7 The Job Market

You can’t win the game if you don’t know the rules.

Chapter Overview

Would you play a game if you knew you only had a 5-percent chance of winning? You might think these are reasonably good odds if you’re a gambler, but would you want to spend 90 to 95 percent of your time pursuing a job search if you knew that what you were doing only had a 5- to 10-percent chance of success? In this chapter, you’ll learn:

How the job market really works at the executive and manager level.

The different approaches to the job market you need to consider, and how to maximize your effectiveness when you use each one (knowing the game and the rules).

The six different ways employers try to find executives, and why you want to be in the first five.

The main sections in this chapter include:

Job fairs and trade shows.

Government career centers and job clubs.

Print advertisements and Internet job postings.

Internet job search Websites.

Contacting recruiters.

Contacting employers.

Your Website.

Networking.

Milestones.

Many resume writers and career coaches will tell you it’s a numbers game and you need to send “a powerful letter and resume” (which of course they’ll help you prepare for a fee) to a large number of recruiters and employers. Unfortunately, it’s not a numbers game, because you probably won’t find your next job by sending letters and resumes.

More than 85 percent of executives and managers find their next job through someone they already know or met through the networking process. Although networking will be the most important and probably most successful activity for you, you need to know the various job search approaches that are available to you (playing the game) and how to maximize your effectiveness when you use each one (knowing the rules of the game).

Illustration by Steven Lait.

The job search process and job market were much simpler and more direct when you were a recent graduate in your early 20s. Now, when you’re an executive or manager, the job search process isn’t so transparent. Though there’s no clear and simple process that works for executives and managers, there are approaches you can use that can be effective.

Before you dismiss some of the approaches described in this chapter with “that one isn’t appropriate for me,” read the suggestions for each one and consider how you might get something useful from it. I often hear executives tell me how they made a contact that turned out to be useful later when using one of the approaches they initially thought would be unproductive.

Job Fairs and Trade Shows

Job fairs attract large numbers of job seekers who want to discuss employment opportunities in specific fields or industries. Although this approach may be the least effective for you at a senior level, here are some good reasons to attend job fairs and trade shows:

To gain a better understanding about an industry you’re exploring.

To connect with employees at several different companies within an industry.

To gain a better understanding of how a company might approach recruiting senior personnel.

To hear rumors about people leaving, companies with open positions, or companies searching for someone.

To determine the names and positions of persons who have the power to employ you at your target companies.

Trade shows are designed to help companies enhance their visibility within their industry and promote their products to potential purchasers. They don’t focus on job or career issues. Sales and marketing people predominate at trade shows, but senior management often attend.

Attend trade shows as a way to gather information and research an industry or a company. Before going, call the trade show organizer (usually found through the Internet) and get a list of the current or prior year’s exhibitors. Go with the intent to make contact with someone in a target company who might be able to give you inside information on their structure, approach to hiring, or current or expected opportunities, or help you connect later with the person who has the authority to make hiring decisions.

Government Career Centers and Job Clubs

Inquire at a state or local office of a government unemployment department. Many have job-search programs, and some have special programs for executives. Employers often post jobs at these facilities, even at executive and manager levels. You can also gain access to various restricted job-posting Internet Websites at no cost. The more senior your position, however, the less likely the government job centers will be an effective resource for you.

To use the services of most government programs, you’ll be required to register and participate in their programs, which may be similar to those offered by outplacement companies. If you’re planning to file for unemployment, you’ll have to register anyway.

Print Advertisements and Internet Job Postings

Companies and recruiters often place job advertisements in newspapers, journals, and trade publications, on the Internet, and on their own Websites. The simplicity and speed with which jobs appear on the Internet often makes it difficult to know the actual source of a job and how many times the same job appears on more than one site. For example, one major Internet job board scours the Internet looking at employers’ Websites for jobs and then copies them onto its own Website.

If you respond to advertisements or job postings on the Internet, use a cover letter to serve as a bridge between your resume and the requirements outlined in the job description. Be aware, though, that when you post your resume on the Internet, you lose control of it, and anyone can view it.

Although you will find many jobs posted on the Internet for staff-level positions, you’ll not find many at the executive level. Executives in the United States won’t find many jobs posted in newspapers either. The Wall Street Journal’s Tuesday edition is the only national print publication that carries advertisements for positions at senior levels, and even then you may only see a couple of pages of ads. Their Internet job site www.careerjournal.com includes jobs posted by employers, but most are for manager and non-managerial positions.

Executives in the UK have excellent alternatives. The Times and The Financial Times are both national newspapers, and The Times devotes an entire section on Sundays that can run as long as 35 pages containing seniorlevel jobs at positions equivalent to CEO on down. The Financial Times does the same on Wednesdays for financial services industry positions, and on Thursdays for accounting and auditing-type positions.

In the United States, you often find advertisements in print publications that reflect a generalized description of a position and almost no information about the industry. The ads direct your response to a P.O. box. All too often, these aren’t real jobs, but attempts by a recruiter to collect resumes to fill a database for future prospecting. Placing an advertisement for a job opening that doesn’t exist is illegal in the EU and many other countries, but it’s common practice in the United States.

Because advertisements typically result in a large number of responses, those who are likely to be more successful will be younger and less expensive candidates, for whom the position would be a step up.

Age discrimination may be illegal, but there are subtle ways employers use to accomplish the same thing. Advertisements mentioning the level of experience required as “from four to six years” are actually telling you if you have seven or more years of experience, you’re “overqualified”—a euphemism meaning you’re too old.

Your success rate at finding a job at the executive or manager level in the United States from an advertisement in the press or on the Internet will be in the range of 3 to 5 percent. If you choose to respond to an advertisement, Chapter 9 covers how you can improve your odds, and Chapter 11 covers requests for providing your salary history (often requested in advertisements).

Internet Job Search Websites

The three types of job search services on the Internet relevant to executives in transition include:

1. Fee-based programs.

2. Fee-based Websites.

3. Free Websites.

I’ll explain how each of these work, so you can decide whether they might be an option for you.

Fee-Based Programs

The following two organizations specialize in the recruiting industry and offer services to executives:

Kennedy Information (www.KennedyInfo.com) publishes an annual Directory of Executive Recruiters, known as the “Red Book,” and other directories of professional service providers. You can purchase the “Red Book,” and have them send your resume to a select number of recruiters that match your search criteria. The book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date listing of retained and contingent executive recruiters for the U.S. market. Most libraries carry the book, although it probably won’t be current.

Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC; www.aesc.org) is the trade association for the executive search industry. They maintain a database of executives that’s available to their executive search member firms at no cost. You can create a profile and post your resume if you earn more than $100,000 and pay a fee. You also get access to their recruiter database and for an additional fee can participate in a forum with other executives for one year. Access to the database is restricted to search firms that are members of the AESC, and, because the membership fee is substantial, only larger firms tend to be members. Go to www.BlueSteps.com to post your resume.

Fee-Based Websites

The three best-known fee-based Websites are:

www.ExecuNet.com

www.ExecutivesOnly.com

www.NetShare.com

These sites allow you to use their services and post your resume for a specific number of months for a fee. They claim they’ll make it available to their confidential list of recruiters and/or employers. These sites are legal in the United States, but illegal in the EU and many other countries.

Although I don’t encourage paying a fee to anyone who promises to market you to a select group of recruiters, I know that recruiters will use any means to find candidates, especially when they’re having trouble finding qualified candidates from their traditional search sources. Some of these Websites sponsor networking functions in locations where recruiters and career coaches have agreed to host the events.

Free Websites

Two free Websites for executives are:

www.ExecGlobalNet.com—ExecGlobalNet is a Website I created as an employment matchmaker between executives who are looking for new opportunities and employers/recruiters who are looking for executives. The main feature of the site is your creation of an anonymous profile that employers and recruiters can search and examine without knowing your identity, whom you work for, or where you live. The site doesn’t require resumes. By using a unique profile format that protects your identity, ExecGlobalNet is the only Website secure enough for those not actively looking, but still wanting to consider other opportunities without compromising their current job. ExecGlobalNet’s consultants work as an unbiased go-between to make sure you’re right for the job and the job is right for you, while also protecting each party’s identity from the other until we’re told to disclose it. The Website contains a range of information that’s helpful to those more experienced who are exploring new opportunities, such as full-size copies of many of the worksheets that I use in this book, additional resources that I can keep more current than if they were included in this book, answers to typical job search questions, and direct access to a career coach when you need it.

www.ExecSearches.com—This site specializes in executive, fundraising, and mid-level jobs in non-profit, government, healthcare, education, and other non-profit organizations. You can search jobs, create a profile, and post your resume at no cost.

You can create a profile and/or post your resume on a large number of other Websites that don’t specifically target executives, such as trade and professional association Websites and, of course, Monster.com. Consider these as an option only if you’re currently unemployed and don’t mind posting your resume where control over it will be out of your hands. Some sites allow you to keep certain details confidential. To find current sites, go to www.Google.com or www.Yahoo.com and enter search criteria, such as “executive jobs” or “executive job search.”

The following Websites provide career information and links to other career-related Websites that might be useful:

www.jobhuntersbible.com

www.rileyguide.com

www.quintcareers.com

The links and suggestions on these sites are more general in nature and may not focus on what’s unique for executives and managers. These Websites also suffer from the same problem that occurs when you buy a book—that is, the information is not always current.

Despite the allure of using resume and job-posting Websites on the Internet, it’s not very effective for senior-level job seekers. It works much better for those who are younger and in lower-level positions. Although accurate statistics aren’t available, some industry sages estimate that less than 5 percent of senior-level people find a job on the Internet.

Many people at staff-level and even entry-level management positions do find jobs on the Internet, perhaps more than 10 percent. I believe this percentage will increase over time, and the Internet will become a much more significant source of jobs for this group in the future.

At the executive and manager level, however, it’s my opinion that you will not find the Internet to be an effective way to find a meaningful job. Employers must hire the right manager or leader, and the Internet can’t provide the quality control that recruiters and referrals can offer.

Contacting Recruiters

I know what you’re thinking: “A-ha—finally! Now I’ll learn how to work with recruiters to find my next job.”

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what recruiters do. Most executives, and employers for that matter, don’t know how recruiters work or what’s going on behind the scenes. Because I’ve owned an executive search firm and worked with both retained search and contingency recruiters, I’m going to share with you what goes on in the recruiter’s office.

If you remember nothing else from this section, remember this:

Recruiters work for employers;

They don’t work for job seekers.

There are two basic types of recruiters—retained and contingency—and each type works very differently.

Retained Recruiters

Retained recruiters often call themselves executive search consultants, head-hunters, executive recruiters, or just plain recruiters. Retained recruiters typically work at C-level and senior-manager levels at salaries above the low $100,000s.

Retained recruiters exclusively work on retainer with companies. They usually collect their fee in three installments: one-third at the beginning, one-third after a month or two or upon presentation of a shortlist, and the final one-third after another month or two or, rarely, when the company hires a candidate. Retained recruiters typically collect their full fee regardless of whether they’re successful at finding a suitable candidate for an employer.

Retained recruiters begin each engagement by assigning a search consultant. The search consultant or another person in the firm, sometimes called a researcher or associate, will interview company personnel and prepare a detailed description of the position, called the “brief,” and they call this process of gathering the information “taking the brief.” The company usually reviews and approves the brief.

The search firm’s researchers then conduct research to identify target companies with names of possible candidates, which they call the “search list.” Sometimes the recruiter reviews the search list with his client before he begins contacting names on the list.

The search firm scans their internal database to see whether they can add any additional candidates to the search list. The search consultant or a support person then begins contacting people on the search list by telephone to prescreen them as to their qualifications for the position and interest in it. The call goes something like this:

“Hi. I’m John Applegate with Executive Search Consultants.
We’ve been engaged to find a VP of marketing with experience
in the retail home furnishings business. You were referred to
me as someone who might know of a potential candidate who
might have an interest in this unusual opportunity.”

You’ve probably received calls similar to this. The wording may have been slightly different, but you get the gist of the conversation. The recruiter isn’t asking if you’re interested; he’s asking in a non-committal way for you to think of someone. He anticipates that, if you’re interested (the real reason for the call), you’ll ask some clarifying questions. If you respond that you might be interested, he knows he’s done his homework well, and a short screening will follow before he decides whether to have a more in-depth interview.

The recruiter will attempt to invite all potential candidates to interview during a two-week window so he can meet everyone within a short time. At the conclusion of the interviews, the firm will put together a shortlist of top candidates they think are qualified and should be a good fit for the client’s corporate culture. They present this list to the company for consideration, along with a resume for each candidate and the recruiters’ interview notes and evaluations.

Most search firms’ procedures will differ slightly from the previous scenario, and the firms will promote their differences to their clients as a sign of what makes them unique.

Some maxims I learned from observing candidate interviews by recruiters and employers are:

Employers seek candidates with the skills and experience they want. This may be different from what they really need and what the recruiter may believe they need.

Employers believe their industry, and very often even their company, is unique, and they’re hesitant to consider candidates with industry experience outside their comfort zone.

Employers have a very strong preference for candidates who, with their most recent employer, have already done what they want done at their company.

Recruiters work for employers and focus their search on what the employer wants. They’re not willing to spend time considering, let alone present to their client, candidates who don’t fit the profile of what the client wants.

Because employers are paying substantial fees to their recruiters to “search out and find” the best candidates from their competitors, they are not generally receptive to candidates who are currently unemployed.

Companies do, however, sometimes make conscious decisions to look outside their industry. A good example was when IBM hired Louis Gerstner as CEO. Though he didn’t possess the technical knowledge or experience, he did have significant turnaround experience, and that was the driving issue for considering candidates outside the IT field.

Contingency Recruiters

Contingency recruiters differ from retained recruiters in that they typically work below the executive or C-level, at salaries up to the low $100,000s, and they collect their fees only when they present a candidate whom the company subsequently employs.

Contingency recruiters maintain databases of managers, directors, and some executives, and keep extensive lists of people they meet. When a company calls wanting to fill a position through a contingency recruiter, they may give the recruiter a short window of exclusivity, such as 30 days, or they may call several recruiters at the same time. Consequently, because time is critical, these recruiters can’t spend time taking a brief, researching candidates or interviewing them.

If the recruiter believes she has candidates that come close, she’ll e-mail or fax candidates’ resumes to the company and let them decide whom they want to see. If you’ve sent your resume to more than one contingency recruiter, the company may receive your resume from more than one recruiter. The first one who sent it is the firm that earns the fee if you are hired.

Contingency recruiters typically refer to themselves as recruiters or even as executive recruiters. They’re not keen to promote the contingency part to candidates. The only safe way to know for sure is to ask them if they work on a retainer or contingency basis.

Working With Recruiters

Recruiters will only be interested in you if your skills and experience match what a client wants in connection with a specific assignment. Alternatively, they may be interested in you if they believe they may have an assignment in the future that might require your skills and experience.

Recruiters I know who have about 100,000 executives on their databases often tell me they can’t remember the last time they placed an executive who came from their database. The size of the database isn’t what’s relevant. Every assignment is unique and requires a precise set of skills, industry experience, and cultural fit that has to match a client’s demanding expectations.

If you were headhunted for your last job, it’s natural for you to expect the same recruiter will also help your find your next job. That probably won’t happen.

If you have a personal relationship with a recruiter, she may be more comforting and tell you she’ll “keep a look out for you,” but realistically, recruiters rarely share their client assignments or candidates with other recruiters and employers rarely share their potential employment needs with recruiters until they’ve decided to engage one.

“Okay then,” you decide. “I’ll just send my resume to the 20 largest search firms, who probably handle most of the executive search assignments anyway.” Just when you thought the information about recruiters couldn’t get any worse, it does. My extensive research shows that the top 20 search firms actually handle less than 15 percent of the total executive search business!

An estimated 20,000 recruiters at over 6,000 smaller “boutique” search firms handle 85 percent of the executive search business. Some industry sources estimate the boutique search firms generate, on average, less than $2 million in annual billings each. Assuming a typical fee per assignment of $50,000 (33 percent of a $150,000 salary), the average boutique search firm handles about 40 assignments per year. This means that, if you wanted to get reasonable exposure to your resume, you’d have to analyze an estimated 20,000 recruiters to decide which recruiters should be on your mailing list.

Your chance of finding a job by contacting recruiters directly has a success rate of less than 10 percent (according to Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute?). Because I do hear the occasional story of an executive who found her job through a recruiter, the following box suggests some techniques if you choose to send them your resume or post it on their Website.

So, how can you develop relationships with recruiters? Attend business and community events in your area. Make sure you meet as many people as you can. Recruiters attend as many events as possible because they’ll be networking to drum up business from potential clients. Meet them and engage them in short conversations, making sure they know who you are and what you’re looking for, but let them continue to network for business. If you know other executives who are working, introduce the recruiters to them—they are potential clients! The recruiters will love you and remember you!

You want recruiters to know who you are and what you want. If they see you networking at other events, they’ll begin to remember you and realize you have your act together by doing what you should be doing. This will enhance their estimation of you, and, if they hear of a position that sounds right for you, even if that position isn’t with their client, they’ll throw your name in the hat, knowing that you could become a potential client for them someday.

Contacting Employers

You’ll face three major challenges when contacting employers:

1. Which of the hundreds of thousands of employers do you target?

2. How do companies approach the recruiting of executives and managers?

3. How do you find the person in each company who would know about opportunities at your level and be in a position to consider you?

Despite these challenges, it will be far easier for you to find them than it will be for them to find you. You can identify most public and many private companies through various printed and online directories.

The difficulty will be finding subsidiaries, divisions, branch offices, and entities owned by domestic and foreign companies, as every company seems to use a different method when recruiting experienced and senior people, depending on whether the company is large or small, a parent, subsidiary, division, and so forth.

In addition, the recruiting process can even be different between functional departments (for example, between sales and finance) and divisions or subsidiaries within the same company. In larger companies, for example, the HR department at one company may have responsibility for managing recruitment, but another company in the same industry may not involve HR until after the company extends an offer, and then only to send the offer letter.

Once you know that each company has a unique way of recruiting senior talent, you understand why approaching companies can be time-consuming and complex.

Even if you’re able to find out how the company handles senior-level recruiting internally and can identify the person who has direct hiring authority, you’ll still have to figure out how to get past the gatekeeper and reach the person who makes decisions. If you don’t get it right, your letter and resume will go to the HR department and die an untimely death.

The more targeted and purposeful your approach (as opposed to a mass mail/e-mail approach), the greater your chances of getting your information in front of a decision-maker and obtaining an interview. Chapter 8 describes how you can use your contact network to reach decision-makers, and Chapter 9 gives examples of how to prepare letters that get the attention of decision-makers.

Before you contact employers, you need to know which of the following two assumptions you’ll make:

1. A Known Need: An employer needs to fill an existing position, or they have identified a new position they now need to fill.

2. An Unknown Need: An employer has not yet identified the need to have a certain function performed.

Let’s look at how your approach would be different under each of these assumptions:

A Known Need

When an employer knows he needs to fill a position, he generally looks for candidates by following the sequence of methods shown in the following figure.

There’s a major distinction between the first five steps and the sixth one. In the first five, one or more of the following is present:

The employer already knows one or more potential candidates.

Someone they know and respect can vouch for the person.

Some initial screening and interviewing may have already taken place.

The employer generally has a degree of comfort with a candidate or candidates at this stage.

If the employer is unsuccessful at finding a candidate from one of the first five methods, he must then turn to sources “below the line,” where potential candidates come from sources that may be untested, unreliable, or biased. Employers typically choose to use a recruiter when they:

Lack skills internally to recruit senior-level personnel.

Don’t know how to find what they want.

Need help in deciding what they really need.

Can’t allocate the resources internally to handle a major recruitment effectively.

Can’t risk disclosure that they’re recruiting, either for competitive reasons or because they don’t want a person being replaced to know about their intentions.

Recruiters often develop close professional relationships with their clients, becoming trusted advisors to management. Unfortunately, there are also recruiters who are more concerned with collecting their fee than their client’s best interests.

If the employer becomes aware of you from any of the top five sources, you’ll only be competing with yourself, or at most a couple of others. If the employer becomes aware of you from any of the sixth sources, you’ll be competing with an unknown number of other candidates, and you’ll have to sell yourself first to a recruiter, then to an HR department person, and/or finally to the decision-maker.

Recruiters fail to place candidates with their clients approximately 30 to 40 percent of the time. The reasons for these failures are most often because the employer decides to promote someone from within, they’re not comfortable with the candidates submitted by the recruiter, or the employer makes an internal reorganization, eliminating the position or combining it with another function in the company.

An Unknown Need

Like most people searching for a new job are, you’re probably looking for a similar position or a step up at a different company; you’re not looking at companies where the position doesn’t exist or the company hasn’t yet come to the realization that it needs someone to perform the function.

Well-established Fortune 500 companies will probably already have the position you want, but many young and early-stage growth companies often don’t.

If you’re getting interviews and think you’re doing well in them but not getting the job only because they’re looking for younger candidates, try looking into smaller and younger companies that don’t yet have that position, but will need it at some point during their growth. You’re a valuable resource with experience and skills, and you have achievements to prove it.

Large companies are often reluctant to employ those who are older and more experienced (those in their late 40s and in their 50s). Smaller and younger companies, on the other hand, often look for seasoned executives with lots of experience in their industry and consider a little gray hair to be a positive trait.

If you have a background in a large, well-respected company with a name such as GE, P&G, 3M, Dell, or Johnson & Johnson on your resume, you might find a receptive audience at many smaller, younger companies. Before you approach them, however, you’ll have to fine-tune your message so it overcomes their perception that you might have difficulty making the conversion from a big company environment, where you had a team to support you, to a small company where you won’t have the same level of support.

The “A” list of companies you prepared in Chapter 4 probably includes only companies that already have the function you performed at your most recent employer.

Consider including smaller, younger companies in your “B” or “C” list, who don’t currently have your function as a separate position or department or it appears combined with another function or department. If you can’t find that information from your research, use your contact network to help you. (Chapter 8 explains how to do that.)

If you can’t determine whether an organization has your function, you may have detected an organizational weakness the company hasn’t identified or doesn’t yet consider a high priority. That’s your opportunity to show them why they need that function, and why you’re the one they need. This can be a successful way to make a career change into smaller and fast-growing companies. (Chapter 9 includes some examples of how you can present your case.) The following techniques will prepare you to contact companies.

How to Prepare to Contact Companies

1. Research company information using:

Company Website.

Library (for background information and current news about the company).

Internet search engines such as www.Google.com or www.yahoo.com.

FreeEdgar (for Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] filings by the company [for example, Form 10-K]).

Your contact network.

2. Determine how the company is organized and how it recruits executives at your level/function using:

Library research for news on recent management changes. (Articles often describe how they did it and whom they used.)

Direct contact by calling the CEO’s office to ask an executive administrative assistant how they typically approach senior recruitment.

Direct contact by calling someone who used to work at the company.

Your contact network.

3. Research names of senior employees and the decision-maker by using:

Company Website.

Company’s SEC filings (Form 10-K).

Direct contact by calling the company to ask who holds the position. If they won’t tell you, ask the receptionist to transfer you to the person. You’ll most likely reach the person’s assistant and can ask for what you need.

Your contact network.

4. Find the hook:

Define what you can bring to the table (your achievement story).

Define what you can do for the company and why it needs you.

Ask selective contacts in your network if they have other ideas about possible hooks.

Would you like to uncover the “Hidden Job Market” or the secret “Un-advertised Job Market” that you’ve probably heard about? Some career services companies, consultants, and career advisors claim they have access to the hidden or the unadvertised job market, and they will market you for a fee.

Don’t fall for that.

Almost every open position that a company needs filled is a hidden and unadvertised job, whether it falls under the known need or unknown need described earlier in this chapter. Every time an employer finds someone from one of the first five options in the chart on page 148, the job was hidden and unadvertised.

When an employer engages a recruiter to conduct a search for an executive, the job is also in the hidden or unadvertised job category. Sometimes, employers use a recruiter who uses both executive search and advertising to find executives. Although this is uncommon in the United States, there are a large number of recruiting firms known as search and selection (advertising) in the UK that use both executive search and advertising to find executives.

Bottom line: You already have access to this “Hidden Job Market” if you follow the advice in this book. Although it may sound enticing to have your own personal search agent look for jobs for you, neither employers nor recruiters are receptive to other people calling to market or promote you.

Your Website

If you’re currently in transition with a technical background and you’re looking for a position in the technology or media industry, you might want to create a Website where you can expand on your skills and experience, and include your resume.

If you decide to create a Website, keep the content focused on the reason for the Website: getting a job. Limit it to highlighting your skills, experience, and achievements. Don’t show pictures of your dog, your family at Disneyworld, your hiking trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro, etc.

Based on my experience in executive search and knowledge of how recruiters and employers work at the executive and manager level, I believe the Internet is not yet the place where you will find your next job—whether it’s sending your resume to Websites or posting your resume on your own Website.

One of the techniques recruiters and their researchers use to find candidates is to search the Internet looking for people with the skills and experience their clients want. If your Website contains informative articles or stories identifying your skills and experience that demonstrates your achievements, recruiters and researchers will want to talk to you. A Website with a long list of all your skills and experience will have the same effect as if you were to put them on your resume. More is less!

Having a Website containing your resume can be an advantage when you’re networking. Rather than carrying your resume around, which I don’t recommend anyway, you should have a personal business card with the URL of your Website where those who are interested in knowing more about you can go for more information. A Website also enables others to find more about you when it’s convenient for them and if they are referring you to someone else, that person can find out about you very easily 24/7!

Not having a Website probably won’t have a significant adverse effect on the success of your job search. Having one, however, gives you additional means for others to find out about you and, the more ways you can connect with others, the more successful your search will be.

Networking

Networking is THE most successful technique you can use to make a job or career change—but only if you do it properly. Chapter 8 is devoted to networking because it’s the most important and powerful technique you can use.

Milestones

The following milestones recap what you need to do to complete this chapter. Include those items you are unable to complete in your summary-level open-items list.

1. Investigate job fairs and trade shows that are of interest to you within a reasonable commute. Inquire as to the exhibitors and audience to determine if you should attend.

2. Attend trade shows and industry conferences. Be visible, expand your network, and inquire about opportunities in general, who’s hiring, who’s downsizing, and what’s the latest news on the industry and companies in it.

3. Investigate whether government-run career and job centers are conveniently located to you and what resources they have that could benefit your search.

4. Read newspapers and trade periodicals on a regular basis to keep up-to-date on topical events. Keep abreast of job-related information and industry news.

5. Attend seminars or workshops that update your skills and expand your knowledge in areas where you have a particular interest. Use this opportunity to build your network.

6. Consider writing articles for publication in industry- or function-specific publications to get your name recognized as an expert.

7. Get involved in nonprofit, community, trade, political, special interest, and/or professional organizations where you can be active, visible, and expand your network.

8. Create your profile on www.ExecGlobalNet.com. The process you’ll follow will help you focus your search.

9. Go to www.ExecGlobalNet.com and look in the Career Center for “Resource 4.1: Where to Get Additional Information.” Investigate the sources that are relevant to your situation.

10. Go to a regional or local library and ask at the reference desk for the information they have online. You should find a wealth of information you can’t access on your own. Ask what information sources you can access remotely from your home computer through a library card.

11. Identify the recruiters in your area who cover your industry or job function. Call them and ask where they recommend you network.

12. Send your resume to a select group of recruiters, limiting your time devoted to this to no more than 10 percent of your total search time. Do a little each week.

13. Identify where you plan to concentrate your time by week. Which events seem to provide the best opportunities for you? Schedule your time around these events. Act as if you’re currently employed and your job is to attend these events. Get involved and be active in not-for-profit organizations, connect with others, and expand your network.

14. Consider creating a simple personal Website that features your skills and experience and demonstrates them with your achievement stories. Include articles you’ve written showcasing your industry or functional expertise and include your resume in a downloadable format, such as Microsoft Word, .rtf, .txt, or .pdf.