Ask-a-Recruiter: How to Get Back on Track After a Career Break

seekingBy Traci K.

How can you get your resume to the top of the stack when you’ve taken a break from your career to care for children or aging parents?

You’re punctual, smart, determined, qualified. You’ve had great experience and have at least 3 years of tenure in every position you’ve held. You’re a hard-worker, a fast learner and above all, you excel at anything you put your mind to. Oh, I almost forgot, you interview fantastically too. Wow, you sound great! You’re currently job hunting, so if all this is true, why haven’t you received any job offers?

Did I mention you left the workforce six years ago to be a stay-at-home mother?

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How Do Recruiters Search and Screen Resumes?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Last week I wrote about the two main factors that every resume needs – authenticity and specificity.  Specificity (i.e., tailoring a resume to the employer/ industry/ function you are targeting), is particularly important because it enables your resume to be found when recruiters search and noticed when recruiters screen.

 

Recruiters search for resumes on job boards, social networks such as LinkedIn, articles and white papers (especially at senior levels), and their own database.  When a search kicks off recruiters filter through the resumes from these sources by keywords and criteria.  If you don’t have those keywords or criteria in your resume, you may not get picked.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How to Show Employers That You Fit the Job

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

If flexibility, versatility and cross-training are all the rage these days, why do recruiters seem to hold so firmly to the belief that a candidate must “fit the profile” exactly?

The above question is valid, and it demonstrates why boilerplate qualities with no substance or tangible metrics attached are meaningless.In the above example, flexibility, versatility and cross-training are the boilerplate qualities. Many job descriptions ask for these. Therefore, these are not going to be the deciding factors; they’re a given. Instead you need to find what makes that job unique, how that will be measured and appeal specifically to that. When you do that, you fit the profile, and that’s what employers and recruiters want.

How does the position contribute to the bottom line?

Focus on that responsibility and give specific examples of when you did just that. If these examples are in a different industry or functional context, explain explicitly how you would handle this in the industry/ function for which you are interviewing.

What are the management and reporting requirements of the position?

If you need to manage direct reports, give examples of when you managed direct reports. If you need to report into different areas, give examples of when you worked cross-functionally.

What is the success culture of this company?

Do your homework to identify what personality traits are specifically valued for this company. Then showcase how you have these traits, not the traits that every company says they want (work ethic, team spirit, flexibility, versatility, blah, blah, blah).

Many jobseekers position themselves so generically that they seem to be saying, “I fit any job.” You want to demonstrate that you fit a specific job. Specificity is the key to a successful job search.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Email her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com and ask how you can attend a free SixFigureStart group coaching teleclass.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: When Can You Take It Easy In Your Search

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

I have been to several interviews and am waiting to hear back. I like the idea of taking a break and also want to wait and see what happens with this first group of companies. I have other companies I could start researching, but I don’t want to spread myself too thin. How do I know when to keep pushing for more leads or focus on the ones I’ve started?

One of my coaching clients should have wrapped up her search months ago. But with budgets tightening, the job that she seemed poised to get may not be filled after all. This happened now in her search. The first time, she had other companies in play but slowed down the pace on those leads and then had to rebuild. Now she knows to keep searches going simultaneously even when one seems promising. When the second imminent offer fell through, she barely missed a beat. Welcome to the age of the 24/7 job search.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How Much Does Your Past Salary Impact Future Prospects

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

I am planning to accept a job that pays below market because everything else about it is ideal, and I expect to move in two to three years anyway. How much impact will the lower salary have on my future negotiations?

This was a question from one of our last coaching telecalls. I commend the caller for considering other factors than salary in her job decision (she had really done her research but I didn’t include all the details for space reasons and to preserve her confidentiality). At the same time, salary history carries a lot of weight in future salary negotiations so the decision to take a lower salary now will require extra work in the future:

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Ask-A-Recruiter: The Language of Career Change

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

As my last 15 years of experience has been specialized (contract negotiations, mortgage loans, and asset and mortgage backed securities), how do you successfully convey that your past experience and skills set is transferable to a new industry, such as health care?

How to translate the details is the crux of the career changer’s mission. You have worked in an area with a specific set of protocols and a unique language, and you now need to position this in a way that someone else accustomed to a different set of protocols and a different language will understand. Your ability to do this determines if you will be able to change careers and at what salary and title.

Start with the basic word translation. We all have seen the funny ways big companies get into trouble when they market outside their home country and get the ad slogan translated wrong. So we realize that translating is more than just getting the right words. However, it’s a good start, so go line by line in your resume and cover letter and networking pitch and pull out any words or phrases that specifically reference your initial area, and replace them with words or phrases that reference the new area or are at least generic. So in the above example, mortgage loans become transactions.

Capture the essence, not the protocols. You can’t wordsmith everything of course, and you don’t want to omit that you securitized financial products if that was a big part of your job. But many would-be career changers drown their new prospects in very technical descriptions of their work environments and responsibilities, instead of highlighting what they achieved and what they did functionally in a way that the new prospect can appreciate. I am currently coaching a reporter transitioning to PR. She needs to highlight her media experience generally, not reporting specifically because PR people relate to media not reporting. She needs to talk about researching, developing and promoting stories and profiles because that is the essence of what she did, even if her colleagues would say she is covering beats.

Actively make the leap. Don’t make the prospective employer have to translate at all. After you tell them about your work with mortgages, give a specific example of what you could do in a hospital or insurance setting. Use their language, their protocols as you detail what you might bring to the table. You will change before their eyes from a mortgage person to a healthcare person. You will seem like their peer, and they will then be comfortable and excited to hire you. When you don’t make the effort to translate the details for the new sector you are targeting, you are effectively asking prospective employers to take you on your word. If all they see in your resume and pitch and dialogue is wedded to your old career, you are not giving them any tangible proof that you have changed. Think of the old boyfriend with past behavior that you no longer want who says, “Trust me, I can change.” Would you take him? Would you hire you?

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney, Time Inc, and others. Email me at caroline@sixfigurestart.com and ask how you can attend a free SixFigureStart group coaching teleclass.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Financing Big Changes

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

A popular excuse for not making a big change is money. You don’t have enough money – training for new skills, career coaching, whatever support you need for the big change cost more than you have. You need the income you have – you don’t have any left over to save for the big change and you certainly don’t have the option of quitting to focus more time on the big change. However, although money is a legitimate consideration, it is not an obstacle you can’t overcome. It comes down to the math: how much do you need and where will you get it.

Think Robin Hood. Take from one place to give to another. Look at your discretionary income after the fixed bills are paid. Where can you shave off dollars to allocate towards your career change?

Raise your income. Can you start a side consulting business and use the proceeds for the big change? The graphic designer can create websites, the financial planner can give Quicken tutorials. I know a marketing director who did a brand strategy for a start-up to pay for her kids’ new swing set. However, remember that you need your energy for the big change — this job is just for money so pick something you know you can do in which you won’t get too invested.

Challenge your assumptions. Still don’t have enough? Have you really separated out discretionary income or are non-essentials still in there? (Cable TV is not an essential when you are questioning all expenses.) Are you sure you need this money? (Can you take a workshop instead of getting a long-term class?) Are you sure you have itemized all expenses? (When you are trying to find the wasted dollars, you need to take a microscope to your spending.) There are always gaps between what you actually spend and what you think you spend, so be willing to challenge your memory and actually look.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, and others. Email me at caroline@sixfigurestart.com and ask how you can attend a free SixFigureStart group coaching teleclass.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Getting Noticed By Executive Recruiters

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

How does a person make themselves known to recruiters?

This question was posed during last month’s SixFigureStart Ask-A-Recruiter call. The caller worked as in-house counsel so did not get the same attention from recruiters as her attorney colleagues in law firms.

Refer. Build long-term relationships with recruiters by being helpful. Take recruiter calls, even when you’re not actively looking, and help them find people by referring quality leads. Remember that your referrals are a reflection on you, so only refer people who fit what they are working on and who will represent you well.

Get referred. Recruiters like to find you. They don’t typically see unsolicited candidates. So maintain a robust network, find out from your colleagues who the good recruiters are for your sector, and have your colleagues introduce you.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Phantom Job Postings

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Last week, my coaching firm hosted our monthly free coaching call, where we answered questions from jobseekers about the hiring process. Not one, but two questions were submitted about phantom job postings: Why do recruiters post listings for jobs that don’t exist? Why do companies consistently list job openings, bring in interviewees, extend offers, and go far in the hiring process, only to put positions on hold and sometimes close the positions?

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Networking Success Stories

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

As a career coach and recruiter, I have followed many careers. I have also seen many examples of networking success: A PhD in molecular biology makes key venture capital contacts (and eventually lands a VC job) after tracking down a fellow PhD in molecular biology who is now a senior banker;

An art assistant lands an art director position at a national magazine, after regular contact with her former boss (now editor of the magazine) puts her in the right place at the right time; A management consultant transitions into recruiting after a former colleague hires her into her search firm; A little league basketball coach gets a job interview at one of his dream firms because it turns out he is coaching the son of a top executive there.

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