The CFO Coach

Should You Accept a Verbal Job Offer?

Fistful of Talent is one of the blogs I regularly follow. Since it is written by thought-leaders in the recruiting industry, it helps me stay abreast of trends and ideas.

In a recent post, Jessica Lee, Senior Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, wondered aloud why candidates were so skittish to accept a verbal job offer by a corporate (translation in-house) recruiter. Her thought process is admirable ... she obviously operates from a position of integrity and honesty. Her follow-up question near the end of the comments ...

The bigger question still for me is... as recruiters or hiring managers, why are you making job offers that aren't going to come through?

... I think confirms my assessment of her.

However, stuff happens. And in today’s economy, my advice as a career coach is to NEVER resign a position unless and until you have a written, signed offer that outlines every agreed-to detail. 

Both the post and the comments are interesting, and a good read.

What Difference Does 3% Make?

According to Peter Weddle, keynote speaker at the CMA annual conference last month, quite a bit. Robyn Greenspan, Editor-in-Chief at ExecuNet, offers this quote from Weddle in its most recent newsletter ... 

While 2001 sparked a jobless recovery, the current recession is actually eliminating jobs. Where there were once 1.7 job seekers for every open position, now four candidates compete for the same role.

The advantage for job seekers lies in the 3% separating them from everyone else. Weddle asserts that we are all just 3% different from each other, and those who identify, strengthen and express that small portion can become the A-players who are in demand in any economy. "Find the 3% that makes you special, your best self.”

It may not be easy to find that 3% difference, but it is well worth the effort to do so. Unless and until you identify and clearly convey your branded marketable value proposition (MVP), you are playing in the very crowded field of commodity.

What Does Your Resume Say About You?

If you are a finance executive and you are NOT a member of the Financials Executive Networking Group, you are missing out on a wealth of information ... delivered right to your email box several times a week and containing job leads, articles, good news announcements, assistance requests, and meeting notices.  

Now I don’t always agree 100% with Matt Bud, Co-Chair of FENG, but I do agree with him the majority of the time and being a member of FENG is a great long-term career management strategy for every finance executive.

A recent newsletter talked about a recruiter’s response to some resumes sent his way.

One candidate submitted one of the “worst” ever seen with “a lot of words that toot his horn such as outstanding record and exceptional ability,” contained a worthless list of bullets, and was poorly paginated. Another candidate submitted a one page resume ... “with type so small [I] needed a magnifying glass to read it.” Rather then pull out a magnifying glass, the resume was round-filed.

Your resume is often your first impression ... so what does it say about you? Hopefully the message is that you are crystal clear about your value to a prospective company (what they are willing to pay you big bucks to get) and that you care enough, and are interested enough, to pay attention to details, quality, and readability.

Job Fairs, HR, and the Job Search

If you don’t subscribe to Nick Corcodilos’ Ask the Headhunter newsletter, you are missing out on a wealth of information not to mention his tongue-in-cheek delivery. His newsletter today covered job fairs and HR. Here are a few of my favorite gems from today’s edition:

Unadvertised openings are in managers' heads. HR doesn't know about them.

Companies go to job fairs because HR clearly has nothing better to spend its money on.

I'll bet that job fairs even provide "Useful Tips" to HR departments in which they explain, "You can send your greenhorn clerks instead of expensive managers to the fair! Save money and still get applicants!" So HR saves money while appearing very busy.

I hope that most of my readers (senior finance executives) understand that these two strategies (job fairs and job postings) are the LEAST effective and the biggest waste of time ... but since they are easy, their subtle deception serves as a trap.

Remember, job fair representatives are HR, who have no decision-making authority. Jobs are posted by HR whose job it is to screen OUT, not in.

Recently I was asked to assist in putting together a job fair and I politely refused. But that’s what you do and your expertise is needed, came the reply. While that may be true, my high value of integrity would not let me mislead others into doing something I coach my clients never to do.

First Things First: Sharpen your Axe

Mark Fitzgerald of The Sandler Sales Institute puts out a weekly newsletter for his Entrepreneur Club. Mark is smart and witty and his newsletters are always a worthwhile read. 

His latest post contained this little gem ...

Abraham Lincoln famously said, "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe". We've all heard the quotation. How many of us act on the words? 

Of course, I thought about those words in the context of career management. 

Sharpening the axe would seem to suggest that one would not wait until they were kicked to the curb (and for many these days the pink slip is delivered with little or no warning) before giving a panicked thought to what they should do first. Rather, much as CFOs create a 3 to 5-year business plan and execute that plan, it would make sense to give that same intentionality to their careers. 

Before you NEED to ... give some thought to 

--What’s next?

--When do I want to move?

--How do I get there?

Being in the driver’s seat of your carer will be so much easier if you just do the first things first.

How Long Will Your Job Search Take?

Well, that depends! The average time according to Mary Ann Milbourn in a recent OC Register post, even in this crazy economy, is about four months. My sense is that it can take much, much longer. However, a branded marketable value proposition (MVP) and a solid search strategy (whether or not you are currently unemployed) can significantly shorten your search time. 

Google Alerts keep me informed of news on CFOs, Chief Financial Officers, and Financial Executives every day, and I can tell you that there are folks leaving and folks being hired. The need is still there!

John Challenger of Challenger, Gray, and Christmas is quoted in Milbourn's post, "Job hunt may not take as long as you think," as saying, “Those who merely sit on the Internet all day, surfing job boards, are missing 80% of the job openings.” 

If that is your primary search strategy, you could be sitting for quite a long time. 

Navigating Through Gatekeepers

Since my client’s coaching session yesterday was focused around getting past gatekeepers, the article at ERE.net today was very timely.

Gregory Pankow, Candidate Development Project Manager at RW Stearns, Inc. wrote an insightful article and provided an extensive Guide to Using Voicemail to Circumvent Gatekeepers as a downloadable file.

While this is written for the recruiter audience, it can also benefit the job seeker. Since the potential to thoroughly ruin your chances does exist when you try to beat the system, use these strategies discriminately. It is ALWAYS most beneficial to try networking your way in the door first, befriending the gatekeeper second, and employing stealth tactics as a last resort!

Two More Linked In Mistakes

One of my very brilliant colleagues, Louise Fletcher (@louise_fletcher), just tweeted about a great article she penned on seven common mistakes made in creating a Linked In profile. I’ll add two more.

--Not having recommendations

Some recruiters will pass you by, not matter how great you are, simply because you do not have any third party endorsements attached to your Linked In profile. Not only “having” recommendations, but “how many” recommendations.

Another equally brilliant colleague, @CareerPro, tweeted this a few days ago ...

A client just told me that for a VP of Finance interview the interviewer wanted xx amount of Linked In endorsements just to get past the screen. [emphasis mine]

A sub-mistake of not having recommendations is to, upon reading this post, send an email out to everyone in your Linked In network asking for a recommendation. Please don’t. If I don’t know about your work, your attitude, your contributions - I sure can’t write a recommendation about it.

--Not being branded

If you aren’t unique and different, you are just ... a commodity. I’m sure you know that commodities don’t hold much value these days. They are not only cheaper, but we will often hold out for a coupon or discount before making a commodity purchase, further devaluing it.

Branding touts what’s distinctive about the way you contribute. Rare - now that’s valuable!

CFOs Paring Payrolls

Cold Cuts posted at CFO.com addresses the need for CFOs to cut payrolls … in every manner possible. At least the beginning of 2009 is going to be bumpy for a lot of people.

What was interesting to me was this statement at the end of the article …

Is there any bright spot to be found amid all this gloom? Yes, and it appears to be shining directly on CFOs: most respondents said they expect executive management to feel little or no impact from the coming cuts.

The very people surveyed feel their positions are not in jeopardy. Might I suggest they hold that belief at their own peril? Every executive is safe only as long as he is meeting projections. The moment he doesn’t, he is as vulnerable as everyone else.

At the risk of sounding redundant, you are the most valuable as a prospective candidate while employed. It behooves you, while you are feeling secure, to position yourself from one of power and proactivity rather then being forced to react to a situation over which you no longer have any control.

Once you lose your position, even with a big fat severance package in hand, your marketability will take a hit, it will take longer then you can imagine to get that next position, and your ego and confidence will be greatly tested along the way.

Leverage the power of being an employed, accomplished, and contributing executive now, while you still can.

Who Is Hiring C-Level Candidates?

According to Mark Anderson, COO of Execunet, who appeared on Fox News October 16, C–level execs (CEO, COO, CFO) are MOST in demand in the areas of health care, energy, environmental products and services, medical devices, and biotech. Among the disciplines hardest hit are financial services, insurance, and retail.