subject: Executive Search In Toronto - So You Want to Raise Your Market Visibility? Step This Way (And Thank You)! [print this page] Executive Search In Toronto - So You Want to Raise Your Market Visibility? Step This Way (And Thank You)!
Sometimes candidates pose the most mouth watering questions.
Almost every week I am approached by executives who have popped their heads up from busy careers in order to check out the job market. Some are very high performers who I am surprised I do not know. When we meet, they sheepishly admit that having expended little energy promoting themselves they are now disconnected from the world of outside job opportunities. Then they ask, "How do I raise my visibility?"
Now as someone who makes their living finding people, I do not need be asked twice when it comes to advice on how to get found. Just count me in. And so, for all of you longing to make my job easier, I offer the following observations on the role of visibility in career management.
First, candidates generally lack visibility for a few reasons:
They have never seen the need to be visible. Nose to the grindstone, they work away at their jobs, rising up through their organizations, or not, and with little concern for whether anyone in the outside world knows that they are there.
They have somehow ended up in a role, assignment or organization that is obscure or off the beaten path rendering them virtually invisible to the outside world.
They are employed by companies that shield them from the prying eyes of competitors and headhunters alike (Constellation Software comes to mind as an example). Under the guise of keeping a low profile, these companies purposefully keep employee names off their websites and press releases, and as some have intimated, discourage wasting company resources on activities that might, as a by-product, raise profiles.
Visibility is but one component in a broader career management strategy. It is an important one however for visibility provides line of sight so that opportunity, timing, and serendipity have a chance to intersect with you.
Visibility is generally considered an output of effective brand management and as with any other product, tactics to promote brand You' can span the tacky to the elegant to the innovative. Though the concept of personal brand management has been around for years (see Tom Peters, The Brand Called You, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html ) it has become mainstream with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies and their effectiveness in promoting Barack Obama in the seemingly never ending Democratic primaries.
There are many small steps which even the most conservative of executives can take to ensure a measure of visibility. They can register with sites such as Linked-In, Naymz, Plaxo, or Xing which have evolved into important recruiting tools for search firms and organizations alike. Even consumer related community sites such as Facebook and MySpace are attempting to morph into enterprise tools which will serve similar purposes. Since many of these sites are positioned as legitimate networking and business development tools, joining them is a benign act, one unlikely to be viewed as disloyal by employers. If executives are not registered with some of these sites, they should get registered, take part and keep abreast of how the internet is changing the whole branding and career management game.
Second, brand-aware executives get active in their industry; they join associations and other sector-related groups; they volunteer; champion charitable causes; attend conferences; speaking if possible and they sit on panels. In addition, they join networking/educational groups such as ACETECH which are dedicated to excellence in their industry or functional area. They volunteer or join boards. If they can write (or in my instance, even if the cannot) and have opinions they enter the blogosphere or submit articles. I can go on and on.
I often joke that potential candidates should be nice to me for I come bearing career gifts. Some may be pre-owned, tired, a tad musky or even of questionable quality, but some are valuable career-making gems. In fact, rather than lament or ignore my calls, candidates should worry when I do not call for such silence may indicate a depreciation in their market value or, that they have become lost in the crowd. And while the former is a barometer of how their job performance, career choices and/or employers are being rated in the marketplace, the latter speaks to how effectively they are managing their brand and visibility.
I selflessly urge everyone to get out there and get visible.
