Here’s another bonus for you. If you’re just starting out in a new management role, job search probably isn’t at the forefront of your mind right now! Even so, I thought I’d give you this extra chapter so that you can take it into account alongside career planning, because, inevitably, there comes a time in most everyone’s career when they must do a job search.
Doing a job search is a full-time job. Many people try to do a job search while having a current job, thinking that that makes them more marketable. It can make you appear more marketable, that is undeniable. But the reality is that if you have a job that requires at least 40 hours a week of your time, it’s difficult to put the necessary level of effort into a proper job search.
Earlier in the book we looked at networking, and this is the moment when your hard work will pay off. When it comes time to job search, you’ll want to tap into those connections and make the most of them. As you network, that question is the first and most critical question that most people will ask is “What kind of job are you looking for?” The answer most jobseekers give is along the lines of “more of the same,” meaning that if I am an Applications Development Manager, then I am looking for an Applications Development Manager job. And this response is fine for most people. But you might indicate you are looking for a change and want to move up your career ladder. This is also an acceptable answer, but just be aware that you will receive more scrutiny to determine if you are qualified or ready for this next step.
CONDUCTING A JOB SEARCH
There are basically two kinds of job searches. The first kind is what I call ‘the fishing expedition’. This is how roughly 95% of the population conduct a job search. They cast a wide net and then look at the jobs that their net brings in; they then pursue those that interest them and toss back (as a fish from your fishing net) those jobs for which they have no interest. That is the way I did my job searches in my first career in information technology. I cast a wide net, I explored job opportunities with companies that were looking for senior level IT managers or CIOs and I talked to those whose companies and/or industries appealed to me.
The second kind of job search is a targeted job search. This method tends to come from the kind of introspection and reflection we talked about in the last chapter. Once you’ve done some hard thinking, it’s easier to identify companies for which you want to work, and how you want to work. Then you can find a way to network into those companies. For example, as a CIO looking for your next CIO job, you might identify specific companies where you would like to work. These are the companies you are targeting.
Let’s say for example, you want to work at Apple. As you network, you would look for introductions to connections at Apple. Your goal would be to reach the highest-level executive in the company that you possibly could. Ideally, you would like to network to the CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer) at Apple, with the idea that the CHRO would be aware of all the opportunities, now and in the future, for an IT executive within Apple. Hypothetically, as you did your networking, someone might be willing to introduce you to the Accounts Payable Manager at Apple. You could take this as a great opportunity to use the Accounts Payable Manager as a springboard to get to the CHRO. Your goal would be to impress the CHRO such that if there was a current opening or future opening that you would be considered.
You might be thinking that this is a lot of effort if the CIO job (or the job that you would like to have that you are targeting) is already filled. Don’t allow yourself to be discouraged by this. This is a critical aspect to be considered when job searching. You never know what is going on within any company at any time.
In this hypothetical example, the CIO could be retiring. Apple could be starting up a new division and would want that division to have their own CIO. Apple might be planning to create this new division in six months. You want that CHRO to have you in mind when that opportunity presents itself. And you would want to do this with as many senior executives at Apple as you could find. That will just increase your chances of being remembered and considered. Please note that a targeted search may or may not lead to a real job at the end of this networking, as timing is critically important, but you will have expanded your network within a targeted company that could pay dividends later in your career.
Let’s try looking at job searching through a different lens. Wouldn’t it be great to have a job where you loved going to work every day? There are many people that are blessed in that way. If you love music and you are a musician, it is a great match. If you are an athlete and become a professional athlete, you are truly blessed. You love acting and pursue a career as an actor. You love writing and become an author. And so on. Not everybody winds up this way with a job matching up with a personal interest, hobby, or sport, but if you have, consider yourself very lucky.
I advise people to think about something that they are passionate about and look for how they can use that in their next job. For example, let’s say that your passion is to find a cure for cancer. Wouldn’t it be great to work for a company working on a cure for cancer? You don’t have to be the scientist who comes up with the cure – maybe you’ll be working in the finance team, making sure that scientists have the resources they need. Or let’s say that you love automobiles. You have always loved automobiles. You know everything there is to know about automobiles. Wouldn’t it be great to work in the automotive industry? You might find your passion in working for a company that is building autonomous vehicles. Or let’s say that you love playing golf. Wouldn’t it be great to work for a company that designs golf courses? Or a company that manufactures golf equipment or golf clothing? You never know, you might even get a staff discount! I think you get the idea.
TARGETING COMPANIES
Try thinking about combining your passion with targeting companies. After much thought and introspection, you have decided you would like to work for a company that is working on a cure for cancer. You need to then identify companies in this space and prepare a list. If your geographic target is Los Angeles, companies for consideration would be ones like City of Hope, USC Keck Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center, and Cedars-Sinai – these are the big ones. But perhaps your passion may be more specific. Let’s say that you want to work for a company working on a cure for pancreatic cancer. That might bring you to The Lustgarten Foundation or the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PCAN) to name a few.
Now, as you begin networking, you want to target these companies. That means going out to your network and asking people specifically, “Do you know anyone at the City of Hope,” and so on.
This process that I have just outlined is more difficult, arduous, and time-consuming than casting a wide net. Can you do both? Sure. However, you may ultimately be faced with accepting a job that looks good but does not satisfy the passion within you. Can you be happy in such a role? – possibly. But think about how much more excited and how much more enthused you would be if you could be working in a company whose mission aligns with your passion.
NETWORKING
Where to begin when it comes to networking and more specifically when it comes to job search? I suggest starting by preparing three lists: A, B, and C. Your A-list represents the people that know you well. These are people that when you call them, they will return your call; when you ask them to join you for coffee or lunch, they will make the time for you. The B-list are people who know who you are, but do not know you all that well and will require more effort when you ask for a meeting. The C-list are people for whom you feel you would benefit from networking, even though you may not directly know each other.
Start with your A-list. I find that it is best to meet with people face-to-face and outside of the office. People will be more helpful to you when they are not besieged by emails and interruptions while in their office. Going out for coffee or lunch presents you with the opportunity to have this person with whom you are networking all to yourself. Hopefully, you will have their full, undivided attention. This is your opportunity to share with them your thoughts and aspirations. I find the more specific you are in describing what you are looking for, the more helpful people will be – this validates the targeted job search approach. Work your way through your A-list first.
After you have exhausted your A-list, move on to your B-list; these will be harder, but stick with it because they can also bear fruit. After your B-list, move on to your C-list. The goal is to try to move people on the B-list to the A-list and the C-list folks to your B-list. You do this by meeting with them and building a stronger relationship with them. You should keep in contact with these people on a regular basis until your job search is completed – I suggest looping back to people who were responsive to you every 30 days to check in with them.
In these networking sessions, you clarify that you are in the job market, you are looking for job leads and additional good people with whom to network. Here is the fascinating aspect of a job search. People who you thought would be helpful sometimes prove not to be of any help at all and people who hardly know you prove to be incredibly helpful. It is just the way it is. Getting those in your network to give up names of people in their network is, for some, a big deal; others are far more willing to share their network with you. Don’t rule anyone out. Help can show up from anywhere, sometimes where you least expect it.
I was approached by a project management office (PMO) manager who had just lost his job. He worked with his company for 15 years and head been successful up to this point in time. He had a failed project and was let go. As a result, he networked to me. I was a C-list person to him. He did not really know me, but someone in his network said that I would be a good person with whom to network. I asked him what he was looking for in a new opportunity. His response was, “I’m not sure. I’ve been doing project management work for the last 15 years, so I guess I would like to do that again.” I talked to him about pursuing his passions; to think about that, and once he had done that, to give me a call back. He called me back a week later and said “Steve, I thought about what you said and, in reflecting upon my career, I concluded that I’d like to return to the automotive industry. I loved working in that industry, and it marries well with my love of automobiles.” I said I would be happy to help him and opened my network to introduce him to CIOs at Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai. Had he not been specific about the automobile industry and just insisted that he was looking for another project manager role, the likelihood that I would open my network of 500 CIOs to him was zero.
JOB SEARCH MECHANICS
As you start to network, you will interact with a lot of people. It is important for you to keep track of who you have spoken with, when you spoke with them, and what was the nature of your conversation. If you are utilizing multiple resumes, you will need to keep track of which resume was sent and to whom. And most importantly, if you plan to follow up with this person, to have a ready means to do that in a timely manner. Some people can manage all this information through Microsoft Outlook Contacts. I found that a simple Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is the most effective way to capture this information and generate reports about who to follow up with and when. I have used ACT! and found it to be more than adequate. There are many CRMs on the market, so whether or not you choose to use a software package, Excel or Outlook, the important thing is to be able to keep track of this information in a way that is easy for you to manage.
WRITING A RESUME
Earlier, in the Hiring Chapter, I talked about reading resumes. Let us look at resumes from the other side of the table – writing your resume. I will share with you what I like and what I do not like. These are all my opinions based upon my experiences.
- Resumes should be no more than two pages.
- Start out with either an Objective or a Summary. I prefer the objective because it tells me what you are looking for in your next opportunity – summaries seem to all sound the same; and I tend to skip over them.
- Each company where you worked should appear as a separate section with the company name and the dates you worked there. Include a one or two sentence description of the company as many who see your resume may not know of the company. When indicating the dates of employment, I suggest using the month and year, not just year. My rationale here is that if you worked at a job from 1/19 through 1/20 and you use month/year format, I know you were there for 13 months, but if you use year format, 2019-2020, I do not know if you were there for two months or 24 months or somewhere in between.
- Next to your job title, I would like to see a brief 1-2 sentences describing your job responsibilities at a high level.
- Below each work experience, I like to see specific, quantifiable, bulleted accomplishments. These bullets should not be elements of a job description, but rather your accomplishments that differentiate you from other candidates. These bullets should be prioritized as many resume readers scan resumes and only look at the first few accomplishments under each job title.
- Next should be Education. I like to see the year in which a degree or certification was achieved, but some may prefer not to do that for fear that it reveals their age.
- Next should be Outside Activities. My caution here is to keep this section brief as you can give the wrong impression that your outside activities are more important and time-consuming than your professional work.
NEGOTIATING A JOB OFFER
Assume that you are now at the point where you have received a job offer. Now is your time to negotiate. This is the best time to ask for “things” that have not yet been discussed or specified in your offer letter. The offer letter should include the basic terms of your employment: salary, bonus, vacation, and any other perks that are not standard. Standard is defined as stated in the Employee Handbook or the company’s Policies and Procedures.
Things to consider in negotiating include a higher salary, a bigger bonus, and more vacation. However, you need to have a strong rationale as to why your prospective employer should consider any of these things. The arguments you put forth will give your prospective employer insights into you and how you think, so be cautious about how you go about this.
Other items to consider might be an already planned vacation that you want approval for now rather than wait to ask for permission later. You might want to ask for a sign-on bonus but do some research to better understand if your prospective employer even offers sign-on bonuses. If you are planning to go to graduate school or are already enrolled in a program, or if there is an organization that you have been a member of previously that you would like to join after starting your new role, seeking approvals/permissions before you start would be to your advantage. If you want to work with a coach (naming no names of course), this is a good time to get approval and budget allocated.
One of my coaching clients, George, just changed jobs and received a generous offer from his new employer. However, in the process of moving to his new role, George was walking away from a 75% bonus from his previous employer. As George was accepting the offer from his new company, he asked his boss if they would be willing to keep him whole by giving him a sign on bonus equivalent to the earned bonus he was giving up. His new employer agreed to do that. If you don’t ask, you could lose out.
There are other considerations at higher levels. Before asking, it would be important to understand the company’s policies. For example, if your new role involves a lot of travel, what is the company’s policy as regards business or first-class travel? If you are already serving on Boards, you may need to seek company approval to continue in those roles. At the more senior levels, you may want to negotiate an exit package for yourself in the event of a change in ownership in the company or a change in reporting relationship for your position.
For example, assume you are hired and report to the CEO. After a year, you are reassigned and now report to the CFO. You are unhappy with this new reporting relationship. You took the job because you were reporting to the CEO and were seeking a more strategic opportunity. If you had negotiated an option to leave because of such a change, with a nice severance package, your transition to your next role will be a lot easier financially.
Arlene, one of my CIO coaching clients, was conducting a job search. She was ready to move on from her current employer. Arlene had a requirement in her search that her base salary had to be at least $180K. She received a job offer of $160K for the CIO position in a mid-market company. The new company was firm on their offer and would not move, nor would Arlene. They wound up not hiring Arlene. When I learned of these failed negotiations, I was disappointed for Arlene as I came to know her to be very competent in her job. There are several arguments to be made and several things that could have been done so that this could have been a win-win for both Arlene and the new company. My first argument would have been that Arlene would likely save the company way more than the $20K in salary in the first year just by renegotiating some of the existing IT contracts. This is usually among the low hanging fruit in any new job. Another tactic would be to establish some achievement goals for which Arlene would receive additional bonus compensation such as completing a particular project on time and within budget or resolving a long-standing issue resulting in a significant benefit to the company. Any of these actions could have kept Arlene whole and happy. When the parties can’t seem to come to terms, it is an opportunity to be a creative problem solver.
JOB TITLES
Job titles are important. They are important in negotiating an offer and they are important in how you are viewed within an organization. They can also be handy for your resume when you do your next job search!
Title inflation is well known in certain industries – e.g., banking and entertainment, to name two with which I am quite familiar. In banking it seems that everyone is a Vice President and in entertainment, there are lots of Presidents – Distribution, Marketing, and all the business functions. In other companies, however, a Vice President title is a big deal. In Aerospace for example, a Vice President might be responsible for over 5,000 employees and billions in revenue while in banking a Vice President might be responsible for a small department of less than 10 employees. I am often amazed at how naive a hiring manager and an organization can be when it comes to job titles.
I was leaving a CIO role in a large entertainment company where my title was SVP IT. I was interviewing with a computer device company where the position was also the top IT role, but they were only willing to offer a Director title. The position reported to an SVP so in my mind the position should have been offered as at least a VP level job. I tried to negotiate that in the job offer I received but they would not budge. In addition to how I would be viewed within the organization, there are perks and benefits that go with the higher-level title that should not be ignored or overlooked such as higher salary ranges, higher bonus targets, more starting vacation, and perks such as car allowances. I turned the job down.
SALARY
A mistake that is often made by many job searchers is to focus mainly on salary or base compensation – this is often a tactical error. You should always look at and understand your total compensation. Total compensation consists of your base salary plus bonus and other benefits (including, but not limited to vacation, health insurance, medical & dental insurance, 401K, pension, and perks). You should add up the monetary value of all of these to arrive at your total compensation. Many companies provide this information in an annual booklet outlining what your total compensation is.
When I was making one of my career changes, I was offered a CIO job at $25K less than my current base salary with an annual bonus target at 25% of base salary (which was the same level as my current role). At first blush, this difference seemed too big because my personal financial goal was to be kept at least whole (be equivalent to my current base salary plus bonus). However, this new company offered both an annual bonus and a long-term bonus. I had never had a long-term bonus before, so this was new to me. Here’s how it worked. Assume my new job offer had a base salary of $150K and an annual bonus target of 25% with a long-term bonus target of 30%. Let’s also assume that I received a $10K per year annual base salary increase in both old and new jobs and that all bonuses were paid out at 100% of target. The long-term bonus accrued in year 1 and started paying out at the end of year 3. Every year a new 3-year long term bonus plan would begin with a payout 3 years later. The following Base & Bonus table will help to clarify all of this:
| NEW JOB | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Totals |
| Base Salary | 150,000 | 160,000 | 170,000 | 180,000 | 190,000 | |
| Annual bonus @25% | 37,500 | 40,000 | 42,500 | 45,000 | 47,500 | |
| Long-term bonus-Plan payout | 48,000 | 51,000 | 54,000 | |||
| Total Compensation | 187,500 | 200,000 | 260,000 | 276,000 | 291,500 | 1,258,000 |
| Accruals: | ||||||
| Long-term bonus-Plan 1 @10%/yr | 15,000 | 16,000 | 17,000 | |||
| Long-term bonus-Plan 2 @10%/yr | 16,000 | 17,000 | 18,000 | |||
| Long-term bonus-Plan 3 @10%/yr | 17,000 | 18,000 | 19,000 |
My old job salary was $175,000 with an annual bonus target of 25% with no long-term bonus. My Base & Bonus compensation in my old job was as follows:
| OLD JOB | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Totals |
| Base Salary | 175,000 | 185,000 | 195,000 | 205,000 | 215,000 | |
| Annual bonus @25% | 43,750 | 46,250 | 48,750 | 51250 | 53750 | |
| Total Compensation | 218,750 | 231,250 | 243,750 | 256,250 | 268,750 | 1,218,750 |
Through this analysis you can see that the new job starts to earn more than the old job in Year 3 and by year 5 total earnings over the 5 years for the new job is almost $40,000 more (in this simplified analysis I did not include other total compensation factors such as health care and, 401K).
WEIGHING IT ALL UP
There’s plenty to think about when it comes to your next job search. And it’s crucial you consider what matters most to you. For some, salary will be the driving factor, for others it may be job title. Before you start any search, the key is to know your goals, understand where you want to go in life (and I mean that metaphorically and geographically) and throw everything into the mix.
As you progress in your management roles and get higher on the ladder, this will all become clearer. You’ll be more familiar with the jobs further up and you’ll have a clearer idea of what you enjoy and what feeds your professional passion.
Just remember to keep taking the time to think and to plan – without that, you’re just marking time and one day you’ll look back and wonder where the years have gone!