject of changing jobs at $100,000+.
We've looked at the employment process from every angle. If you really want to accelerate your career, you've got several important steps you can take right now, while you're happy and challenged in your current job. You can even get extremely aggressive while staying under cover.
And if you should ever find yourself out of work, you know everything you can possibly throw into an all-out campaign.
Someday you may face difficult times. Most of us do at least once or twice in a career. But you'll never have to make the pathetic statement we've all heard so often from previously dynamic executives after months of unemployment, with no leads in sight:
You know what to do. And at a time like that, you'll be busy doing it, not sitting around wishfully waiting for the phone to ring with news that someone else has done it for you.
You also know what not to do. You'll never make the rounds of recruiters until you find one who says:
Nobody will price-tag your head and get to your most likely employers before you do, blocking those casual exploratory sessions your own straightforward contact might otherwise have brought about.
Moreover, you won't waste an undue amount of time on naively ardent courtship of retainer recruiters. You'll get to the most jobs you possibly can through them. And you'll also get past them to far more jobs than they're permitted to show you.
From now on, whenever any headhunter calls, you'll deal with him or her in precisely the way that best serves your self-interest. And over the years, you'll build mutually-trusting relationships with the best retainer recruiters...perhaps even to the point that they'll be willing to suspend their rules to assist you when you urgently need help.
How many and which "Rites of Passage" await you in the years ahead? Almost certainly interviewing. Definitely writing a resume, and maybe a covering letter to go with it. And very likely negotiating an employment contract, too. Maybe outplacement. And without a doubt plenty of personal contacts, networking, and dealing with recruiters.
Come what may, there'll be more method...and less mystery...in your approach to the potential passages that are always open to you in the world of employment outside your current company.
As a result, I hope you'll feel free to pursue what's best for you...not just what's handed to you.
