Tag: job search

Job Search: Sales Pitch Behavioral Breakdown


In "The History Boys," a play by Alan Bennett, Douglas Hector explains to his student how, once in a while, you read something that is so close to your own thinking, it makes you feel as if a friend extended a hand towards you.  Beautiful! 

Sometimes, it happens with online reading as well.

Like this article, written for The Ladders by Dan Coughlin, Understand the Mind of the Interviewer.  I really appreciated his applying fundamental concepts to a particular issue.  It targets the job search process, yet it addresses business behavior topics I frequently discuss, namely the importance of:

  • understanding people's motivations,
  • treating everyone you meet with equal respect,
  • keeping professional demeanor at all times.

Mr. Coughlin's  assessment of the interviewing process is applicable to any form of "bargaining."  Whether you are selling your professional skills and qualifications for a job position, or pitching a TV series idea, or promoting an improvement in your organization – the behavioral principles are the same.  And there are important conditions to keep in mind:  

  • you are on somebody else's turf,
  • you may interact with people who are not directly involved in the selection,
  • in the first rounds you encounter people who decide whether you can go on the next stage or not,
  • if you get recommended, you meet the final decision-makers.

Because you are on somebody else's territory, you don't know who can observe you.  When you drive through the security gate on the way in or out, you may be seen on a camera, for example. So you'd better keep your professional armor on at all times.  Don't miss that garbage can in front the building, when you throw the soda bottle on your way in – the woman having a smoke nearby might be the HR Manager. 

Many people loose their creditability by saying or doing something in the reception area.  Doormen, assistants, secretaries may have their own impact on your case.  Once, I interviewed someone: by the time he walked into my office, I already knew that he was snappy and rude with the receptionist.   Did I hire him?

The actual decision-makers who have the power to either recommend you for the next round or to hire you (buy from you, option your script, adapt your improvement proposal) are motivated to make the choice by their own sets of reasons.  Your task is to understand what those motivations are and to try to accommodate them.

The two most important stimuli are the interviewer's reputation and professional advancement.  If there is a possibility that an HR manager will look foolish for passing your candidature to a CFO, she will never do it.  On the other hand, if a creative exec reading a script thinks that showing it to the executive producer will boost his status, he will be running to his boss like an olympic athlete. 

Understand what the person sitting opposite from you wants and bring the ability to fulfill that need forward.  That's the trick.

Job Search: Ageism


Age discrimination is an undeniable fact of our lives.  Young people are never taken seriously as customers, clients, health patients, philosophers, business developers, etc.  On the other hand, media, entertainment, advertising and marketing adore youth.  And one thing is sure: their "young" status is going to change.   Discrimination of older people even more pervasive and they don't even have a benefit of hoping for improvements. 

The problem is particularly acute in human resources.  The age discrimination is at its worst when you are searching for a job, or expecting layoffs, or know you may be deemed too expensive.  

 According to a research quoted in The Gale Group's  Small Business Encyclopedia, over 52% of surveyed executives admitted that age is one of the key factors in job searches for people 47 years old and up.  What do I think about that number?  The other 48% lied.  Age is ALWAYS a factor. For one or another reason, when we hire people we take their age into consideration.  So, we should accept that, when the tables are turned, we will be treated the same way.

I have to own up to the fact that while wearing the CFO's hiring hat, I automatically estimate the age of applicants.   I don't care about their age per se.  I do it to quantify their accomplishments against the length of their careers.  It helps with assessing their work ethics and personal ambitions.  

Other hiring managers and recruiters don't even have a justification like that.  They just go, "Too old," and send the resume into Trash.  With the job security becoming a myth of long-forgotten times, more and more middle aged people will be forced to enter the circles of job search hell.  This possibility practically hangs over everyone's head in the world of vulnerable small-size businesses.

Having that in mind, I would like to share with you an extremely useful The Ladders' article on adapting your job search, your professional "brand" and your resume to your age: Job Search in Your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

By the way, is it just me, or have you also noticed the funniest thing (I am not laughing) that's happening in our media?  The "official"economists, major newspaper analysts and politicians are trying to convince us that the recession has ended months ago and we are "recovering".  Yet, every article or post related to job search and HR issues contains a phrase "especially in this economy" and you can almost hear the author's sad sigh.  

I think the old terminology of recession, recovery, economic conditions have lost their meaning.  People just don't want to admit it to themselves, because, as I frequently say, they are afraid of changes, especially changes for the worse.    The phrase "this economy" gives a false hope of a better future.  The truth is – we live in a NEW REALITY.  This is the "recovered" state.  Things are only going to get more difficult.  Everyone should be prepared to face job search ordeals in their 50s, 60s, and beyond.

Job Search: CFO’s References Trap


I have no clue how those big-time CFOs, with seven-figure salaries, manage to get fired for screwing up and immediately land new jobs.  It's like, their skins are coated with teflon and nothing sticks.  And that's fine.  May be they deserve such recognition.   Most definitely, the companies who hire them deserve what they get.

Those CFOs and Controllers who toil in smaller companies, rarely get fired for poor performance.  If they are knowledgeable, diligent and hands-on, they don't screw up.   Yet, no matter how hard they work, they can loose their jobs.  The owner retires; or someone makes him an offer he cannot refuse; or, despite everyone's best efforts, the business goes under.  Very rarely one of us gets fed up with the abuse and quits on his own – I know a few  brave people.

Well, nobody waits for the unemployed small business CFO or Controller with a new position.  Nobody knows who he is.  There are nearly 6 million companies with less than 100 employees in this country.  Recruiters have never heard of them.  So, this erudite, experienced, smart and loyal professional is thrown into the grinding machine of job searching, where every CFO/Controller listing generates thousands of responses. 

It turns out, the trickiest part of the small business CFO's job search is the references list.  Of course, you've got your connections – bankers, auditors, attorneys.  There are former coworkers and subordinates who will be happy to speak about you.  You compiled a two-page long list of excellent professional references.  But… it fails. 

Why?  Because there are no "supervisors" on the list.  Well, technically, if you are a real CFO, no one supervises you.  The only person (sometimes, there are two)  between you and the higher powers of the Universe is the Owner/CEO.   And how many of them did you have in the past 15 years anyway? Two?  Three?

In some instances, they are still reachable and you have permission to use them as references.  However, most of the time…  Who are you going to use?  The one, who sold the company and went back to Thailand?  Or the guy who has  been hiding from creditors and changed all his contacts?

Now you have this prospective employer – another privately-held company.  You passed all interview levels, including the owner.  He seems to like what he is hearing from you very much.  At the end, he asks,"May I have your last boss's number?"  Didn't you just tell this guy that you were cheated out of your annual bonus at that job?

Here is my advice: 

  • ALWAYS expect that someone will want to speak with at least one of your old bosses. 
  • During the interview process, never reveal anything that may come back to haunt you. 
  • If your wonderful reference list is not enough, never show any resistance to providing the former bosses' contacts.  It's very suspicious and will end your chances right then and there. 
  • Give them whatever info you have. Who knows what's going to happen?

This is the best you can do. 

Job Search: Prestige and Compensation


It happens very rarely, but this time I am in absolute agreement with yet another installment from "You Are Better Than Your Job Search" – previously referenced book from The Ladders' CEO Marc Cenedella: Title vs. Salary.  And I strongly advise everyone to click on the link and read the excerpt very carefully.

It is true that a good title looks pretty on our resumes, but it cannot be at the center of your decision to accept a job offer.  If the title comes as a part of a good deal completed with new professional challenges and attractive compensation package, then great, you are doing the right thing by taking the job.  However, if its just a title and everything about the job makes you unhappy, depressed and economically strapped, there is no point in making such sacrifices. 

And you cannot fool anybody with that line on your resume either.  All experienced recruiters and the majority of hiring execs know that if you held the Controller position in a $10 million a year, known to nobody company, it means you had no staff, can claim no sophisticated accomplishments, nobody asked your strategic advice and your salary was around $80K.  At best, you were a glorified full-charge bookkeeper.

As the matter of fact, I frequently say that I don't care about my title.  As far as I am concerned, they can call me "hey you," or a "firefighter," or a "cleaning lady" on the organizational chart as long as I can continue impact the business in the most profound way, implement ideas of highest sophistication,  keep all functions in full control and receive compensation that reflects my influence on the company.

Another very valuable point concerning inflated titles brought up in the article/excerpt is the artificial promotion.  In the companies with flat management structure, people keep carrying out the same responsibilities year after year with minimal salary increases and title changes that reflect not a professional growth but rather simple seniority.  After 10 or 15 years with the same company a person who started as a catch-all office girl becomes the Controller.  And it is fine if she actually grew into the Controller's responsibilities together with the company's development (this is what I call an "in-the-chair" career ladder), but most of the time that is not the case.  Hence, taking the Controller's job replacing that person would not be a great professional achievement.  

Of course, when we are stuck in the rut of a long job search, we become desperate and dispirited.  Then even an inflated title may seem like a sweetener of whatever position we are ready to grab to "put the food on the table."  However, desperation is a poor adviser.  Please, think long and hard before you take that step.




Job Search: Is Industry Experience Really Relevant?


All of us have encountered this many times over – you read a job posting for a CFO or Controller position (this is particularly true about recruitment agencies' ads) and the responsibilities list is a perfect match to your experience: you've done budgeting, forecasting, treasury management, BOD reporting; you've designed KPI's and dashboards; you've managed and trained staff, etc…  Then, you get to the end and among mandatory qualifications you see: real estate experience (or broker/dealer, or manufacturing, or consumer products… whatever) "is a must."

Why?  Do hiring execs and managers think that there are some cult secrets separating one industry's accounting and finance from another?  That you can only absorb them through exclusive involvement with that industry's firms? That no one with  deep knowledge of fundamental principles of finance, GAAP, taxation etc. can adapt them to a new industry and quickly digest the technical specifics? 

And wouldn't they be more interested in hiring someone sophisticated enough to be willing and capable of diversifying their experience?  Do they really think that someone who knows Revenue Recognition Cycle in Technology will not be able to dissect standards for the same task in Financial Services? 

I can go on forever with these questions, but I guess you get my point: I don't think that industry experience is relevant for REAL CFO's and Controllers – those who possess broad and deep knowledge of accounting and finance, not just few repetitious tricks they have learned without understanding the underlying principles behind them.

Let me give you a simple analogy.  Multi-lingual children exposed to different languages through their residence, parental ethnicity, foreign nannies, etc. are known to add more and more languages to their arsenal with a greater success than their peers.  The reason is that their anatomical speech instruments become very flexible and can adapt to any new challenges.

The same is true about the professional expertise of those financial execs who were exposed throughout their career to a variety of industrial and organizational specifics.  They usually have deeper understanding of business, sharper commercial acumen and ability to adapt them to any new circumstances.

In yet another excerpt from Marc Cenedella's TheLadders book (Sell Yourself Short), he condecsends that recruiters are now more open to industry crossovers, but that you will have to accept lower salaries and positions. 

First of all, the supposed "openness" is a lie: the job listings are full of specific industry requirements.  Secondly, don't let statements like that lower your self-esteem: if you are capable to cross over without difficulties, it's your asset, not a shortcoming.

Let's not forget that the system of double-bookkeeping (still the foundation of all accounting the last time I checked) was created by the XIV century Venetian sea merchants and first outlined in proper structural manner by Benedetto Cotrugli around 1450 as a chapter in his "Of Trading and the Perfect Trader."  Subsequently, Lucas Bartolomes Pacioli devoted 36 chapters to the subject in his monumental tretese on mathematics.  

These were Renaissance men who also wrote on architecture, medicine, law, art, religion and broad business issues.  It is unfortunate that the employers of today have devolved to preferring the narrow specialization instead.