Time For Your New Year’s Revolution

No, it’s not a typo. It’s an invitation.

Instead of making the same old pledge to yourself to be a better person, parent, partner, or employee, or to lose weight, or to quit smoking, or… any of the usual commitments you make in January, why not address the underlying discomfort you feel of being under-appreciated, undervalued, underpaid, or underutilized in your current career this new year?

What’s that? You don’t know how? Are you afraid to take the step? Do you think you are not worthy or no one would be interested in hiring you?

Guess what… Those are completely normal manifestations of sanity and self-doubt… but they are also unnecessary.

Just ask the NINE executive clients of the Barrett Group who landed their targeted roles in mid-December: They probably had the same doubts as you but took that revolutionary step and earned high-level titles. Those who earned titles such as CEO, President, Head, Vice President, Supervisory Board Member, Director, and Senior Manager. [Read More.]

You may wonder how active the market is for executives. We routinely report on a market of more than 9 million (from the Vice President title on up). In the US, Canada, EU, UK, and the Middle East where fully 450,000 individuals changed jobs in the last year. These career change statistics are from LinkedIn— and that is a huge amount of executive opportunity! [Read More.]

However, only about 25% of those positions are advertised publicly or filled through executive recruiters. The remaining 337,000 positions represent the “invisible market”— roles so they have not been formalized or communicated to HR. That means there may not be a formal role description or compensation package defined. And this allows candidates to exhibit enormous influence in the final formulation of the position.

How can you discover an invisible role? The simplest way is to hire the Barrett Group as thousands of executives have done over the last three decades and more. We are so adept at helping clients clarify their career targets to be much more fully satisfied professionally that we are regularly cited by Forbes as one of the best in the business—even though we work for executive candidates—not employers.

One of the secrets includes learning to leverage your social capital. In simple terms, the people you know other people and if you know what you are doing you can reverse-engineer your social capital to work backward from someone you want to meet (an executive at a targeted company) to someone whom you already know. Of course, you do not want to appear to be asking for a favor, so there are numerous nuances to be learned and applied in this process.  But clearly, it works.  Here’s one example from a successful client:

“Reaching out to my network turned out to be extremely useful and a lot of fun. People were shocked that I would consider leaving my company, but they were happy to connect me with other people that they thought I should speak to. I soon realized that the grass was greener on the other side – and that I could do this! Building social capital ended up being extremely instrumental to the entire process of my job search.” [Vice President – Jocelyn Hirschfeld]

Of course, you will want to pick reasonable professional targets in the first place. We help clients rethink their objectives in the first stage of the process—helping them to open the aperture from what is merely probable to what is possible, specifically with a target of whole-life satisfaction in mind. This may mean changing industries, roles, locations, or all three. The applicability of skills and experience is key in this consideration, especially being able to communicate and demonstrate transferability.

That takes place in the personal branding stage of our process during which we help clients package themselves appropriately given this new or reconfirmed professional target. The same old resume will simply not cut it in today’s market. Your brand needs to help you stand out from the clutter and let your sterling qualities shine through. Even if you think you are already optimally presented by your online credentials, we can sharpen the focus and help clients become truly marketable. [Read More.]

Once the interviews start, we lean in again and bolster client performance in their discussions with potential employers, enhancing their value yet again as the offers begin to materialize. Frankly, we get results. Read “Results Don’t Lie: It’s the ROI” for more background. And even when clients have the offer letter in hand, there is still more to do to optimize your first weeks, months, and years on the job—to optimize your opportunities for career progression and maximum income. [Read “How to Avoid Failing at the Finish Line” for more details.]

In short, don’t settle for the same old baby steps this year. Take the stride toward grasping your full potential. Declare your professional revolution and give us a call.