Tag: job search

I Built This Prison: Teaser #3: I Just Hate Job Hunting


I always hated the anxiety of the job-search process and everything related to it. The desperate need to show yourself from the best angle and in the best light. The frustration of the idiotic matching game the headhunters invented to wipe out any type of intuition and sensibility from the hiring process: the formal laundry list of clients’ needs vs. whatever skills they discerned from your application – like a fucking robot – check, check, check… The full-body adrenaline poisoning inflicted by every interview, even the ones conducted on the phone. The rising hopes, the bitter disillusionments. And again, and again, and again. Worst of all, the constant fear of ending up with no means to exist and to support.

  I Built This Prison, p. 35

Job Search: Napoleon Bonaparte Is Hiring


This is a story my friend shared with me.  It just happened.

A headhunter, with whom she worked in the past has contacted her.  He has a client looking for someone with her qualifications.   She is always interested to hear about new opportunities, especially those with potential to expand her CFO expertise.

Surprisingly, the urgency in the headhunter’s voice was incredible.  He sounded like a 911 caller witnessing an explosion.  He rushed through the sentences, jumped from one point to another like a mad frog, even forgot to tell her what was the client’s business .  Somewhere in the middle of it,  my friend has realized that she was somewhat overqualified for the job.  Moreover,  the title and the compensation weren’t defined.  That should have alarmed her.  Yet in her vanity, and she knows it, she decided that all the hurriedness was fueled by the headhunter’s worries of her not being interested.

Actually, there were a few aspects of the job that sparked her interest.  My friend relayed this to the headhunter.   He was very excited and went about contacting the client on the next step. 

Oh, my God!  Within a couple of hours, he called her eleven times: “Setting up a phone interview; no, they are foregoing the phone interview and want to meet you in person straight away; you will meet four different people; no, just two; no, it will be two separate interviews back to back – first with the HR Manager and then with the Owner.  Please, pleeeeese, can we do it tomorrow?” 

And so, the next day my firiend went to the company’s offices and met with the HR Manager.  Talking to him, she was wondering if he would be able to make it through the meeting without falling into a panic attack.  Eventually,  he led her through the hallway to meet with the Owner/CEO.   His agitation escalated in alarming stages.  It was like playing a Liszt’s Etude, which calls for “fast” on the first page, then for “faster” on the second, “as fast as possible” on the third, and still “faster” on the next.

At the very moment she got to shake the hand of the tiny man behind the huge desk, it finally dawned on her.  It had nothing to do with my friend and her qualifications.  This miniature boss of an interesting, but relatively tiny company ($30M) exuded a sense of grandeur of Napoleonic proportions.  He had everyone scurrying like scared mice.  Even those who were not employed by him; including the headhunter, who works for one of the top 3 international recruitment houses.

The first thing he told her was, “I need a second in command who can keep the troops under control.  There were two before you, who were dismissed.”  Funny guy!

Job Search: Unemployment & Depression


At the end of February, The Ladders featured Debra Donston-Miller's article Depression is Making Unemployment Longer, which reiterated the well-known fact that unemployment walks hand in hand with depression and anxiety, and that, in turn, diminishes your ability to get employed. 

It's a vicious circle, you know.   A person looses his job – that's on its own is a hard blow to his ego.  Nevertheless, he gets right on all job boards – Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.  – posts his resume and applies to every single opening that matches his qualifications.  As time goes by, he keeps lowering his expectations – now applications go out to jobs with smaller titles and lower salaries.  Still, the response is not too hot.  

Nowadays, the statistical probability of converting applications into a recruiter's or hiring manager's interest is around 2% for high-level financial professionals – CFOs, Controllers, Financial Directors, etc.  The national numbers of people not being able to find employment in one, sometimes two, and more years are scary. 

While you are waiting for the sparks in the dark, your spirits get lower and lower.  You become listless, loose interest in everything – depression really kicks in.  The anxiety of not being able to support yourself when the savings and unemployment compensation run out gets overwhelming.  You swing between over-hype of appraising your possession for possible liquidation and inability to move a muscle.

Still, you force yourself to apply every day, you do your networking, ask people around.  Finally, quantity turns into quality: you've sent out 100 resumes and someone finally called you.   You've had a positive response after the phone interview and now you are going for a face-to-face appointment.  Anxiety floods you – the workspace environment, which you have not experienced for several months, seems so alien to you. 

You are prepared, though – you are a seasoned executive with superior qualifications, a likable person, well-spoken, know how to handle yourself.  The interview seems to go well, but there are so many candidates, and you might have said something wrong just because the depression and anxiety ate some of your confidence away.  Every day you wait for a call back, but nobody ever does; nobody even sends an email to let you know that you did not qualify – people don't do those sort of polite things anymore.

Now, you are loosing hope altogether: it is more and more difficult to make yourself even to look at the job listings.  It seems like staring at the television screen all day without seeing what's on is a better option…

You know what?  I am not going to tell you that it will get better.  I am not a fortune teller.  I don't know it, but neither do you.  Yes, it's fucking tough out there!  As I always say,  we live in a new economic reality.  The truth is that you may need to rethink your entire life.  But you cannot let the depression eating away your time.  FIGHT IT!  Do you know what happens with every single day you waste on giving in to nothingness? It disappears and you will never get it back. 

The Ladders' article quoted cognitive behavioral psychologist Deb Brown, who suggests creating a routine for yourself as one of the helpful tools.  My readers know how big I am on time-management and routines.  Whether you are fighting the unemployment depression or job frustration, scheduling your time and filling your day with meaningful tasks always helps.   And when you are unemployed, you have an opportunity to do things that you never had time for before: study Spanish with that Rosetta Stone pack you've got for your birthday two years ago; transfer all those home videos onto DVDs, get yourself fit.  

You don't really need more than two-three hours a day to look for new openings and apply.  Spend the rest of your free time (FREE TIME – when do we have it otherwise?) catching up on your life.  And don't be a prisoner of your schedule either – let go of it for a day, when you feel frustrated.

And listen, even if things with employment never get better and some drastic decisions will need to be made, at least you will not need to look back at the long stretch of a complete misery right before that.       

The Clueless Boss of a Frustrated Downshifter


Confused-animals-are-funny15-300x260The economy and the resulting miserable state of the job market forced many financial executives to downshift, i.e. take jobs way below their levels of expertise, authority, and adequate compensation.  It's been almost a year since I wrote about the heartbreaking reality of first finding such a position and then accepting it for the sake of having food on the table and keeping the roof over your family's head.  Yet, the painful topic is still relevant.

But let's look a little further.  We have an opportunity to examine an interesting situation brought to my attention by an actual downshifter – a former CFO of a, now defunct, $500-million-dollar firm.  After a year of a futile job-hunting he accepted, at 50% of his former compensation, a Controller's position in a young and small ($30 million) company, ran by two owners – a female CEO and her partner with a COO title.  

How many times did I write about accidental bosses?  And here we go again: this business has started because the two partners got lucky. They were in the right place at the right time with extensive connections and sufficient funding at hand.  Neither of them actually needed it to survive, but the opportunity were too exciting to pass up. 

Guess what?  The CEO never led a company before.  She never even worked in a commercial enterprise.  Her partner has an MBA from an Ivy League school, but he only worked overseas.  Neither have the chops to make good executives, yet both have undeniable talents and a lot of enthusiasm.  She is a sales ace and the toughest negotiator you can find.  He is incredibly detailed-oriented.

Not only that they managed to get the company off the ground eight years ago, they kept it growing with minimal labor resources, including  a single bookkeeper.  Hiring a senior financial person was definitely not among their priorities. Until…  Some people are just born lucky.  An even bigger  opportunity presented itself.  To implement it they needed more capital.  The dogged COO wore down one of the major banks into providing them with a substantial trade finance line.  Among bank's mandates was hiring a proper Controller. 

Enter our former CFO.

Because both execs are not very clear on the leadership functions, the division of responsibilities is blurred.  The COO was in charge of the Controller's hiring.  The CEO never even saw the candidate's resume or salary history.  When COO decided that this is their guy, the CEO was called in for a minute to shake the future Controller's hand.  

Yet, once our downshifter started working there, he realized that the woman's word was the final authority on pretty much all other issues.  Now, because she lacks corporate experience, she is not capable of assessing the Controller's performance.  In her mind, any other accountant would provide the same input as this guy, who managed in the first three months to correct more procedural, systematic, recording, and administrative errors than he did in 25 years before this job. Moreover, he contributes into the company's strategic decisions.  All that for a price of a low-brow peripheral Controller.  The CEO has no clue that what she's got was a gift; that she got very lucky again and obtained an Hermes bag for the price of a Coach.

This is a big problem.  If your boss doesn't understand your value, she cannot appreciate your contribution. The fact that someone with lower qualifications and less experience would not be able to attend to the sophisticated tasks you accomplish remains unnoticed.  As a result, you are helping to better the company without a chance for a fair reward. 

What to do in this situation?  You are not the type to brag every time you do something extraordinary.  The first thought comes to mind is to re-introduce yourself.  The guy who hired you didn't share your resume with his partner, so give her one together with your salary history.  You can say, "I understand you've never had a chance to look at it before and I think it's not fair for either of us."   I know some people will say it's tasteless, but the options here are limited.

Secondly, you must propose a proper evaluation system for all staff members.  Because these people have no idea how to go about it, they will turn to you.  This is your chance!  Provide them with the format that allows employees to list their own accomplishments.  Then, make sure that reviews are actually conducted.

Finally, if you don't get satisfactory acknowledgement anyway, start looking for another job.  Maybe you will be luckier this time around.  It's like I always say, employment at will works both ways: they can separate from you at any time, but so can you.

Job Search: The Reality and Heartaches of Downshifting


Stock_overqualified158x188 Here is the testimony to the current job market condition: the necessity-driven "downshifting" (taking a position below your lever of qualifications) has become so prevalent that HR consultants start addressing the issue as a separate subject with specific advices on how to do it successfully.  There used to be times when some over-50 empty-nesters wanted to lighten their workload and spend more time at leisure, so CFO's switched to consulting, and stuff like that.  Now, we are talking about highly-experienced middle-aged financial executives unsuccessfully trying to get whatever jobs they can in order to put food on the table and continue to support their post-college children, who have no chance of getting a good job either.  It's heartbreaking!!!

I always had a problem with the concept of "overqualified" candidates.  It goes against all commercial, practical, and common sense – why would anybody say "No" to buying a diamond ring for a price of a cubic zirconia?  Why wouldn't employers want to benefit from high-level expert if he is willing (moreoever, eager) to take a much lower position and pay than the ones he used to have?

The official explanation (especially, if you talk to recruiters at Robert Half, or ExecuSearch, etc.) is always (it's like everything changes around us except for the stupid banalities) that employers don't want to take the risk of hiring someone, who will be immediately looking to leave for a better opportunity.  This outdated explanation begs three responses. 

First of all, nowadays the process of looking for a job is unbearably excruciating.  Anyone who finally finds one is so relieved and enthused, he wouldn't want to continue that struggle for sometime (especially, if his attempts may leak through the Internet and jeopardize the position he already got). 

Secondly,  where are those better opportunities? The whole point is that there are no opportunities.  I remember after the Internet bubble burst, let's say 2001-2002, an opening for a controller position could generate 300-350 good (not garbage) responses.  It was terrifying.  Today, there is a thousand of unemployed financial pros for every CFO, controller, director or VP ad. 

Finally (and most importantly), even if the person leaves soon, what about the cost/benefit analysis of the time he does spend in the company?  Why wouldn't an employer want to sponge a superior knowledge off of him at a lower price?  Is it because the company still uses the outrageously expensive recruiting services?  Well, then the agreement should be negotiated in such a way that no fees are paid until the break-even grace period passes.  And anyway, people should stop wasting their money on recruiters altogether.

But we know that this explanation is bullshit.  In reality, no matter how beneficial it is for the company, CEOs and existing CFO don't really want the brightest and the most knowledgeable person in the position.  They want the non-threatening and obedient, know-your-place employee.  Especially the CFO – what if the newcomer turns out to be better than the present loser (only losers feel threatened by someone strong; winners have nothing to fear).

Anyway, this issue is so prominent that on August 26 Finance Ladder published not one, but two career advice articles on the subject: Getting the Job When You're Overqualified and Packaging Yourself for a Smaller Role, both by Sean Gallagher.  Here is the best quote:

"…Finding a job – even one that pays significantly less, with less responsibility — is still a challenge."

There are some interesting observations and advices as well.  Nothing groundbreaking – most of it you can figure out yourself, but still it may be a useful reading not only for those who are looking now.  Because it is not going to get any better.  If you are employed now, it does not mean you will have a job tomorrow.