[jsfg_cinti] Advice from a panel of six headhunters/where to look in the jobmarket

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Headhunter Discussion Panel last night...

In addition to giving a summary of meeting highlights, I will add some of my
own points based on my experiences as a headhunter and from articles that I
have written in the past. I thought the panel was excellent and had a good
mix of higher-level executive recruiters along with contingency recruiters
who work in IT, sales & marketing, and graphic design.

One of the classic discussions that took place last night was what I call
the "shotgun vs. the sharp-shooter" search strategy to finding a job. Ted
Martin of Martin Partners was very much on the side of the sharp-shooter
approach, meaning that you should target an industry and a sector first,
and then a specific company and job to go after; this requires a lot of
research on the front end. On other side of the spectrum is the "shotgun
method," or what they called the "cast a wide net" approach. Some people
feel that their background lends itself to a wide variety of positions, but
Karen Rasch from Aquent said that she feels that when you try to pile
everything into one resume, it only ends up confusing the situation, and
she as a headhunter and the company prospectively hiring you don't know
what to do with it. The comment was somewhat offhandedly made that you
might try having several resumes, each targeted for the type of position
you consider to be obtainable.

Afterwards, a group of us hung out at the Sheraton Hotel for the usual
post-meeting networking. Bob Nuber, who is now working as the CTO at
MyFootPath.com with Malia Zoghlin and J.P. Allen, told me that he thought
Eric Sigurdson from Russell Reynolds was unusually candid when he said that
a headhunter will only be of use to you if you are looking to continue down
the path that you have already been on. If you are looking to change
careers or shift the emphasis of your career, headhunters really won't be
of much help. The reason for that is that they are paid by their clients,
the hiring companies, to put square pegs in square holes. Karl Aavik from
Spencer Stuart explained that in the executive search business, the
executive search consultant is not looking to "work with candidates" to
find a job. The search firm is being paid by the hiring company for an
extensive search to fill a high level position. If the candidate happens to
fit one of the positions, then there is a basis for discussion. In the
contingency side of the business, which usually deals with relatively
lower-level positions than the retainer side of the business, the
headhunter has more flexibility; he can take a sharp candidate with five
years of SAP experience, for example, and market that person to 10 or 15
SAP shops. A retained firm will not do that.

For a while during the meeting, it seemed to me that the panelists were
speaking in very broad terms to the audience and were even entertaining the
idea that someone might try to change career direction. Just when I was
ready to raise my hand on this question, Ted Martin flat-out said that in
the kind of market we're in now, you've got to play it safe.

One topic that consistently came up in  audience questions was the issue of
what I call "goodness of fit." A lot of people think that if a position
calls for ten items in a person's skill set, then the person who has all
ten of those plus one is a better match for that job than a person who has
eight out of ten. I interjected a comment during this discussion. I believe
that the idea of a perfect fit is a myth, because you are dealing with a
moving target. You have to factor the potential for growth into the
equation. If a person getting a job can already do everything that's
required and then some, where is that person going to go next, and how long
will that person continue to be happy? All the recruiters on the panel
seemed to agree with this point, and Ted Martin formalized it by drawing
coordinate axes with a curve that looked like an upside-down "U". The y
axis refers to the level of a person's performance, from weak to good. The
x axis refers to a person's attitude towards his job, from "like" to
"dislike." The lower left hand quadrant, representing weak skill and
positive attitude, is what Ted called "the learning quadrant." The upper
left hand quadrant, a combination of good skills and positive attitude, Ted
labeled "the high performance quadrant." The upper right hand quadrant,
combining strong skills with a negative attitude, was called "the
complacency quadrant," and the lower right hand quadrant which combines
weak performance and a negative attitude he labeled "the termination
quadrant." Ideally, you will get a job that puts you on the curve just as
you are leaving the learning quadrant and moving into the high performance
quadrant, and you will leave that job just as you are moving out of the
high performance quadrant and into the complacency quadrant. So, going back
to the "perfect fit" idea, you don't want to get a job where you're at the
high end of the high performance quadrant, because that is just where you
are peaking. To put it another way, if you are a perfect fit, it is as
though you are all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Karl Aavik said that if you want to approach an executive search
consultant, it is helpful to be referred to that person by someone who
already knows him or his firm. When Karl said this, I thought that it
sounds awfully similar to how an entrepreneur might want to get an
introduction to a venture capitalist. Karl also said that he spends most of
the time talking to people who are not candidates, but rather people who
know of candidates; these are the people you might consider to be nodes in
the network. One of the panelists said that you should make a list of
everybody that you think might be helpful to you in a job search and go and
talk to that person, including many people who do not directly have a job
for you, such as old college professors whom you may have had a good
relationship with. This person said that you should think of anyone that
you seemed to hit it off with and contact that person to let him or her
know of your situation.

Since we're running short on time today, I will give you the rest of the
discussion about resumes and other tips tomorrow. Let me just give you two
or three quick trend observations:
--  Sectors that are hot: everyone seemed to mention pharmaceuticals.
Healthcare in general and financial services seem reasonably strong as well.
--  Ted Martin mentioned that "crisis CFOs" are in demand. I believe that
he said that his firm is currently working on three positions like that in
the telecommunications industry. The more commonly-used term is
"restructuring." I think years ago they used to call these people
"turnaround experts."
--  Mike Jaros from Paladin Staffing mentioned that there does seem to be
an uptick in demand for marketing people now. He said that the people in
that area are the first to be cut, but also the first to be hired when
things improve. Coca-Cola and Heinz both spent a lot of money on marketing
during the recent downturn in the economy, against the advice of many of
their advisors. But those expenditures seem to be paying off with
significantly increased market share. Sales and business development
positions, according to Mike, seem to be in reasonably constant demand.
--  In the dotcom gold rush period, I believe Ted Martin said that the rank
ordering of importance when it came to compensation was options #1, salary
#2, bonus #3. In the current market, I believe he said that all three are
considered to be equally important by candidates.

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