Looking for the Lost You: From Banking to Fashion

iStock_000004554966XSmall_2_.jpgContributed by Kathleen Lucente of Red Fan Communications

With a little bit of brainstorming and “outside the box” thinking, you might just find yourself working in an industry you didn’t expect to!

When you’re sitting behind your desk, do you ever daydream about leaving your chosen industry – whether it’s banking, law or business operations — in favor of something else entirely? Something a bit far afield that might even shock your friends and colleagues?
Are their days when you feel that you are operating on all cylinders, yet that there are creative skills you possess which have gone untapped for years? Or that, somehow, there are hidden talents and attributes that you possess which have gone untapped?

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High Water Women

logo_home.gifby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

“We want to share our selves, not just our pocketbooks,” says Sandra Poe, partner with Wilmer and Hale, of the women involved with High Water Women. Poe is on the board of directors of this non-profit organization that provides opportunities for women in the financial services sector to support philanthropies.

High Water Women was founded in 2005 by women in the hedge fund industry. They had been involved in a black tie gala fundraising event but found the experience lacking. “Black tie galas are necessary,” says Poe, “but they weren’t satisfying the demand for many women who wanted to get involved.”

“They are mostly one night check writing things,” she says. “We saw a real demand for women in our industry who wanted to feel, touch and help.”

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Will Jill Come Tumbling After?

crackedglass.JPGby Paige Churchman (New York City)

Have you heard of the glass cliff? It seems that, when a company is ailing, it is more likely, if ever, to tap a woman to lead. So just when a woman thinks she’s finally broken through-that at last the playing field is level-she may actually be on a dangerous precipice. More so than a man would be. Men, who are more likely to be chosen to lead successful companies, aren’t scrutinized as harshly and are less likely to be blamed for failures.

It was Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam who put a name to this phenomenon. In 2005 they published “The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions.” The two University of Exeter researchers wanted to find out if having women on their boards really “wreaked havoc on companies’ performance and share prices” as Elizabeth Judge said in a London Times article. Studying the FTSE 100, Ryan and Haslam found was that the said companies “had experienced consistently poor performance in the months preceding the appointment” of a woman to their boards and that share prices actually showed a “marked increase after the appointment.”

USA Today has been studying women CEOs and share price since 2003. The first two years, the female CEOs outperformed the males. But in 2005 (the year Carly Fiorina was ousted), things began to change, with women’s companies slightly underperforming those led by men. In 2006 and 2007, men and women CEOs ran even, judged by share price, and “2008 knew no gender in its devastation.”

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Top Companies for Women

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Fortune Magazine recently released its annual list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Flexibility and integrating personal and professional lives are key considerations for prospective employees today –especially for women. The top companies recognize this and have added programs to ease employee’s personal workloads and child-rearing responsibilities. For example, more than one-fourth of the “Best Companies” offer an onsite child-care center. Another example: 82 percent of the companies allow employees to telecommute or work at home at least 20 percent of the time. Finally, 15 companies on this list pay 100% of their employees’ health-care premiums.

This year, Silicon Valley company NetApp tops the list, knocking Google from the perch it held for two years in a row. Among a slew of employee perks at this technology company, two stand out: adoption aid and autism coverage. NetApp, not coincidentally, also made the list of companies with the most women. Twenty-four percent of the employees are female. The companies with the highest percentage of women include a daycare provider (Bright Horizons, which has an almost all female team), a teddy bear giant (Build-a-Bear), and several healthcare companies.

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Corporate Image and Branding Conference

Join us at the 2009 Corporate Image and Branding Conference and participate as the world’s most innovative companies discuss their strategies and solutions.

Speakers include:

John Volkman Corporate Vice President Branding, AMD

Gaston Legorburu Chief Creative Officer Sapient Corporation

Lee Hornick Program Director The Conference Board

James Kelly US Brand Leader PricewaterhouseCoopers

James Cerruti Executive Vice President Managing Director – Research BrandLogic

Bill Samuels, Jr. Chief Executive Officer and President Maker’s Mark Bourbon

For more information or to Register

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January 2009 Women 2.0 Mixer & Book Swap!

Join Women 2.0 for drinks and a book swap, tell us the best book you read in 2008, and what you are eager to read in 2009. Be sure to bring your business/tech/entrepreneurship books to swap for other Women 2.0 members’ books!

With Special Guest:

Tara Hunt,Tara is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Citizen Agency, an Internet consultancy specializing in community-centric strategies around product research, design, development and marketing. She has over 11 years experience in web design, 8 years in online marketing, and over 4 years of blogging on HorsePigCow. Tara is the author of “The Whuffie Factor” (coming mid-2009), an insightful and practical guide to connecting with the online communities that matter to your business in ways that enrich both.

Get $5 off if you bring a book!

Register here

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Executive Job Search: 3 Mistakes That Keep Most Women Executives Unemployed during a Recession

books.jpgContributed by $100K+ Executive-Level Career Karen Armon

Mistake #1: Using the Wrong Executive Job Search Model

Most female executives, when looking for their next career opportunity, fall back into old models that we learned early in our careers. These tactics keep us in the mainstream but that is where all the competition is! What we want to do is stand out, break through, and move up in our career.

During a recession, this is particularly true because women traditionally tend to make less than men and pressure to reduce our salary requirements just to land a position are strong. But that is a surefire way to keep our career circling the airport and never landing on the runway of executive leadership!

First, let’s look at the traditional method of finding a job:

  1. Create a list of target companies for which you would want to work
  2. Contact your network to find people who work for those companies currently
  3. Call your network and ask for an “informational interview”
  4. Continue the process until you find a position

But there are real problems with this approach:

  • This entails using a “front-door” approach, and there are many gatekeepers whose responsibilities include keeping you out.
  • Many female executives abandon their networks, sometimes for very legitimate reasons – such as child care, elder parent care and long hours. And, many of those in one’s network that are actually active are just peers. It seems like we are networking, but in reality, we are keeping ourselves in our comfort zone and not moving forward with new, upward-level power brokers. Regardless of how well intentioned they are, peers are often unable (or unwilling) to help you.
  • The informational interview approach is practically dead. Although your network may want to give you ten minutes of their time, in most cases they simply can’t afford to accommodate you. I know that if I granted every informational interview request that was asked of me, I’d have no time to do my real job! What is the answer to this traditional model of finding a job?

The Solution: Use a New Executive Job Search Model

The model I suggest using when looking for your next C-Level executive position is the one I teach in my MarketOne™ Executive system. It moves you from an “activity-based” approach that the traditional model employs to a “synergistic-positioning” approach that:

  1. Positions you as a top thought leader in your industry
  2. Leverages your current job, network and career for greater momentum
  3. Utilizes marketing and sales strategies to turn strangers into interested parties

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Add-ons to the Resume

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Last week I wrote about what recruiters are looking for in interview responses. Another area that a lot of candidates ask about is the resume. While a resume is the main way candidates market themselves, you may want to add these marketing materials to your toolkit:

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Careers in Finance: Office Hours with Fidelity

Learn about careers in finance as this special, live event with Fidelity Investments. Interact with representatives, explore this industry, and learn what career opportunities exist for you at Fidelity Investments. Gain first-hand knowledge of how the current events on Wall Street translate to future opportunities.

Keynote Speaker: Karen R. Korn, Managing Director of Research, Fidelity Investments

For more information and registration click here.

*Dress for this event is business casual.

Note: Please bring a photo id, and if you wish, several copies of your resume and business cards.

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Moms Get LinkedIn

WEBINAR: Moms Get LinkedIn

If you’re a mom who’s decided to return to work, you need to know about LinkedIn and how to use it effectively.

If you’re not on LinkedIn, or not using it effectively, it’s like being left out of a big party, or missing out on all the best guests who show up.
In this webinar, you’ll discover:

What LinkedIn is, and how it can help you in a job

How to get yourself set up on LinkedIn

Multiple ways to use LinkedIn to make connections and get jobs

Hi, I’m Dr. Susan Bernstein, and I’ve created an information-packed webinar on Thursday, January 27, from 10:30 – 11:00 am Pacific that is designed especially to orient mothers who are returning to work to the power of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a great tool, but often, people don’t understand how to tap into all the rich features of this powerful networking tool. I’ll show you how to do that. And, many job seekers haven’t given a lot of thought to their own job search strategy, so they’re massively underutilizing LinkedIn in the overall picture. I hate to see that. Personally, I get 60% of my clients via LinkedIn. And I’ve helped my job search clients to make connections and get jobs through LinkedIn. They open up new avenues they didn’t even know existed.

Register now

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