Has your job search ever left you feeling confused, angry, and even frightened?
That’s not uncommon. The question is, is it your personal marketing or all the companies that aren’t contacting you?
Before I go into that, I’d like to take a minute to tell you about an ExecuNet Premium member named Jackson. He’s a financial executive who most recently had a senior role in an international manufacturing company. At 58 he got displaced due to “restructuring.” Jackson took a few weeks to recenter himself before getting “back out there,” as he called it to find his Next Great Next.
Jackson let his closest LinkedIn connections know he was looking, and he contracted with a resume writing service to update his resume. He answered just shy of three dozen postings and never heard a thing, except for the form letters some companies send after they hire someone else.
He couldn’t believe it. Months had gone by, and he was getting more and more confused, angry, and frightened. He had two daughters in college, a mother in assisted living care, cars, a mortgage – you know, some combination of the bills we all wrestle with – he needed income. Additionally, he also wasn’t done with the feeling of accomplishment the challenges of his positions provided.
He needed and wanted to connect with a company, but to put it in dating app vernacular (in honor of Valentine’s Day), no one was swiping right on him.
Was it him?
Absolutely not! The man’s experience was significant. Not only was he a desirable candidate (not talking Valentine’s Day vernacular any longer!) he was impressive.
They weren’t “swiping right” because his personal marketing wasn’t doing a sufficient job of selling him.
The problem was Jackson is a financial executive, a mighty good one, who had his resume done at a service that was for mid-level managers, not high-powered executives. The marketing materials for executives (there’s more than just a resume for executives), look vastly different than what the lower levels of the org chart are using.
This is a common mistake for executives. Job search at the executive level is different than at the manager level. Jackson wasn’t even giving himself a chance by using a standard resume. If you want to stand out from the other qualified candidates, it starts with having the appropriate personal marketing materials for an executive. That’s what the candidates receiving the offers have.
ExecuNet has written the playbook for executive search. If you’d like to learn more about executive-level personal marketing materials, ExecuNet Premium is a great first step. I’m sure we can help you transform from one of many candidates into the one they’ve just got to “swipe right” on.
