Marketing Seniority in Today's Job Search
Rogelio Douglas - June
2009
Strengthening senior professionals’ candidacies
The steep downturn in the economy hit baby-boomer professionals with a combination of key factors which feeds on each other (a) a significant portion of their retirement portfolio has rapidly evaporated, combined with (b) massive layoffs which in turn dramatically complicates their search for new employment by increasing the pool of candidates and the competition for jobs.
Thus while many senior professionals are trying to remain or get back into the labor market their efforts are complicated by the need to compete heavily in a larger pool of often younger professionals combined with the unpredictability of recruiters and decision-makers valuing lengthy experience.
In some cultures seniority is valued as wisdom and desired by many. However, in an employer-driven USA market such as this the senior professionals’ ability to market and sell one’s own features, functions and benefits needs to be sharper than ever before.
Let’s first dispel a couple nagging negatives. Let’s get over the rumor that companies would prefer to hire younger employees because they are cheaper; it’s a myth, they are not cheaper, in the long run. Also, even though age discrimination may be real, companies who exercise such misjudgments deserve to come in second or outright last place in their market. It’s incumbent upon these poor performing companies to learn of the need to change their behaviors in order to take advantage of and benefit from the diversity of today’s labor pool.
Most important for senior professionals are to learn of, acknowledge and monetize the value of their extensive experience to the team they’re looking to join. There are a couple fundamental levels on which the senior professionals need to prepare and execute their search strategy:
• Sagacity -- It takes many years of practical experience -- overcoming challenges from several economic cycles, competitors, technologies, customer and society changes -- for someone to develop a keen business acumen and sharp judgment. Contrary to popular belief none of us are born with business smarts, skills and insights, even the “gurus” learned them over time by trial and error.
The misperception may lie in that rarely do we hear of the experts’ failures, mostly we hear of their successes, leaving the impression they were “born” genius. All else being equal, it’s difficult to imagine someone with a few years experience to be comparably sagacious as a candidate with decades of practical experience.
The true costs in hiring candidates of much less experience lie not in the compensation package as much as in the initial coaching and supervision the younger hire will require, replacing too-weak or outright wrong hires, and most importantly the lost business opportunities in the form of productivity and market share. When carefully analyzed the idea of hiring much younger candidates based in part on cost-savings would appear to be a very poor business decision, one where the company while saving thousands is risking millions of dollars.
• Team Leadership -- The senior professionals should have a clear edge in providing the leadership for the organization’s next generation of young stars, who else would have the experience to lead, coach, advise and mentor top performing teams. The experienced candidates with a mid-to-long term view can provide the maturity to groom younger talent underscoring a much higher probability of overall team success, a role the less experienced candidates would be challenged to effectively play.
In the search for extended career opportunities the senior professionals could be very effective focusing on research and communications, rather than age as an issue. The extensive research will help the candidates to understand the intricacies of the company’s history, goals and expectations as they relate to their technology and industry direction. This level of information can expose the challenges, risks and opportunities the company can expect in the near future.
The communications refers to the candidates developing the means to skillfully articulate: the breath of their experience, the understanding of key issues pertinent to the stated direction of the company, as the foundation of their vision for the position and ability to take on the role they can play in driving the team towards success.
This is a major sell job for the senior professionals, but it’s precisely what interviews are for, the opportunity to sell value. The best prepared candidates will eventually get the best offers. Senior professionals need to focus on positioning their wealth of experience and mature skill-set as they recognize their own seniority as a major advantage that only comes with extended experience.
Source:
http://www.gbdusa.net
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