Networking Archives -

Mastering the Informational Interview

For executives between careers, the daily grind of the job search becomes more stifling every day. Connections go unanswered, interviews becomes stressful and unrewarding, and discouragement always seems just around the corner. But one executive tool not only strengthens connections and increases industry knowledge, it boosts job search verve. If you’re struggling to find a new career, meet your new business partner: the informational interview.

The Importance of Informational Interviews

Informational interviews have many facets, all of which benefit job seekers. They build a connection with someone who may help you land a job, they prepare you for the position (or industry) where you’d like to work, and they give you unique insights into the inner workings of a specific company. Informational interviews help executives approach potential jobs with clear goals and insider information on how to accomplish those goals.

How to Maximize an Informational Interview

Develop a strategy. Like yourself, each interviewer has motives for conducting an informational interview. He may be doing a favor to a mutual friend, he may be screening you for a future with his company, or he may have his own research in mind. If the interview is secured through a mutual contact, prepare a series of questions. Keep the interview casual, but work your skills and job history into the conversation. If the interview is secured directly, approach it as an unofficial interview. Keep a polished resume on hand and come prepared to not only to ask, but also to answer questions.
Take notes. No matter how high on the food chain your interviewer is, he or she will have valuable insights about the current climate of the industry and the inner workings of his or her company. Jot down information that may prepare you for your next career — or help you land it.
Ask the right questions. And no, “Do you have openings available?” is not one of them. Come prepared with 5-10 thought-provoking questions about the industry and the interviewer’s role within it. Only discuss your executive talents in the framework of casual conversation. If your interviewer has questions for you, allow him or her to redirect the conversation at his or her leisure.
Follow up. Informational interviews take just as much time as job interviews. Thank your contact for sacrificing personal time to give you insights into his or her position. Send an email or handwritten note within 48 after your interview.

For more information about building an executive career, contact Colleen at Executive Resumes Atlanta.

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How to Exit an Unfulfilling Job

Career transitions present their own challenges, whether you’re leaving because of another job, dissatisfaction at work, or performance issues. The mark of a great leader isn’t finding 100% success, but in knowing how to behave when closing a chapter in your career. If you’re leaving your current career, build your personal brand by making a graceful exit.

Know When to Go

Whether you’re stepping down voluntarily, abdicating for a new position, or simply reading the writing on the wall, how you leave a company can determine job recommendations, career opportunities, and your reputation with your former coworkers. If you’re leaving voluntarily, give your boss sufficient notice to replace you. Be honest about your reasons for leaving, but don’t burden your supervisors with too much information. Thank your team for the experiences, relationships, and skills you cultivated during your tenure at the company. If you’ve been let go, it’s still a good career move to strengthen relationships with your partners in the trenches. Gracefully recognize that one stage of your life is complete, and thank your board for the opportunity.

Make a Smooth Transition

Gain a reputation for competence and class by easing the transition for your executive replacement. Finish incomplete projects, document procedures, and forward any pertinent emails to the new exec in charge. Consider a few days of hands-on training with your replacement if asked.

Network

Just because it didn’t work out with current position doesn’t mean you wasted time. Maintain relationships with coworkers, clients, and supervisors you built connections with along the way. They’ve seen your leadership traits firsthand and may keep you in mind when executive positions become available in the future.

Transitioning jobs? Call Executive Resumes Atlanta to build your executive career.

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Make an Impression on LinkedIn

In today’s digitally-driven age, diligent work and measurable results alone won’t drive an executive career. Getting recognition, finding new opportunities, and expanding your professional network all depend on personal branding. Most C-level employees have rotund LinkedIn profiles, but even the most successful businesspeople often miss key strategies for fully optimizing their online brands. Stand out on LinkedIn with these 5 tips for digital self-promotion.

3 Tips for Standing Out on LinkedIn

Get personal. Filling out your headline, profile, and job summary isn’t enough to catch the eye of Atlanta’s top recruiters. To fully utilize your professional network, hone your LinkedIn profile until it’s concise and professional without erasing your personality. As in personal networking situations, recruiters scour online profiles for executives who will meld with a company’s established vision and culture.
Engage others. Stagnant LinkedIn profiles don’t win jobs and influence HR teams. If you’re struggling with staying active on LinkedIn, research how other executives in your industry manage their profiles. Join groups, add compelling and informative updates, follow companies whose work inspires you, and network through mutual connections.
Don’t forget keywords. Although LinkedIn may feel like a virtual elevator pitch, don’t forget to optimize for search engines, too. Executives connect with more (and more relevant) professionals when they carefully choose relevant keywords for their skills, bios, and job descriptions.

Executive Resumes Atlanta specializes in helping executives find career success by their restructuring their resumes and optimizing personal branding efforts. For expert advice on creating an impactful LinkedInProfile, contact Colleen.

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How STEM Executives Can Grow Their Professional Networks

Despite what most professionals would suppose, HR teams in STEM fields frequently hire talent culled from business networks. This puts many engineers, accountants, and tech gurus at a disadvantage: STEM executives must typically work harder to find networking opportunities because their careers naturally lend themselves to a more individualized mindset. Executives looking for a career in the tech industry must hone their professional networking skills to find a satisfying new position.

Networking Tips for STEM Executives

Plan ahead. Many facts-oriented professionals find networking a challenge, but STEM executives must network if they hope to thrive. To smooth the conversation, plan a short anecdote to break the ice, have a 2-5 minute sales pitch prepared, and pay attention to the conversation to determine an appropriate time to request additional information.
Show some personality. It’s easy to get stuck in business mode, but STEM executives, just like their sales and marketing counterparts, spend enough time being all business. Showing personality at networking events — in addition to making the hiring process less boring — often demonstrates creativity, team building skills, and how well a job candidate would fit into the company culture.
Utilize your existing network. If your network comes up dry for job opportunities, that doesn’t mean your connections are worthless. Broaden your network through the industry professionals you already know and never pass up an introduction at a party, work function, or networking event.
Practice. Whether you’re introverted or extroverted, practice is the key to making an impact at a networking event. Practice your introduction, pitch, and organic conversational skills every week to hone your networking skills.

Find a new executive career by contacting Executive Resumes Atlanta for a professionally written resume.

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Networking for Tech Professionals

Regardless of someone’s speciality or the number of year’s they’ve observed an industry, they’re bound to have a few misconceptions about the nuances of internal structure for specific businesses. Many of these suppositions are based on how particular industries hire, promote, and educate its talent. And a substantial portion of conventional job search wisdom, particularly regarding executive networking, is based on false assumptions.

Networking in Tech Fields

People-oriented careers — retail, public relations, and marketing, to name a few — have a logical reputation for requiring more people-oriented job search methods. Meanwhile, industry outsiders and STEM professionals alike typically assume that engineering and computing jobs require more skills-based job search methods, such as creating a powerful executive resume, designing an impressive project sample, and garnering high quality recommendations. In fact, a recent study by LinkedIn proves the opposite true: technologically based fields need highly specialized employees, so they frequently hire based on shared education, work experience, or personal recommendations from shared contacts. The industries that most frequently hire fresh talent from networking pools include:

Computer gaming
Computer and network security
Venture capital and private equity
Political organizations
Wireless
Management consulting
Defense and space
Computer software
Movies/film
Computer hardware

Women in STEM Jobs

As any woman specializing in a STEM career knows, these industries are largely male-oriented. Women often face discrimination in both the hiring process and the promotion process. Creating a strong business network is critical to female executives seeking a career in science, technology, engineering, or math.

To learn more about personal marketing and networking for STEM executives, call Colleen at Executive Resumes Atlanta.

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Craft an Expert Holiday Sales Pitch

The holiday season offers myriad chances to extend your professional network and mine new career opportunities. Every December executives are inundated with invitations to work parties, social functions, and a number of other superlative networking opportunities. Whether your job search is active during the holiday season or temporarily on hold, take advantage of your holiday social circle by developing a strong elevator pitch for this year’s holiday functions.

Why Form an Elevator Pitch?

Self-promotion is a challenge in the best of times, but at a holiday party you must not only overcome personal hangups, but also contend with a crowded room, tenuous introductions, and a shortage of time. Having a well-crafted elevator pitch can help you make an impression instead of leaving you fumbling by the snack table during networking opportunities like holiday office parties. A concise, informative elevator sales pitch allows executives to introduce themselves to visiting CEOs, leadership teams within their current companies, and experts in industries that may sound appealing as future career paths. The more you polish your self-promotion sales pitch, the better you can build a professional network when you find yourself in a situation with an unexpected opportunity for developing your career.

How to Craft the Perfect Self-Pitch

A good elevator sales pitch is concise, informative, and well-branded. Remember these rules of a good self-promotion elevator pitch:

Keep the pitch between 60 seconds and 3 minutes, with room for expansion or abbreviation based on your audience
Share your goal (e.g. gaining new knowledge, expanding your network, broadening your industry education)
Identify how you can provide value to your new business contact
Use specific, actionable words
Utilize your personal brand, sharing your story in creative ways
Wrap up with a clear call to action
Follow up several days after the initial pitch with a quick phone call, email, or holiday greeting card

Do you need help transforming your executive story into a concise, actionable sales pitch? Call Executive Resumes Atlanta for help honing your personal brand.

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Happy Thanksgiving, Atlanta!

For business executives, the holiday season provides myriad opportunities for professional growth. From Thankgiving until New Year’s CEOs, COOs, board members, and other corporate leaders will face unique challenges, find fresh career paths, and increase their networking reach. Studies show that job searching during the holiday season gives executives a clear advantage in their industries. Studies also show the benefit of unplugging from work, email, and the executive job search to rejuvenate physically and mentally.

Whether you anticipate a productive weekend or four days of refocusing on your personal life, take a few hours this Thursday to give thanks for the blessings in your life. A healthy work/life balance is crucial to personal and professional success. Stepping back to examine our lives objectively allows us to refresh, reprioritize, and re-engage as necessary. This holiday season, give thanks for your career, your family, and the untold possibilities on the horizon.

Happy Thanksgiving from Executive Resumes Atlanta!

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Take Advantage of Holiday Networking Opportunities

For executives looking for fresh careers, the holiday season offers unique opportunities for growth and development. During the time between Christmas and the New Year, many CEOs, COOs, board members, and other executives take time off to recharge and reconnect with their loved ones. Stepping back to reengage with personal responsibilities is proven to increase the productivity, focus, and drive of business executives. Professionals who take advantage of excess of free time to find a new career path will face slimmer competition during the holidays, increasing the likelihood that a well-written executive resume will prompt a follow-up. Whether you’re taking a break or reinvigorating your job search, every executive building their career should take advantage of holiday networking.

Tips for Holiday Networking Success

Find a partner. In some cases, networking safety blankets are a boon. Mingling at an office party with a friend or coworker allows you to feel more confident, increasing the likelihood that you’ll approach senior executives and strike up pertinent conversations. Networking with a friend also opens more business channels. Your friend likely has connections to share; you can pay back your coworker’s kindness by introducing her to the executive contacts in your business network.
Look for opportunities. Striking up a conversation with an unknown executive at a holiday party is a daunting prospect. Take advantage of the setting to garner business connections without appearing pushy. Seek out the host of the party to thank him for his hospitality, strike up a conversation with the coworker standing solo at the snack table, and remain vigilant for opportunities to connect, such as discussing your favorite holiday movies with a visiting business partner.
Play it cool. Are you searching for a new job before resigning from your current position? Networking at a holiday party doesn’t have to blow your cover. Focus on making contacts, finding commonality, and building relationships; leave business and development for subsequent conversations.
Follow up. Networking at a holiday function means nothing if you don’t cultivate new relationships. Remember to send new business contacts a holiday greeting to strengthen the connection; chances are you’ll open the door to future opportunities for career advancement.

Have questions about navigating the challenging world of the holiday job hunt? Call Executive Resumes Atlanta for more information.

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How to Take Advantage of the Holiday Season to Find a New Career

For many professionals, the holiday season whirls by in a flurry of meetings and deadlines. Many job seekers – operating under the assumption that searching for a job in November or December is ineffective at best – take advantage of the lull between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to recharge and refocus. These job seekers have missed an incredible opportunity to hone their focus, connect with new professional networks, and garner fresh career opportunities.

Outpacing the Competition

Think twice before jetting off this Christmas.

Unless they’re seeking seasonal work, most job hunters use the holidays as a mini break from finding a new career. This tactic is easily justified; after all, if you’re overwhelmed with work, personal obligations, and the holiday hubbub, potential employers must be as well. However, if you’ve spent any time in the HR department of a corporation, you know that December delivers more than just holiday gifts. Many companies determine their yearly budgets in the fall, giving them the funds and the incentive to solidify their leadership teams before the new quarter begins on January 1st. The holiday season job searcher has less competition and more potential leads than an executive searching for a new career at any other time of the year. It’s an excellent opportunity for finding a new career with a company you love.

Honing Your Elevator Pitch

The holidays may seem inordinately busy, but they’re often punctuated with lulls amidst all the activity. Job seekers – especially those who are unemployed – have more downtime than you’d imagine during the holidays. Put your free time to good use by polishing your executive resume, researching companies you’d like to work for, and crafting a short, powerful elevator pitch for holiday parties.

Season’s Greetings

Networking is by far the best job search opportunity afforded by the holiday season. Thanksgiving to Christmas is an endless stream of holiday gatherings, reunions, and charity events. Strengthen your personal connections and make use of your professional network to find career opportunities at holiday parties and seasonal functions. Family celebrations, office parties, and industry fundraisers abound during the holidays, giving executive job searchers no dearth of opportunities to connect, build their network, and capture attention with a honed elevator pitch.

Do you have questions about crafting a powerful executive resume, making an impact on LinkedIn, or finding a job during the holidays? Call Executive Resumes Atlanta.

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3 Tips to Maximize LinkedIn Marketing

Most business professionals are familiar with LinkedIn’s online networking system, but few know just how many career opportunities bypass them daily. Executives are inundated with personal branding and social media marketing information. In the wake of so much information, it’s advantageous to take a step back and remember the basics of LinkedIn marketing.

How to Successfully Navigate LinkedIn

Mine recommendations, not endorsements. “Endorsement” is the buzzword in the LinkedIn personal marketing sphere, but as with any networking tactic, the more personal option makes a better professional impression. Accept endorsements from respected colleagues for your top executive skills, but don’t ask for endorsements. Instead ask a few superlative members of your executive team to write a recommendation. Recommendations are more personal, more compelling, and better display your executive skills.
Timing is everything. The key to LinkedIn success is to stay active, even if you’re not actively searching for a new career. Follow revolutionary leaders in your industry, update your profile to reflect new challenges and skill sets, and refrain from asking for multiple recommendations and endorsements at once. LinkedIn timestamps their data, making it obvious to recruiters (and your current employer) when you’re scrambling to update your LinkedIn profile in the hopes of landing a new job.
Give and take. Networking is not solely about seeking opportunities, but about forming mutually beneficial business relationships. If a business associate endorses one of your top skills, peruse their profile for a skill you can substantiate. When you write a professional recommendation on LinkedIn, ask your connection to return the favor. Be specific about which professional successes, leadership situations, and executive skills you’d like them to praise. But remember to choose your connections wisely. Endorsing the merits of a coworker is not simply a reflection of them, but of you as well.

Executive Resumes Atlanta is an Atlanta-based executive-level career marketing service. Call Colleen for more information about how a professionally written LinkedIn profile can help maximize your career success.

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