A lot of the executive job seekers I talk to each week are looking outside for new career opportunities. They are casting around for new companies and new market areas where their talents will be appreciated. Why look outside if you are with a good company that may offer career opportunities? In his new book, The CEO Within, Joseph L. Bower, a professor at the Harvard Business School, makes a case that the best CEO candidates are actually mavericks who are already working within the corporation:

“Bower examines the CEO succession process and postulates that maybe the old-boy network isn’t so terrific after all. He says smart corporations hand the ball off to “Inside Outsiders,” executives within the company who know how to play the game but aren’t afraid to try some trick plays.”

Placing yourself in line for a promotion may be a career strategy you overlooked. Here are some interesting insights that Bowers shares in his book:

• The average CEO serves seven years, two-and-a-half years less than in 1980.
• Six out of 10 companies have no succession process for the chief executive.
• The board of directors has limited power in choosing a new CEO.
• By 2004, two-thirds of the companies that were ranked highest in 1990 were out of business, largely due to a lack of strong leadership.

Statistics show that corporations that promote from within are more successful. Jack Welsh, for example, was a prototypical “insider outsider,” who was considered too young and too outspoken to take the reins. By contrast, John Sculley was brought in from the outside to run Apple. A successful Pepsi executive, Sculley was successful at first, pushing Steve Jobs out when Sculley was named CEO. But as an outsider, he failed to grasp the dynamics of high-tech, and lost market share to Microsoft and Intel. His failure demonstrated that success in one industry – selling soda – did not necessarily translate into success in another industry – selling technology.

Companies fail on succession planning because they are too busy focusing on day-to-day operations. So rather than grooming a new generation of leaders, companies shuffle executives into roles where they can perform and add to the bottom line. This means there is opportunity for you if you have the right leadership skills. You need to groom yourself to step onto the throne. Inside outsiders have a distinct advantage. They know the company and its culture. They understand the structure and hierarchy. They recognize interdepartmental dynamics. To prepare for the CEOs position, you need to understand financial operations, market share, and investment strategies.

You can’t always align yourself with the succession plan. Companies hire people for specific skills, without assessing their leadership potential. However, smart companies give their eager young leaders opportunities for advancement. Mentoring is important. See if you can find the right senior manager to help you develop your leadership skills.

The key is to find ways to develop your CEO potential and inject yourself as the inside outsider. The experience you gain should prove valuable, whether you decide to stay with your current company or seek greener pastures somewhere else.

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando.

We had a number of chief executives seeking advice on this week’s Ask the Coach call. Don Orlando, this week’s career coach, had some great insights for our executive job seekers.

The first caller was excited about being close to closing an interim CEO position with a company in London. The news was exciting, but he was having trouble finding intelligence on executive compensation. He wanted to be sure to negotiate an appropriate level of compensation and not short-change himself, but since this is an interim position, local rules and exchange rates apply. What’s his best strategy?

Don suggested that he base his compensation on deliverables and milestones. This should be about 90 percent of the hiring agreement. He also suggested choosing a date and ensuring that all compensation is agreed to based on that date’s exchange rate. He also needs to speak to an enrolled agent and an IRS agent to determine U.S. liability and Exchequer liability for the U.K.

The CEO candidate also noted that his research shows that European nationals are accepting similar positions for a lot less money. Combine this with the lower travel costs and you can easily price yourself out of an assignment, especially since the locals are more comfortable with UK tax rules. What’s your best defense to land the assignment?

Don said you need to stress the unique value you bring. Show the proof of ROI. This is the difference between price and value. Set things up to re-negotiate in the next six months. You also can talk about deferred compensation if that’s appropriate. You need to determine what it’s worth to take a lower salary for a period of time.

Another caller said she has been in manufacturing services and consulting for 20 years and is looking for contacts in investment banking who want executives with turnaround experience. Where does she start looking?

Don noted that the recession has changed the way recruiters are finding candidates. Rather than relying solely on posting positions, decision-makers are using search engines to find candidates with the skills they need. They are looking first, before they decide to hire. This means they have to find you, which means you need to increase your digital footprint. They want to see who has talked to you so they can talk to those third parties and assess your value. They will then contact you directly and ask you questions that test your thinking. If they are sufficiently impressed, then they will approach you and request a resume, which means you need to network continuously.

Reinventing yourself is a common theme among executive job seekers. Many of the

Take some inspiration from Samuel Leghorn Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. He was a serial entrepreneur with a passion for making money. Clemens had many different careers according to a new book by Peter Krauss, Ignorance, Confidence and Filthy Rich Friends. We all know about Mark Twain the author, but very few know the Samuel Clemens that Krauss reveals in his book.

Apparently, Clemens was absolutely driven by his desire for wealth. Born in 1835, he grew up in poverty. His father had a number of business failures, forcing young Clemens to work to support his family. Vowing to never be subject to such poverty again, he was driven to achieve financial success. As a result, Clemens tried many new occupations, in addition to writing:

After many business adventures, Clemens – writing as Mark Twain – became a stunning literary success at midlife. He earned great wealth and used it to develop numerous inventions, make investments and form a publishing firm. Unfortunately, at least for literary prosperity, his business and entrepreneurial activities limited the time he had to write. Besides being a brilliant author, he also was a striving capitalist, trying to increase his wealth by any means available.

Clemens’ checkered career went from being a would-be cocoa planter, to riverboat pilot, to prospector, to journalist. When his gold strike in Nevada failed because he and his partner didn’t protect their claim, Clemens went to work as a reporter on the Virginia City Territory Enterprise where he adopted the pen name Mark Twain. When he moved to San Francisco to become a reporter on the Morning Call, he also turned to gambling and speculating in silver stocks. When he lost all his money, he returned to prospecting. And when that didn’t pay out, he returned to San Francisco to continue his writing.

Clemens was extremely resourceful. After publishing his famous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” in The Saturday Evening Post, he decided to focus on writing as a vocation. Clemens even  traveled to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and used that experience for a series of lectures that were so successful, be booked a manager and moved to New York City.

Although Clemens continued to write throughout the rest of his life, he also became an active businessman. He took stock in the company that published his books, and moved to another publisher when he discovered he had been cheated. In 1884 he set up his own very successful publishing company, which not only published his own books, but also the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. Clemens hired sales representatives to sell the books to booksellers across the country, arming them with a sales script he drafted, which made Grant’s autobiography a bestseller.

Clemens also was a venture capitalist and an inventor. He designed the first men’s garter, a scrapbook with adhesive strips, and a history/biography game. He also invested in a typesetting machine, and speculated in steel and copper. He won and lost a number of fortunes during his lifetime and died wealthy, although he is not remembered for his business prowess.

The key to Clemens success was reinvention; the ability to identify an opportunity when it presents itself and take advantage of it. He was a risk-taker who was always willing to invest time, talent, and money to achieve success. His is an inspiring rags-to-riches story, and one from which we all can learn something.

Every week,

There was a common theme in this week’s career coaching call – how to get companies to take you seriously? Nicola fielded a number of queries from executive job seekers in different circumstances. One senior manager has been living abroad for a number of years and is trying to find a way to convince U.S.-based companies that he is not “geographically undesirable.” Another caller was concerned about ageism; how do you get a company to look seriously at your credentials if you are over 50? And yet another caller asked why, with all the great talent currently unemployed because of the recession, companies still insist on looking only at candidates who are working?

Nicola notes that in each of these cases, you have to know how to overcome the objections. Recognize that some companies have a mindset that will be hard to overcome. Avoid those companies. Instead, identify companies that value your unique skills and talents and where you will be happy and work to overcome those obstacles.

As a general strategy, Nicola recommends reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. In his book, Anderson explains that most people try to sell to the middle of the bell curve. You need to be different and sell to the ends, where there are fewer competitors, less demand, and where it only takes one sale – getting hired!

In the case of the U.S. expatriate, it’s important for him to clearly articulate his value to companies that offer a great fit for his talents. If they have blinders or are not interested, move on. And be upfront about issues such as “no relocation costs” in order to remove objections as quickly as possible.

With regard to ageism, it is a real issue. Nicola said she has found that many Fortune 500 companies do not generally hire people older than their mid-40s, largely because they have very controlled and regulated succession planning, which means they often don’t know what to do with older employees. However, she also has clients who are only interested in employees in their 50s or older. These are usually smaller companies looking for self-managing professionals who don’t need a lot of guidance. Wherever you choose to focus, know that cultural fit is crucial.

And why do companies fail to look at talented candidates who are unemployed? Nicola says it’s an arbitrary choice by someone within the company. If you encounter these “dinosaurs,” move on. Find a company that appreciates your skills and that is a good cultural fit.

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Kim Batson, The CIO’s Coach, and Deb Dib, head of Executive Power Brand.

An interesting question came up in this week’s Coach call. The first caller asked Deb and Kim to offer an opinion on a Matched Skills document, which compares the requirements of a job to your specific skill set. The first third of the document summarizes your resume and the next section addresses the skills required, and the final section contains bullet points on how your skills map to the job. Is this a good resume supplement?

Neither Deb nor Kim was familiar with the Matched Skills name, but they were familiar with the concept. Kim said she thinks this is similar to a Skills Set Analysis, and since both coaches are on the lookout for new approaches for their candidates to demonstrate their worth, this seems like a useful document. Both coaches generate these kinds of documents regularly for their clients, and it is a great “leave behind” after a job interview. Both coaches feel this is an excellent way to prepare for an interview, although putting the summary at the top is redundant. The document helps crystallize the interview presentation, and if you are truly interested in the position, it’s worth the time and effort.

Of course, for such a document to be effective, you need to know what position you are shooting for. Then you can prepare a basic analysis that can be adjusted to the specific opportunity. You can then list the specific skills and benefits that match the position. As the coaches say, be a Benefit Bringer, not a Skills Singer. Your competition will have similar skills – they are the price of admission – so you need to set yourself apart. Think of the “so what” factor and make yourself and your skills important to the company.

Also remember that many job descriptions are abysmally written and often inaccurate. Job descriptions change, which is why you need to understand the underlying problems that the company is facing, which in turn will highlight what they are really looking for. A three-column chart can help. Use the headings “Skills needed,” “Benefits-Experience,” and “Proof of Performance,” and then fill in the blanks. Determine what your best example is for this situation; proof of performance is a huge differentiator.

Also note that recruiters love it when you come prepared with documents such as these. It shows you have done their work for them and it may get you short-listed for the position. It’s an ideal document for an interview follow up and also can serve as a good icebreaker.

Every week,

Every senior executive knows that bad hires are expensive. In fact, a bad hiring decision can cost up to 15 times that employee’s paycheck if you aren’t careful. Rather than firing bad employees, your best defense is to not hire them in the first place. So I direct you to Who, the A Method for Hiring, by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. This book outlines some solid strategies to help hiring managers avoid making the wrong choice.

The main thesis of the book is that hiring managers don’t adopt a systematic process when they hire new employees. Instead, they fall back on “gut instinct” or what Smart and Street call “voodoo hiring methods.” If you are going to make an A-class hire, they recommend a four-step process (the four “S’s”):

1. The Scorecard – Use a scoring system that aligns the job requirements with the skill set you need. It should include three elements: A) Mission statement, outlining the hire’s corporate objective; B) Outcomes, which details results rather than activities (which is where most job descriptions go wrong); and C) Competencies, which describes the way you expect the candidate to achieve the results. Competencies should include both behavioral and cultural considerations, such as efficiency, honestly, aggressiveness, attention to detail, intelligence, productivity, etc.
2. The Source – Where you find your candidates has a direct relationship on their capabilities. You need to consider whether the source was a network contact, staff, recruiter, or some other source. The quality of the source maps to the quality of the candidate, and be sure to offer incentives where appropriate to improve results.
3. Select – Smart and Street recommend a set of four progressively intense interviews to identify top candidates. 1) Screening first by telephone weeds out inappropriate candidates. The authors suggest a series of screening questions such as: “What are your career goals?” “What are you good at?” “What are you bad at?” “How would your last five bosses grade you?”  2) Topgrading, where you walk through a chronological job history, including reason for the hire, reason they left, what they achieved, and more. Drill down to get a complete picture of the candidate and how they function in a work setting. 3) Focus, where you have at least three team members conduct in-depth interviews of 45 minutes to an hour using the scorecard for guidance, and looking for details about experience, mistakes, and cultural and behavioral competencies. 4) Check references, including listening for what is unsaid or reading between the lines about a candidate.
4. Sell – Once you have found the perfect prospect, you need to sign them up. The best candidates will require a little selling to accept, so the authors recommend using the five “F’s” – fit, family, freedom, fortune, and fun.

There are a number of insights you can take away from this book, but the big idea here is being able to put together a cogent, well-thought-out methodology behind your hiring strategy. Eliminating voodoo hiring practices in favor of a proven, repeatable approach that weeds out the bad apples and brings in the stellar candidates is your best bet for hiring success.

We have had a lot of discussion on the Ask the Coach calls in recent weeks about resume formats – what works and what doesn’t? Since a lot of NETSHARE’s members are baby boomers, they are using tried and true resume formats that pre-date the Web. Unfortunately, a lot of the old rules don’t apply in the new world of Internet-driven job search. I recently spotted one of

The first thing you have to consider is whether your resume is computer-friendly. When applying for any job online, or submitting your resume to a company where it will be stored in a database, you have to make sure your resume is search-friendly. Whether you choose to use a chronological resume, a functional resume, or curriculum vitae, you need to make sure the format is in plain text so it is machine readable.

Today’s employers can’t keep up with the number of resumes flowing into their e-mail box, so most companies are using an applicant tracker system (ATS) that scans your resume and stores key words and relevant data. That’s why it’s important that your resume can be scanned, which is why you should use plain text. If you know there is a human being at the other end who wants to review your credentials, then you can revert to Microsoft Word or a rich text format in order to take advantage of formatting tools like bullets and boldface to improve readability and make your point.

When creating your plain text resume, be sure to embed strategic key words. If possible, you should align your key words with those of strategy job postings. Use common industry noun phrases and industry terms, and highlight technical skills that align with those of your prospective employer.

Once you have drafted your resume, converting it to plain text for searchability is a simple matter of saving the file in text format. Use the “save as” function in your word processor and designate plain text or ASCII as the output format. Once you have saved it, be sure to scrub the document for conversion problems, like bullets that turn into boxes.

You also should capitalize headings, employer names, and job titles for emphasis. You will lose the formatting tools such as bold face so this is an adequate substitute.

And embed key words in the text flow at strategic points in your resume. Use them in the summary, accomplishments, education, certification, etc., so they will be picked up in a database search.

These days, you are writing marketing documents to be read and to be scanned, so be sure that you use the right formatting to promote search as well as readability.

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is a post contributed by this week’s coach

How critical is LinkedIn? That was one of the many great questions asked during Monday’s Ask the Coach call. My response was, “It’s so critical that it is part of every package I sell and we spend at least one coaching session around how to leverage the power of that Web 2.0 technology.” While you are launching a proactive job search effort, LinkedIn is an ongoing, powerful, portable, 24/7 strategy.

In order to understand how important LinkedIn is to my clients’ career management strategy, I talk with recruiters. I have yet to talk with one who does not use LinkedIn as a primary tool to identify passive candidates. In fact,  the recruiters’ blog“A Recruiters Guide to the Universe” ranks LinkedIn and LinkedIn Groups as the two primary ways to connect job seekers and recruiters. Networking accounts for 40-70 percent of all opportunities. Being active on LinkedIn is networking.

So what’s “most important” about your LinkedIn profile? I’ve come up with five things:

1.    Create a Powerful Branded Summary. This is not your daddy’s boring bio either. This summary, limited to 2,000 characters, is your opportunity to showcase how you do what you do (your brand) that is different and unique from others who do the same or similar things.

2.    More is Better. It is great to have your employers and job titles, past and present, listed as part of your profile. But that is not enough. In the world of key searches, more is better.  The amount of information online acts as a pre-qualifier and gives both you and a prospective employer a framework to begin establishing a relationship.

3.    Create Your Vanity URL. LinkedIn allows you to create vanity URLs, and it is a great way to increase your Google rankings, assuming, of course, that you have also made your stellar profile available for public viewing, which I highly recommend.

4.    Join Groups. The “big fish in a small pond” analogy definitely applies here. Joining special interest groups on LinkedIn allows you to mingle with like-minded folks and gain access to their contact information, even if they are not 1st degree contacts in your network. Be sure to set your contact information option to open so others can contact you as well.

5.    And finally, Solicit Recommendations. Third-party recommendations are extremely important on LinkedIn. These are very powerful endorsements that add credibility to the statements in your profile and employment history, and they are critical to your positioning.