The telephone rings. A voice at the other end checks if it is convenient to talk, starts to describe the job of your dreams, and enquires if you might be interested.

Well, maybe it doesn’t always go as perfectly as that. The ‘voice’ may forget to ask how convenient it is to chat, or the job they want to discuss is too junior for you. Like so many things in life, when you don’t want to hear from the head-hunters, they seem to phone constantly, yet when you’re looking for something new, the calls never seem to materialise. But putting that aside, how do the head-hunters know about you? Why did they pick you on this occasion?

Head-hunters tend to use two techniques to identify candidates. One of these is desk research where they will use a variety of directories, telephone lists, membership lists, annual reports, etc to identify individuals of an appropriate level within specific industries or sectors. Indeed, if you are at Finance Director or Financial Controller level, then the chances are you can be identified relatively easily and therefore can easily be picked up by a head-hunter.

The other method is sourcing. Here, a head-hunter will talk to a large number of people who will in turn provide ideas and comments on prospective candidates. These people may be in associated or similar fields. For instance in finance, a head-hunter may talk to industry specialists for a general view, bankers and stockbrokers for a City perspective and other accountants for a technical assessment. They may even talk to analysts and journalists for the public perception of an individual. Sourcing may go further than this, where Non Executive Directors and Chairmen may be spoken to, or even people who have recently left a major organisation, since they will be able to comment upon colleagues they have left behind.

There is a common misconception that to be ‘spotted’ by a head-hunter, you should send them your CV. This way they can keep you on file or on their database. While this may have worked when you were relatively junior, in all honesty, it is less likely to work at a senior level. A head-hunter who merely looks at candidates on their ‘database’ and produces a short list via this method is very likely to be challenged by their clients as to how thoroughly the search has been conducted. So even if they have your CV, the chances are that a good head-hunter will do a great deal of further checking and sourcing before deciding whether or not to contact you.

Realistically, not everyone will be head-hunted. If you are at a junior level, or are performing your job in a mediocre way, don’t expect too many calls. Equally, those who keep themselves to themselves, have few outside contacts and don’t do any networking are generally less likely to be on the receiving end of a call from a head-hunter. Seriously effective people who are known to be good in their jobs, on the other hand, are more likely to get noticed and get talked about.

The critical lesson is that to be noticed, you need to network – and network with the right people. Think about the next job you would like to do. Then imagine you are the head-hunter handling that role. Who would you speak to in order to help identify potential candidates? Now see to what extent you can include some of these people in your own personal networking activities.

You don’t necessarily have to announce to your network that you are seeking another job. But the occasional subtle hint such as “My job is beginning to become routine and I will probably need to start thinking about moving on in a year or two,” can often sow a seed that will develop. Just seeming and being approachable and accessible helps. Even think about using your network to ask for advice. People are often flattered to be sought out in this way and if you ask them what sort of job you should be thinking about next, they will remember you as someone who could be susceptible to the head-hunter’s call.

Also, get yourself noticed through raising your profile. Try and get asked to speak at conferences (providing you are a good public speaker and your speeches are not too boring!). Alternatively, writing articles in journals, developing and implementing innovative ideas or taking on external responsibilities such as sitting on a quango, can all help. Remember that there is a risk element associated with this and if you perform badly, it could get you remembered for the wrong reasons. But bear in mind also that many of those who get to the top are prepared to take a calculated risk from time to time. Luck also helps, such as being in the right place at the right time – but remember too that to be lucky, you have to be active. Sitting at your desk, never speaking to anyone and never doing anything does not ‘create’ luck.

Some other hints that are worth remembering are:

• Networking is a two-way process. There will be times when you will be called upon to help others and you should respond to these requests. Networking is for life – not just for job-hunting. Abuse your networks at your peril! So rather than thinking about what other people can do for you, how about thinking about what you can do for other people. Build, in other folk, a sense of why they should ‘want’ and ‘feel obliged’ to try and do something for you.

• Keep your CV up to date. This not only helps focus the mind on your strengths and weaknesses, but you never know when you might need it.

• Take the calls from the head-hunters. The job may not be of interest this time, but developing relationships with two or three head-hunters and being prepared to act as a source for other jobs they are handling will absolutely be of benefit at a later date.

Hamish Davidson, Chairman of Davidson & Partners.

Contact him at mailto:hamishid@googlemail.com or 07932 698 807

January 2010

Ann Cormack has more than 20 years of experience of leading businesses and global change for Shell International.

“I was one of the first wave of people to be trained as a mentor in Shell and have also benefited from having an external mentor myself. It is a great reality check and calibration. A problem that might rock your confidence is suddenly put into perspective when you talk to someone who has been there before. You realise that other people have solved the problem – or even not solved it, yet still moved forward, which really boosts your confidence in your ability to deliver.

Everyone needs role models, especially women at senior level who at least can benefit from knowing that they are not the first to face tough issues and grow from them.

It can be lonely for people near, or at, the top. As they report to someone very senior, there’s rarely time to talk in-depth to them about all kinds of issues, so mentoring is vital.

One of the lessons that I’ve learned and pass on to mentees is to make sure that others see and recognise your successes which is, again, particularly important for women who are perhaps less inclined to shout about their achievements. Whilst modesty is a commendable virtue, it mustn’t hold you back in the business jungle.

And a piece of general advice is to always aim high and keep the end in mind. Insights like this, gained from years’ of experience and adapted to specific business situations, help people to focus and excel .”

David Hollywood’s 40+ year international career in industry includes 14 years as a PLC main board director.

“Over the years, businesses have cut back so much that most people are at full stretch and the unofficial mentoring that once went on is disappearing. No one has much time to watch out for others and help them develop and prosper in the business. Formalising mentoring through an external, expert provider is a smart move.

There are many benefits to having an external mentor. For example, if you have been around as long as I have, you’ve been through fluctuating business cycles several times, whereas the people in a company may well have only managed in one climate. Lots of managers have no experience of an economic downturn which demands different skills so they need the insight of someone who has been there before and knows what to do. It can be difficult for those in a company to accept that the decline in their market is permanent and to know how best to use their core skills to open up new markets.

It can also be impossible to say to someone in your own company: ‘I don’t know how to do this’. There’s a reluctance to raise such issues internally so a mentor from outside can really add value.

What I’ve learned from my career is that business is all about people. It doesn’t matter if you have a great business model, if you don’t have good people, it won’t be successful, and if you have a bad business model, good people can fix it. This is where mentoring can really make a difference.”

Consider this:

Aoccdrnig to rscheach at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Against this:

oredr taotl wouthit

The last three words were all taken from the first paragraph so you may well have recognised them, but what if you had read the individual words first? Taken in isolation you struggle to make sense of them, there being no context to give you a clue.

Despite ever increasing use of SMS text speak, this principle holds true for communication at every level, emphasising the importance of providing a suitable framework when marketing yourself for career development purposes. This does not mean setting out your entire life story, but explaining key facts linking one stage of your career to the next, developing themes, and ensuring that the language used is familiar to the recipient and appropriate for the context.

Jargon, acronyms and abbreviations are noteworthy dangers, and while they can be useful shorthand for members of your own tribe, it’s easy to forget that they may not be universally understood. Take “S&M”. To an executive, this could mean Sales&Marketing; to a lawyer, Slaughter&May; to a restaurateur, Sausage&Mash; and to others, something different altogether! Put in context, though, and blushes are spared as all parties are truly speaking the same language.

The process of writing your own CV is something very few people relish – judging from the testimonies of the many clients with whom I have worked at Executive Action.

This experience may be reflected in the less than startling revelation from research last year (Personnel Today, July 2008) that 71% of their 1000 correspondents took two hours or less to write their CV.

In fact, most of us have a CV that has grown organically with each new job, to which we have added and added again throughout our careers, fearing to leave anything out in case it gets forgotten. While this is a good place to start when we need to write a sharp new document, editing out the superfluous detail to focus on the relevant stuff is a tricky task when thinking about your own career.

It’s often too tempting, when you’re revisiting a lengthy stint or a really tough assignment early on in your working life, to give a comprehensive explanation of context, responsibilities and achievements. When a past role really stretched you, or gave you the chance to use certain skills for the first time, you see its significance in relation to your later direction and, understandably, want to give it due weight. So you keep in all the detail and end up with a CV that you know is too long, with achievements and job spec replicated in ever greater size the closer you get to the present.

Conversely, you look in horror at the length of your CV and accordingly slash it to ribbons, reducing a 30-year career to a few curt lines. While less can mean more in terms of impact, particularly at a senior level, you can’t expect to achieve the best possible impression unless you at least tell your reader about the significant things you’ve done, offering a brief outline of background and scale.

The same research tells us that three in four recruiters would reject an applicant who supplied a vague CV. This is unsurprising when you consider the number of responses generated by most advertised vacancies – jostling for attention alongside more assertive competitors, a vague or under-powered CV would be lucky not to be weeded out at first trawl.

Even if you surmount this obstacle, relying on the interview stage to give you the chance to talk up achievements undersold in your CV can be a risky strategy; sadly, you don’t always get the opportunity, or remain level-headed enough, to steer the conversation in advantageous directions (as those of us who have ever walked out of an interview kicking ourselves know, to our cost).

And it doesn’t end there: in the event of you getting the job, your place in the salary range is often fixed by the impression made by your CV and interview(s), perhaps backed up by your referees. According to the research (Personnel Management again), nearly a quarter of employers would be prepared to pay 15% more in basic salary to secure the right applicant. The feeling that you are worth up to 15% more than your place in the salary band would suggest is clearly a bad place to start a relationship with a new employer! So how can you make sure that you tread the fine line between relevant and irrelevant detail, and between underselling your achievements and uncomfortable self-aggrandisement?

Ideally, of course, every word of your CV would be promoting you in the best possible light. With this in mind, the most important thing to consider is the requirements of your audience; clearly the criteria of someone looking to recruit from within your own sector will be different to those of a recruiter in a new area, for whom the translation of your achievements into language they understand, and the portability of your skills, will matter most. Knowing your strategy, and thereby who you need to impress, is paramount.

After that, a fresh and objective pair of eyes is a huge help, preferably those of someone who understands your background and who knows about marketing, writing readable English and laying out a document well enough to ensure that it stands out. Whilst some people do manage to achieve this for themselves, the task for most is made much easier by a specialist, such as Executive Action’s Kitty Watton, Joy Wilkinson or me. We provide the independent perspective – plus hands-on editorial and creative assistance – that seeks to align CVs exactly to clients’ strategies, and to highlight the elements most relevant to the target role and sector.

The current economic climate would suggest that now, more than ever, is a good time to have a succinct, up-to-date CV ready to adapt for whatever may be around the corner. Even if you don’t need (or choose) to use it, the exercise of considering what you do, and what really matters, is a valuable and stimulating process.

Executive Action alumni can have:

- an update session (face-to-face, by phone or e-mail) with a business writer + CV at the special price of £450.
- or a two hour strategic career review with a consultant plus update session with a business writer + CV at the special price of £1000.

‘Have you got what it takes to help deliver our challenging agenda? This exciting role combines equality and diversity responsibilities with social inclusion and promoting quality standards into all commissioning work streams.’
(Job advertisement, Wolverhampton City Council)

Did your eyes glaze over when you read the quote above? If they didn’t, perhaps you could work out what job is being advertised, because I couldn’t get to the end of the sentence without drifting off.

It may be a vacancy for a Rodent Operative (rat catcher) or a Street Orderly (Road Sweeper) – tough jobs, and unlikely to be made less so by a euphemistic job title. Or it may be a Community Leadership and Engagement Manager that they seek, which must also be tough in its own way, since the role is about getting people to ‘engage’ with the council – a task made harder by the fact that many people who don’t understand management speak think ‘engagement’ is what you do before you get married.

This kind of language is entirely typical of job and product adverts (if my trawl through today’s Guardian is anything to go by), though needless to say, it’s nothing like the way that we actually speak to each other. But why do we do it?

Of course the Admissions Officer at the university can’t say to the rejected candidate they don’t want you – they don’t think you’re good enough. He has to talk of the unprecedented high levels of competition. Sensitivity to other people’s feelings can make our language extremely evasive.

Understandable also is the drive to take gender out of titles, such as amending Fireman to Firefighter, which, in addition to taking women who do the job into account, is much more descriptive (though by the same measure, I’ve always thought that the word Chair, used in place of Chairman, needs itself to be replaced).

Before raising a cry of ‘political correctness gone mad’, it’s interesting to note that the move towards euphemism isn’t new. Ernest Gowers’ critique of official writing ‘Plain English’ from the 1940s takes civil servants to task for using redundant and obscure words: “The basic fault of present-day writing is a tendency to say what one has to say in as complicated a way as possible. Instead of being simple, terse and direct, it is stilted, long-winded and circumlocutory; instead of choosing the simple word it prefers the unusual.”

And in 1946, in the fight not just against ugly language but for the clear thinking that accurate writing allows, George Orwell wrote the essay ‘Politics and the English Language’. In it he summarises his basic rules:
Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Or as academic Lincoln Allison says “Better, perhaps, to go with Ron Atkinson’s notorious saying when Gary Lineker scored a hat-trick against Poland in 1986 – The boy done great – in which there is arguably more than one mistake per word, than with what Sir Alf Ramsey might have said: One’s own evaluation with regard to the performance of the young man would be extremely favourable.”

So with this in mind, next time I sit down to write a CV for an Executive Action client, I’ll remind myself to ask whether Our situation with regard to coal is in a dangerous position sounds more impressive than We’ve run out of coal, screw up my courage and use the latter.

Search on the internet for remuneration consultants and you’ll find dozens of practices offering their services to companies anxious to benchmark their remuneration packages against the rest of the market. But what if you – candidate, employee or potential employee – want to be benchmarked? What if you want to assess your own financial value to a business or in a new sector? According to Executive Action’s Anne Isaacs, there was a potential gap in the market: “Senior people working with us have often had numerous psychometric tests and have already learnt everything that could ever be useful about their own abilities and management style.

“What they really wanted to know, and had no way of finding out (except perhaps anecdotally) was what it was reasonable to expect financially if they were to stay put, move to a comparable organisation or head off into new territory. Though this information might not wholly drive a decision to stay, to go or to do something radical, it’s certainly a very useful perspective to have.”

The right people for the job

Enter vastly experienced HR consultants Vyv Attwood and Lesley Pearson. Vyv (previously head of HR, communications, logistics and business improvement for Zurich Financial Services in the UK) and Lesley (a remuneration consultant for eleven years and ex-Allied Dunbar, Gillette and Gestetner) have been working together on a range of HR and business management assignments across various sectors.

Both had also been involved in designing the kind of complex remuneration packages and long term incentive arrangements that make it so difficult to compare ‘like for like’.

As Vyv puts it: “Despite being an excellent, and rather obvious, idea, no-one else seemed to be working for individuals rather than for companies. Headhunters clearly work for, and are paid by, their corporate clients, while outplacement consultancies, who are basically on the client’s team, are often loath to originate or increase their costs.

“We concluded that any personal remuneration review worth its salt would have to be totally tailored to the client, meaning in-depth research, market knowledge and insight. All of which are time-consuming and rely on good contacts, up-to-date information and experience in interpreting the data.

“But, in discussing the possibilities with Executive Action, we agreed that it might prove really valuable for senior people seriously considering their options, as a part of their career management or outplacement programme.

Guinea pigs

“Setting out to test the water, so far we have worked with four Executive Action ‘guinea pigs’: a Strategic Development Director in the engineering sector, an HR Director in an international pharmacy group, a Director of Risk Management within a financial services organisation and an HR Director in commercial/retail banking. All are currently employed, although one has recently started a new job and another is looking seriously at options.

“Feedback so far is good. One ‘guinea pig’ wished fervently that he’d had the review before accepting a recent new appointment, and another suggested that it would have made clearer the diverse options available if she’d been able to make a genuine comparison between one complicated package and another.

“In our third review, we identified an important aspect that our ‘guinea pig’ hadn’t been aware was unusual for this type of role. His salary was reasonably good for the sector, the bonus above market norm and other benefits on the generous side, but missing altogether was a long-term incentive/share scheme. Our total figure for the package was about 20% below remuneration for most equivalent positions.

“Our analysis took into account such factors as how long he’d been with the company and everything else particular to this job and to its benefits. We also compared reward levels in his sector (retail) with that of others, and looked into prospects for attaining a Board position if he stays in a company in the same field.”

A mid career ‘check up’

In addition to being available when a serious job offer has been received or when a particular type of role is being pursued, the service is also being offered to Executive Action’s clients and ex-clients at any point in their career as a kind of ‘check up’. As Lesley Pearson suggests: “We envisage that people will be most interested when they are assessing their options or when a salary review is pending. We’ll advise on whether a current package is still competitive.”

Pursuing your dreams: the real cost

According to Anne: “People can be blinded by enthusiasm, or conversely by fear, when considering a radical move. We often see clients desperate to change their working environment or their work/home balance, often in order to gain more autonomy. In moving into a new sector or a much smaller company, the great unknown factor – the financial cost of such a step – can be very unnerving. “We’d consider this part of building your knowledge and getting to grips with a new environment. Having a sound idea of what you’re worth, both now and potentially, is a terrific thing to have in your armoury when you’re making big decisions about your future.”

Wearing my psychotherapy hat, something I have found very useful in helping individuals who come for clinical treatment is acknowledgement of the negative side of human nature: withholding, absence, envy at other people’s creativity and other kinds of behaviour which result in undermining our own work and that of other people, either consciously or unconsciously. Five years ago, I joined Executive Action and started bringing this understanding to my work with individuals who come for help with their professional lives.

One observation I have made of the multitude of personality and other tests informed by psychology (as opposed to psychoanalysis), is a distinct focus on the positive and a distinct absence of the negative. Yet we have all experienced the non-verbal gestures by which individuals express their anger, jealousy and competitiveness in the work-place: the e-mail that doesn’t arrive which gives a change of time or venue for the meeting, the personal mug that mysteriously goes missing. It’s run of the mill stuff that we deal with every day, but why do we not have a framework for thinking about it, and why do assessment and recruitment techniques not test, or attempt to test, for it?

It’s worth considering the stories of two individuals that I have worked with, where a focus on the negative aspects of their behaviour was the only way of achieving a positive outcome to their problem.

The first was a man in his mid-20s working as a legal assistant in an established, corporate environment. The brief was given by a very concerned HR Director at her wits’ end who told me that this young man, who had previously performed perfectly well, was getting facts wrong, withholding vital information and so on, but he wouldn’t acknowledge this reality in spite of the evidence. She had had three meetings with him to discuss the subject but with no success and now he had developed a debilitating stammer. Two sessions held outside the work place in which he was able to acknowledge his (unconscious) destructive behaviour resolved the problem It emerged that he knew he was being destructive but until someone could make sense of why he was behaving in this way, i.e. giving it a rationale, he was stuck. If the correct and timely intervention had not been made, he would have been made redundant on the grounds of incompetence having serious implications for his future career.

The second case is that of a woman in her 30s who referred herself. Working in a much smaller company, having previously been very successful, she was failing to secure new contracts and undermining her colleagues’ efforts to do so. This behaviour was threatening the very existence of the company and she knew it was only so long before she would be fired. Six sessions (again held outside the workplace) in which she was able to make sense of what she was doing in the context of her whole personality (i.e. including her personal life) gave her understanding, which relieved the problem and enabled her to stop the destructive behaviour. Again, lack of the correct intervention would have lost the company an excellent executive and as far as the individual was concerned would inevitably have led to even more serious personal implications than her loss of employment.

So, returning to the psychological tests and the curious fact that they don’t seem to encompass what is, after all, common sense – why do we apparently seek to disguise the more destructive side of human nature and what are the implications on a bigger scale? It seems that we do acknowledge it to some extent in looking at groups of people in the workplace. After all, the very concept of ‘Change Management’ implies that individuals’ response to change, for example, can be negative and requires consummate skill to be driven through successfully.

So there seems to be an understanding that in this particular context, groups of people can be negative. But isn’t change the stuff of everyday office life, and aren’t groups of people just made up of individuals? It seems to be that it is just a question of scale. You might say that, well, companies are made up of human beings and a good HR Director will refer difficult individuals for special help, or that a conscientious individual in difficulties will seek out the appropriate support. But what if that individual isn’t conscientious, doesn’t have a good line manager and/or worse still, is at the top of the hierarchy?

Some recent research, by Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon of Surrey University, considered whether there was any overlap between the personalities of business managers, psychiatric patients and hospitalised criminals (psychopathic and psychiatrically ill). There were some extraordinary findings: three of eleven personality disorders were actually commoner in managers than in disturbed criminals. The first was ‘histrionic personality disorder’, entailing superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity and manipulativeness. There was also a higher incidence of narcissism: grandiosity, self-focussed lack of empathy for others, exploitativeness and independence. Finally, there was found to be more ‘compulsive personality disorder’ in the managers, traits of which include perfectionism, excessive devotion to work, rigidity, stubbornness and dictatorial tendencies.

What are the implications for the employees of such an individual in the role of MD or CEO? How might it affect the whole culture of the company? And could there be certain types of psychological tests devised that would screen out such individuals during the recruitment process? And furthermore, would we want them to?

If destructivity is the flip side of creativity – as represented by the Greek God Dionysus – might it also be true that to turn a blind eye to destructiveness is to turn a blind eye to creative potential? It has to be said that the creative process is one that confounds many people, who, when involved as team players, mistake obstacles for failure. It is only a short step from there to accusing their leaders (behind their backs of course) of incompetence, and from there to the ‘clustering’ of negative factions common to dysfunctional working cultures: ‘IT isn’t talking to Finance at the moment’, ‘Central Services doesn’t see why Sales should be getting bonuses’ etc. Considering the link between human psychic processes and institutional processes, I have come to believe that the reason we disregard ‘negativity’ to such an extent is due to a mistaken belief that if ignored it will go away, or even that if ignored it doesn’t exist. I’d suggest a less blinkered approach to the destructive drive and its manifestations: this might not only help us to help people avoid catastrophe, but also to access more creative potential in both them and the organisations they work for.

At the beginning of December, Executive Action embarked on a programme of occasional seminars to be held in the evenings at our offices in Fitzroy Square. The plan is for these seminars to focus on a range of stimulating and topical issues, ranging from business and workplace dynamics to innovations in education.

The first of these was presented by John Corrigan under the title of ‘Is Your Organisation Red or Blue?’. This stimulating evening – we had to really think and participate, as well as listen – explored organisational behaviour and the means to develop optimistic, collaborative and committed people and organisations.

Ex-client and long-time associate of Executive Action, John Corrigan is founder and one of three principals of Group 8 Education (www.gr8management.com) , a Sydney-based consulting and training business formed to develop programmes facilitating large-scale, organisational improvement. Group 8 Education has developed a core body of culture change expertise, built upon the latest neuroscience research and extensive action research with leaders in sectors where culture is the key driver of performance.

According to Group 8 Education, in today’s turbulent economic times organisations desperately need engaged and committed people, and committed. Unfortunately, the way in which the turmoil is being addressed by most governments, organisations and individuals is designed to bring about a situation in which people are pessimistic, self-centred, and disengaged.

If an organisation’s management operates in a way that discourages and controls while giving the impression of interacting with people in a way that is artificial and superficial, it will cause its employees to be negative and disengaged. Group 8 Management call this a “Red Organisation”. This is, in turn, a negative and expensive place to be as costs increase whilst productivity declines.

Where an organisation’s management operates in a way that encourages and empowers while showing absolute authenticity and integrity in dealing with people, it will develop employees who are optimistic, collaborative, and committed. Group 8 Management call this a “Blue Organisation”. This is a desirable place to be as costs will decrease whilst productivity grows – and what organisation doesn’t need that?

Group 8’s new publication ‘The Success Zone’ is available to order from http://www.gr8management.com/book/book