1. Elevating Leaders. Aligning Teams. Engaging Organizations. Improving Results
Career Move Mindset
The Journey
By Gary B. Cohen
After meeting hundreds of
executives over the years and helping
them on their paths to a new position
or a new career, I have assembled a
set of tools and resources that may
help you on your path.
Mary Oliver’s poem, “The
Journey” is a good place to start. It
serves as a reminder of how hard it is
to disentangle yourself from the past
and the present, hear your own voice,
and start living a new life.
“The Journey” by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
If you feel like your life needs
saving, or you’re just desperate for a
new start, create some distance
between you and your current life.
Step out “deeper and deeper/into the
world” so that it’s just you and the
stars above. Listen to your voice.
What is it telling you to do?
“A discovery
is said to be
an accident
meeting a
prepared
mind.”
Alber Szent-
Gyorgyi
CAREERFORWARD
CO2 PARTNERS
2. 311 2 4 5
Self-Assessment Gaol Setting &
Career Planning
Resumes &
Storytelling
Social Media &
Online
Job Hunting
& Networking
in Person
3. If you want to find a new position or career that’s right
for you, first you need to know what you think is right. What
are your core values? Your core values won’t only help you
find the right path and position, but will also make you a
stronger leader, coworker, parent, or friend. I have
designed a free assessment you can find at CEOTest.com
that will help you rank your values. It takes about an hour to
complete. Don’t start it unless you’re prepared to do some
real soul searching and reflection. It’s not designed to be a
two-minute diversion, but it will reward those serious about
knowing what values do and should guide their actions.
Why are values important?
Values ultimately guide our behavior. By spending
time understanding and isolating our core values, we are
better prepared to handle relationships, difficult situations
and decisions.
Where do Values Come From?
From the time we are born we are imprinted with
values: Family, Religious, Cultural, Group, and
Government. Values may harmonize in their similarities or
collide as they are radically opposed to one another.
Most of us have a pretty good sense of our personal
value system. Unfortunately many people cannot specify
what their core values are in order of priority. If you want to
lead, you must be crystal clear about each value and what
it means to you and how they affect those around you. This
value clarification activity will help you sort through a wide
variety of values. To fully benefit you must reach down to
your core when thinking about what is important to you.
It will help to ask big questions to recognize if you can
find a situation where your values or their priority may
change due to circumstances. It is not for others to judge
so do not pick answers that you believe others would claim
are important. This is a tool to learn more about yourself
and how you operate. Be honest with yourself and your
responses. Sometimes we do not like what we secretly
perceive but that does not make it any less significant in
mastering how our values drive the way we interact with
the world.
How do I discover what are my values?
This activity will guide you to prioritize 54 values from
what you value most to what you value least. Participating
in the mental activity begins your own journey of bringing
clarity in your life around your core values. You will be able
to effectively construct better and faster decisions. An
unexpected subsequent benefit will be when you find
yourself spending more time on the most fulfilling parts of
living.
This is not an assessment tool like Meyer - Briggs
where you discover things you did not know about yourself.
This provides an approach for you and those in your
organization, family, and association to obtain greater
clarity and self - awareness. It takes your active
engagement. The effective results produced depend solely
on the amount of effort you put into the activity.
“One-third of employees say their employer’s core values
do not always line up with theirs, according to a survey of
615 Americans”
- Survey conducted on behalf of CO2 Partners
by ICR.
Three Steps to Discover Your Values
Core Values
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFOWARD
CEOTEST.COM
Once you have
entered the
assessment, you
will consecutively
click and drag each
value card that
appears on the left
side of the page to
the discard
categories that
range from "
Extremely Valued "
to " No Value " to
the right of that pile.
It is important to
sort them evenly
into five distinct
piles as they relate
to you and the
degree of value that
you attribute to
them.
Honesty
Trust
Love
Health
Knowledge
0 10 20 30 40
Value Assessment Index
Percent of Values
1
Self-Assessment
4. Assess
Leadership
Style
Just Ask
Leadership
By Gary B. Cohen
At CO2 Partners, we encourage leaders
looking for a new position or a new career to
listen to their inner voice, know their mindset,
rank their core values, and discover their
strengths. Then it’s time to and assess and
fine tune their leadership style.
As executive coaches, we don’t try to mold
leaders into the “right” way to be. To be an
authentic leader, you must act authentically.
We want you to be you. When you know your
strengths and core values, you can maximize
their impact, avoid common pitfalls, and
develop a leadership style that’s clear and
consistent. Some leaders don’t operate from
that position of confidence, don’t have a
precise awareness of their style, and often run
into the same kinds of challenges, which they
struggle to overcome.
At CO2 Partners, we offer two leadership-
assessment tools: the Just Ask Leadership
Assessment (free with a purchase of the book,
Just Ask Leadership) and the 360
Assessment. The Just Ask Leadership
Assessment is a single-user model that will
help define your leadership style and help you
ask clearer and more effective questions. The
360 Assessment incorporates feedback from
your current or former coworkers. It only takes
7 minutes for your coworkers to complete, and
it provides a rich, more complete picture of
your leadership style.
Whether you use the CO2 Partners tools or
arrive at your leadership style in another way,
it’s important that you’re able to articulate your
strengths and values, and how they fit in with
your style. When you know your leadership
style, you’ll show up stronger for interviews
and you’ll be able to recognize positions and
organizations that are tailor-made for you.
Discover
Your
Strengths
Strengths
Finder 2.0
By Gary B. Cohen
“If you want to improve your life and
the lives of those around you, you must
take action.” - Tom Rath
If you haven’t tried StrengthsFinder
2.0, now is the time. When you purchase
the book you are given a code to access
the assessment online. Once that’s
completed, you will be given a
comprehensive Strengths Discovery and
Action Planning Guide that is based on
your StrengthsFinder 2.0 results. This
guide features an in-depth dive into what
make you unique, using more than 5,000
new personalized Strengths Insights that
they have discovered in running this tool
over many years.
People looking for a new job or career
usually feel like their strengths aren’t being
or haven’t ever been fully utilized. It’s the
perfect time to assess your strengths and
learn about strengths you didn’t even
realize you have. Armed with this
knowledge, you can make better decisions
about jobs or careers that would be right
for you–and you can do a better job of
selling yourself and your strengths to
potential employers.
CAREERFORWARD
“When we're able to
put most of our energy
into developing our
natural talents,
extraordinary room for
growth exists. So, a
revision to the "You-
can-be-anything-you-
want-to-be" maxim
might be more
accurate: You cannot
be anything you want
to be—but you can be
a lot more of who you
already are.”
Tom Rath, Author of
Strength Finder 2.0
“Greatness happens when
you ask. Keep Asking.”
- Gary B. Cohen
5. My former business partner, Rick Diamond, created a great tool
to help people discover their optimal path. He took Jim Collins’
Venn diagram for the Hedgehog Concept for business success
and applied it to an individual’s career search. Collins’ diagram
has three circles: “What are you deeply passionate about?”
“What drives your economic engine?” and “What can you be the
best in the world at?” Where all three circles intersect lies the Big
Hairy Audacious Goal.
Rick’s worksheet starts with those same questions, but with
another goal in mind–finding the right job for you. He provides
lots of helpful exercises to help draw out your individual strengths
and sources of motivation. The end result is a very specific and
individually tailored career goal.
Check out Rick’s Three Circles of Professional Development. You
will find it quite helpful for creating clarity. Also check out Collins’
suggestions for how to find your own personal hedgehog, which
involves doing some similar sorts of personal inventory then
presenting your findings to your mentors.
What is Your Hedgehog?
Big Hairy Audacious Goal
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
What are you deeply
passionate about?
What drives your
economic engine?
What can you be the
best in the world at?
2
Goal Setting &
Career Planning
6. It’s one thing to want a new job or career; it’s another
thing to actively pursue it. If you don’t develop a plan
with specific actions, deadlines, and accountability,
what’s to keep you from getting distracted by your
everyday concerns and obligations? You need leverage–
both positive and negative–to move forward.
Executive coaches and headhunters can supply
leverage and help you attain your goal, but there are
steps you can take on your own, too. I’ve developed a
Goal Development Worksheet that can be used for
career changes and other goals as well. It will help you
identify benefits and potential obstacles, plan specific
actions to overcome those obstacles, and set and meet
deadlines. The Goal Development Worksheet works, in
part, because it encourages you to think beyond
yourself. How might a new career or position benefit
others (like your family and friends)? How might some of
them help hold you accountable to the goal?
Activate your goal of a new job or career. Start applying
leverage.
Activate Your Goal
Goal Development Worksheet
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFOWARD
“You are never too old to set another goal
or to dream a new dream.”
C.S. Lewis
7. A personal marketing plan isn’t a bio or a résumé,
though it draws from the same well. A personal
marketing plan demonstrates how your unique skills
and talents would be ideal for a specific position (or
two) in a particular organization/market. A personal
marketing plan should contain the following:
Position objective
Inventory of your key skills & strengths (that
will allow you to excel at this position)
Personal marketing statement (summary of
your qualifications–the “elevator speech”)
Market preferences (industries, geographic
locations, travel expectations, size of
company)
List of target companies (including names
of your contacts there)
A personal marketing plan should be concise (1 or 2
pages at most). Bring it to informational interviews to
demonstrate both your goals and preparedness.
For information on how to create a more in-depth
personal marketing plan, check out Deborah
Lawton’s piece for McGraw-Hill called Marketing
YOU, INC.–Preparing a Personal Marketing Plan.
You may find it easier to start with this longer, more
in-depth form before creating a shorter, more
concise plan to pass out to prospective employers
or industry insiders.
“Often the solution to a problem is so simple that
thousands of people have looked at it without seeing
it. When an idea is clever or complicated, however,
we should be suspicious. It probably won’t work
because it’s not simple enough.”
- Reis & Trout
Creating a Personal Marketing Plan
Positioning Yourself
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
Key Words to Use
• P&L Responsibility
• New Business
Development
• Organizational
Leadership
• Multisite
Operations
• Team Building
• Crisis
Management
• Organic Growth
• Acquisition
Growth
• Performance
Focused
• Strategic Planning
• Budgeting &
Finance
• Marketing
• Operations
• Optimized
• Reorganized
• Effective
Don’t use the same résumé for every job application. Re-craft your résumé based upon the specific
job description as well as your knowledge of the organization and industry.
Select a format that highlights your skills and achievements.
Build action words into your resume.
Be memorable, but not annoying.
Don’t shy away from an electronic formats like Visual CV or about.me; here’s my about.me résumé if
you want a sense of how one looks.
For more formatting options, check out the Microsoft templates or try Résumé Resource.
For convenience, it’s hard to beat Résumé Builder, which will will convert your LinkedIn profile into a
résumé with many different formats.
Making Your Résumé Standout
Résumé Recommendations
3
Resumes &
Storytelling
8. We’re a visual culture. We used to count “readers”; now
we count “eyeballs.” Even newspapers–the ones that
remain–are printed in color and the ratio of text to
images has tilted heavily toward images. People want to
read and hear what you have to say, but they also want
to know what you have to show for yourself.
Today, your friends, colleagues, competitors, and
customers may see your avatar more than they see you.
What impression are they likely to get? Will they see a
blurry photo, a picture of a kid or dog, or an actor who
looks like you?
Here are three steps to make sure you make a good,
consistent impression:
1. Be intentional about the image and brand you’re
communicating via social media. Whether you use a
professional shot, an amazing candid, or another sort of
creative image, make sure that it represents you–as a
person and a professional.
2. Don’t change your profile picture from week to week.
People associate your content with your image–more so
than your name. Changing your image blurs or severs
the association between you and your content.
3. Use the same avatar image in all social media. Try
Gravatar, which follows you from site to site, appearing
beside your name when you comment or post on a blog
or web forum.
An Avatar Is Worth a 1,000 Words
Get the Picture
By Gary B. Cohen
“Of all of our
inventions for mass
communication,
pictures still speak
the most universally
understood
language.”
Walt Disney
CAREERFORWARD
9. Boost Your Savvy Via
LinkedIn
Relationships Matter
By Gary B. Cohen
Leaders and job hunters are judged
by their savvy, and LinkedIn profiles
are a pretty good indicator of savvy.
How does your LinkedIn profile look?
Prospective employers will check out
your LinkedIn profile and
connections. They want to see your
circle of influence, since your ability
to get things done as an executive is
often dictated by who you know. The
number of your connections matters,
but so does the quality. British
anthropologist Robin Dunbar
theorized that there was a cognitive
limit to the amount of stable social
relationships people can maintain–
somewhere between 100 and 230
(with 150 often the value used).
Make sure the top 150 or so of your
connections are part of your
network; after all, they may be
critical to your ability to get a new
and better position. According to a
recent study by Challenger, Gray &
Christmas, Inc., 80% of positions are
filled based on personal
relationships.
Your connections at your past firm
may not hold much value to your
new employer, so be sure to build a
broad LinkedIn network. Reconnect
with old friends or coworkers, who
would speak highly of you and your
work. You don’t have to resurrect the
friendship entirely, but let them know
that you could use their contacts and
leverage in your job search.
If you’re not familiar with how to set
up an effective LinkedIn profile, get
started and get savvy. You can start
here, and you might want to watch
this video and read this set of
instructions.
By Gary B. Cohen
Both your résumé and your bio
should tell a story–one with a
beginning, middle, and an end.
Where did you come from, where are
you now, and where do you want to
go?
Many HR reps spend two minutes or
less per application, so your story
must be compelling and consistent–
across all media. Your web site,
social media profiles, and portfolios
(if you have them) should all tell
parts of the same story. Prospective
employers and customers
(particularly if you’re a designer,
entrepreneur, or creative) will check
for consistency and quality wherever
they can.
Be artful, but truthful. A study done
by the Society for Human Resource
Managers revealed that 53% of
résumés contain lies of some sort.
Don’t get caught up in a lie.
Update your résumé and/or bio
regularly, so that you know your story
well and can communicate it
effectively and accurately to others.
CAREERFORWARD
“A word is dead
when it is said
some say, I say it
just begins to live
that day.”
Emily Dickinson
LinkedIn Savvy Professionals
Eighty Percent of positions are filled based on
Personal Relationships.
Résumés & the Art of Storytelling
53% Lie on Résumé
4
Social Media &
Online
10. You may not care about how closely tied others’ personal
and work lives have become. You may not judge others’
personal choices. But you can’t control how others may
judge you. Whether you like it or not, people are going to
judge you based upon your public Facebook page. You
are out there and exposed. In the future, you may be
even more exposed, since Facebook’s privacy practices
are ever-changing.
The content of your Facebook posts will be judged by
others and so will be the quantity. Too much posting
suggests that you’re avoiding work. How might others
interpret your posts and the frequency of your posts?
Your Facebook page should represent you and your
brand well. Does it?
Make Facebook work for you. Clean up your page so
that others want to work with you (not feel like they know
too much information about your personal life), and use
Facebook to network. Here are two sources that are
helpful for Facebook beginners: one from American
Majority and another from Squidoo. And here’s one that
will help you turn Facebook into an effective networking
tool.
Put Facebook to Work
Cleaning Up Your Online Image
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
11. What’s Your Next Best Career?
Career Insights
By Gary B. Cohen
After years serving as president and co-founder of my
company, and growing it from two to 2,200 employees, I
took a sabbatical. I signed up for some art classes,
interviewed over a hundred leaders in a variety of fields,
and began writing a book, Just Ask Leadership: Why
Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions
(McGraw Hill 2009). In the meantime, I received a
number of unprompted requests from leaders, asking if
I would coach them.
Coaching wasn’t a career move I’d ever really
entertained, but before long I had a full slate of
coaching clients. Friends and acquaintances would
often say, “I can’t believe it took you this long to get into
coaching” and “I always thought you’d be good at this.”
And yet, nobody had ever mentioned this to me while I
was in my previous career!
What career insights are you withholding from friends
and loved ones? What new career might prompt you to
say, “I can’t believe it took you so long to figure that out”
or “I always thought you’d be good at that”? Give
yourself permission to tell them, and invite them to
share the same insights with you. Even if you’re satisfied
in your current career, what’s the harm in learning other
ways to utilize your strengths?
Increase Your Klout
Score
How much Klout do
you have?
By Gary B. Cohen
Klout measures your level of
influence online. To achieve a
high Klout score, you must drive
action online (by getting lots of
“likes” and comments on
Facebook and LinkedIn, retweets
on Twitter and re-shares on
Google+, for instance). Just
generating online content isn’t
enough; people have to engage
with your content. The exact
calculation of Klout scores is a bit
murky, but your score can give
you a quick barometer of your
social media savvy and the
quality of your content. Search
firms and Human Resource
departments are using Klout quite
a bit now, and that’s reason
enough to be aware of your Klout.
The average Klout score is 20; the
highest possible is 100.
According to the articles I have
read, you should aim to get a
score over 40. If you are in very
public position, your number
should be higher (over 60). Here
are some random scores: The
Aflac Duck has a Klout score of
49 because of his tweeter volume,
Warren Buffet has a 58, and
Gregg Steinhafel, CEO of Target,
has no Klout score (I hope he
does not find himself in search for
a new gig after scoring a bull’s-
eye).
Klout.com’s clout is growing. If
you want yours to, too, make sure
you know your Klout score and try
to improve it.
CAREERFORWARD
The Ultimate Question to Ask in Job
Transition
5
Job Hunting &
Networking in Person
12. The informational interviews I’ve given typically
fall into two categories:
1. The job hunter arrives relatively unprepared
and asks questions that arise through the
natural course of conversation. He wants to
know about the type of work I do and if I have
any recommendations based upon his
particular experiences and skills.
2. The job hunter has researched the local
market and targeted a few specific companies
that she would like to work for or with. She has
clear goals and targets.
Which job hunter would you want to spend time
with? Which one would you feel inclined to
lobby for?
For me, the answer is revealed in our
interactions. I am more productive and focused
when the job hunter comes prepared. When
that person slides a list of top companies to me,
I will rattle off the names of my connections at
those locations. She’ll leave not only with a list
of contacts, but with a strategy for how to
approach them.
Job hunters should spend some time in the
library, researching businesses, before
embarking on informational interviews. The
James J. Hill Library (a private, non-profit
business reference library) is one of the best
resources I know for job hunters. It has
tremendous databases, and you can hire a
researcher to help you figure out how to find the
businesses you are looking for. They also have
an online service that is affordable and allows
you to use their services from home.
Job hunters should also research the people
they’re interviewing, using LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, and the company’s web site. On
Facebook and LinkedIn, look for common
friends, groups, and interests to prove that
you’re part of some of the same circles. On
Twitter, look to identify interests and trends. As
for the company’s web site, bone up on the
exact nature of work the interviewee does, so
you don’t bore him or her with simple questions.
Here are a few other tips for job hunters looking
to network:
1. Advise the person you’re interviewing of your
connections at targeted companies and the
current status of your outreach efforts, so that
you’re not working at cross purposes. You don’t
want to waste the interviewee’s time or
generosity.
2. Focus on two or three networking
connections–the ones that seem most
interesting or useful to you. People like to talk
about their wealth of connections and their own
past experiences. Be gracious, but stop the
people you’re interviewing when they get to two
or three suggestions that will really help. Focus
on how best to approach these targets. With a
short list of targets, the interviewee will likely
put more effort into helping you get connected.
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it
would not be called research, would it?”
Albert Einstein
Work to Do Before You Network
Research, Research, Research
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
Research
James J. Hill
Library
Online
13. The purpose of an informational interview is to get
information about a field of work from someone who has
firsthand knowledge. Seems simple enough.
Unfortunately, some people approach informational
interviews as informal interviews and don’t do enough
advance preparation. Here are four tips that will help get
you in the right frame of mind if you’re about to interview
an industry insider:
1. Do not ask for a job. The people you’re
interviewing are aware that you’re looking for
work, but they didn’t agree to interview you for a
position. They agreed simply to provide you with
information about their position, organization,
and/or industry. Informational interviews can and
sometimes do lead to job offers, but it’s not your
place to ask for one.
2. Approach the interview like a dress rehearsal for
a job interview. Imagine questions you’ll be
asked and prepare your answers. Have stories
to tell about challenges you’ve faced in the past
and how you overcame them. These stories
should be engaging and memorable, but
concise.
3. Don’t talk too much. You should be prepared to
answer questions, but your principal role is to
ask them. Interview subjects expect to be asked
good and interesting questions, and they expect
to be given ample time to answer. They want to
reflect on their career paths and pass along
advice they picked up along the way. Let them
be the stars of the show.
4. Networking is not free; it is built on reciprocity.
The people helping you today may be reaching
back to you when you are in a position to help.
The mistake many people make is thinking that
building a network is a onetime event. If you use
it as a onetime event, you can expect many
closed doors to you the next time you need
support. Report back to the people you’ve
interviewed periodically–both on your career
progress and with ideas, articles, or
opportunities they might find of interest.
In addition to following these four tips, pick up a copy of
Never Eat Alone. It’s a must-read before beginning the
information interviewing process.
4 Informational Interviewing Tips
Be Informed about Informational Interviews
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
14. Your CARs Can Get You
Hired
Challenge, Action &
Results
By Gary B. Cohen
Getting hired can be difficult, even
for talented leaders – not because
they’re not the right for particular
jobs, but because they don’t know
how to tell their stories. Chris Cohen,
a partner at the Chandler Group and
one of the top three executive
recruiters in Minneapolis working
with non-profits, instructs job
candidates to know their CARs
(Challenges,Actions, and Results).
CARs will help you tell your story in
the form employers want to hear–the
challenges you’ve faced, the actions
you took to overcome these
challenges, and the results you
secured for your organization.
Brainstorm as many CARs as you
can, then write down the best ones.
Commit them to memory and work
them into your resume and cover
letters. Have them in your proverbial
pocket so that you can respond
thoughtfully in interviews, and share
your best CARs with recruiters so
that they can retell them to their
clients.
If you want your CARs to get off the
lot and get you hired, practice and
perfect your stories. Great stories
stick.
Create a Personal
Brand
What is Your Personal
Brand?
By Gary B. Cohen
You may not like to think of yourself
as a brand, but you are one. Most
people think of you as the X Person
or the Y Specialist. If they don’t…
well, that’s a problem. If people
don’t associate you with something
distinct and valuable, then they
may not hire or even remember
you.
If you want to leave a lasting
impression, transmit a clear and
specific brand message. People
often think of me as the Question
Guy–one of the benefits of writing a
book (Just Ask Leadership). They
also think of me as an Executive
Coach and Leadership
Development Expert–since I work
and write in those areas. These
associations are ones I embrace
and cultivate.
What is your brand message?
If you don’t have a brand message,
start promoting one or two of your
strengths, so that you gain traction in
others’ minds. They’ll think of you
when someone asks, “Do you know
anyone who could…?” In doing so, it
may seem like you’re limiting your
possibilities and not presenting all
you have to offer, but, trust me, the
alternative is far worse. The more
information, interests, and skills you
present, the more blurry and
forgettable you’ll be. You may blend
in, but you won’t stand out.
If you already have a personal
brand, but you’re not happy with it,
you’ll have to work assiduously to rid
yourself of it. I worked in the call
center industry for many years, and
I’m proud of what I accomplished
there, but when I left, I wanted to do
and be something new. For that
reason, you will rarely see any
association between my branding
and that industry. I worked hard to
own a new and different space in
people’s minds.
What space do you want to own?
CAREERFORWARD
“ A reputation for a
thousand years may
depend upon the conduct
of a single moment.”
Ernest Bramah
“To know oneself is to study
oneself in action with another
person.”
- Bruce Lee
15. People often list references as quickly and
thoughtlessly as if they’re filling in their birth
date or contact numbers. They don’t, however,
bother to find out what their references will say
about them. You might be surprised what some
references say about their former coworkers or
students. It can be pretty scary.
Here are four ways to improve your references:
1. Alert your references to positions you’re
applying for, so they will be prepared
for phone calls or e-mails from
prospective employers.
2. Ask your references what they might
say about you. This direct line of
questioning will force them to tip their
hands. You may find that one can’t
really serve as a strong reference.
That’s bad news, but good information
to know, so that you don’t jeopardize
this and future applications. And if they
are a strong reference, you’ll give them
an opportunity to rehearse what they
might say.
3. Provide your references with some
talking points (stories &
accomplishments). Subtly remind them
about what you did for them and what
you’ve been doing recently.
4. Ask if they would be willing to give you
a LinkedIn reference as well. When
someone gives you a public
recommendation, they are more likely
to stay consistent with that testimonial
later.
If you do these four things, you won’t have to
worry about your references saying scary
things about you!
Credit... is the only enduring testimonial to
man's confidence in man.
James Blish
4 Ways to Improve Your References
Testimonials
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
“Appreciation
is a wonderful
thing: It
makes what is
excellent in
others belong
to us as well.”
- Voltaire
16. There are two type of search firms: retained
and non-retained. Non-retained firms work
primarily for themselves and not for job
candidates or employers. Retained firms
represent employers looking to make a hire.
Both types of search firms are trying to match
job candidates with employers, but they don’t
always have the time or inclination to assist job
hunters. Here are four tips for working with
search firms, so that you don’t waste their time
or yours:
1. Before trying to contact the firm by
phone, go to their website and upload your
latest resume or CV. Most firms are database-
driven, regardless of their size. They’re looking
for key words and skill sets that match their
searches. They won’t want to spend time on
the phone with you unless you’re a known and
viable candidate.
2. Search firms are not job counselors.
Don’t go to them for job-searching advice.
You’ll come across looking like an amateur, not
one of the capable executives they’re seeking.
3. If you don’t fit any of their searches, it’s
okay to ask if they know another firm in town
that might have a bitter fit.
4. Don’t do an end-run and contact one of
the search firm’s clients directly. These
employers chose the search firm for a reason
and will feel obligated to follow the process.
“ Ambition is a dream with a V8 Engine”
Elvis Presley
4 Tips for Working with Search Firms
Understanding Search Firms
By Gary B. Cohen
CAREERFORWARD
“Always bear
in mind that
your own
resolution to
succeed is
more
important
than any
other.”
- Abraham
Lincoln
