Look on-line at any of the hundreds of articles obtainable on the challenges of networking for a job, and also you’ll discover that 100% of them give recommendation on how comparatively junior professionals can community “up.”
But surprisingly little recommendation is on the market for senior executives, who expertise a distinct however equally difficult set of networking hurdles. That’s an issue, as a result of realizing how you can reap networking’s full advantages is essential for folks on the high of the pyramid, particularly a time when CEO turnover is at a file excessive.
We have many years of expertise working with and finding out senior executives who’re making profession modifications. In this text, we’ll establish six widespread hurdles that that they usually battle with on the subject of profession networking, and we’ll present some steerage on how you can recover from them.
1) Reluctance to ask for assist
Networking for a subsequent function means asking for assist. Research in social psychology exhibits that individuals with excessive standing are extra apt to really feel strain to keep up an picture of energy and competence and to worth self-reliance, all of which might make them reluctant to hunt help. They concern rejection and fear that asking for assist would possibly expose perceived weaknesses, doubtlessly undermining their standing, place, or fame. This is ego-driven reluctance, and we see it steadily. As one of Herminia’s college students put it, “I give help — I don’t ask for it.”
One manner round this tendency, which is a pure one, is to start out your networking course of by reaching out to lower-risk (and lower-yield) contacts — ideally, executives who you already know nicely, who’ve executed their very own networking, and who can share not solely how they approached others for assist but in addition what they bought out of asking for it.
You can in all probability do that with extra folks than you notice: As the Stanford social psychologist Xuan Zhao has discovered, folks repeatedly underestimate others’ willingness to assist, as a result of they don’t notice how glad it makes these others to take action. Low-risk warm-ups and rehearsal follow — what Spish calls “hearing the dreaded words come out of your mouth” — will assist you fine-tune your message, defuse your feelings, and expertise success. And having a number of constructive experiences below your belt will make your later, more-challenging calls and emails simpler.
2) Prioritizing secrecy
The extra senior an govt, the extra probably they’re to need secrecy, particularly in the event that they’ve been laid off. One of Spish’s purchasers, for instance, requested: “How do I go out into the market without letting the market know that I’m looking? I’d like to reach out to people, but I don’t want them to know that I’m interested in looking.”
Such worries restrict your publicity to others, which is an issue in its personal proper. But in addition they pressure you to be secretive as you’re employed on networking and profession change — a course of, in keeping with Herminia’s analysis, that usually takes far longer than folks anticipate. That burden of secrecy, carried for a very long time, can precise a major psychological toll.
Limiting your publicity to others might be particularly pernicious when it retains you from stepping again and exploring broadly what you would love to do subsequent. And strive as you would possibly, you gained’t idiot folks by obfuscating. At senior ranges, it’s a small world: The folks you discuss to can determine what you’re as much as, maybe by making a name to a supply in their very own community, or maybe simply by doing a search on-line. If you do reach concealing your story, it’s more likely to tax your nerves and price you a large number of power to get the identical outcome that simply talking truthfully and instantly would have gotten you. With uncommon exceptions, honesty is the perfect coverage.
3) Unrealistic expectations
Because they’re reluctant to ask for assist and don’t need phrase to get out that they’re out there for a brand new function, senior executives usually need to get their networking executed quick. Or they merely assume that as a result of they’re senior, the method gained’t take very lengthy. Unfortunately, the extra senior you’re, the extra time you’re more likely to want to search out and align on the suitable match. In Spish’s expertise, the shortest potential search is about three months, and the longer ones can take as a lot as 18 months.
Not solely does efficient networking take a very long time, it additionally includes an incredible deal of work, stamina, effectivity, and endurance. There are three main causes for this.
First, as each of us have discovered, solely a small share of folks in search of their subsequent function know precisely which handful of corporations they’d wish to work for. Because they don’t know sufficient concerning the market or what they really need to have the ability to give you a focused search, they’ve to start out with analysis and really normal exploratory networking. That all takes time.
Second, what you need and are finest fitted to could not truly be obtainable to you. Both of us have seen extremely certified and skilled folks take an excruciatingly very long time to search out their subsequent function. One govt that Herminia just lately noticed thought, given his previous expertise, that he’d be an best candidate for the audit committee of a giant company board, however as the choice standards shifted to incorporate a higher variety of skilled profiles, he discovered himself ready to get a nod.
Third, most corporations at present have elaborate, time-consuming, and unpredictable vetting processes, which might usually add months on the tail finish of the hiring course of.
In the senior-executive job market, it helps to acknowledge that within the messy assembly of provide and demand you’ve gotten surprisingly little management. An important proactive tactic that may assist you compensate for that as you do your networking is to fill your calendar with stimulating, parallel actions (neighborhood work, pro-bono consulting, short-term advising, adjunct instructing) in which you’ll have a extra instant impression and obtain a extra gratifying response. This compensates for the tedium, if not burden, of asking and ready for assist. It additionally supplies battered egos with constructive, if provisional, identities.
4) Not wanting to place within the work
Executives who’re used to having issues executed for them usually balk at devoting time to tedious work that they will’t delegate. But to community efficiently, it’s essential deal with the duty as absolutely price your time and power — and it’s essential be methodical and arranged about it.
To assist with that, Spish has developed a networking course of that consists of figuring out after which contacting three varieties of contacts: info givers, door openers, and resolution makers. Information givers are individuals who can let you know concerning the market, corporations, and hiring tendencies; they can assist you get sensible and recover from your concern of networking. Door openers are usually folks you’ve labored with prior to now. They’re responsive, and since they know you and your work model, they’re keen to vouch for you and might introduce you to the choice makers.
If you’d like to make use of this course of, one of the best ways to start out is by first making an inventory of all of your employers, purchasers, and clients, after which by writing down the names of the folks you met in these roles. You would possibly discover you simply give you 100 names.
No matter what strategy you utilize to organizing, focusing on, and segmenting your search, you’ll at all times want to start out by producing an extended listing of folks you’ve labored with after which methodically following a system for reaching out to them. Because it’s a studying course of, you may’t plan all of it out prematurely; you’re higher off adopting a “snowball” strategy” wherein you ask every contact who else you need to meet. This is particularly true if you happen to’re trying in markets which are unfamiliar to you. In that case, you’ll must community in what Spish calls “the valleys below the clouds.” There are tons of alternatives in these valleys, however they unfamiliar and require exploration. If you don’t discover them, you restrict your choices and might damage your profession development.
It’s a high-cost, high-yield recreation, but it surely pays off. Spish has discovered that after you’ve reached out to 50 or extra contacts in your listing, the community will begin to attain out to you, at which level you may let the method carry you ahead.
5) Overly specializing in “the narrative”
Once you’ve made a contact, there may be the necessary matter of what to say. All too usually, executives spend the majority of a networking dialog in small speak about shared contacts or experiences with out attending to the purpose (that they want a brand new job) till the very finish of the dialog. This is particularly widespread after they really feel they should conceal the truth of what’s occurring — that they don’t get together with their boss, say, or that they’ve been fired. When that occurs, they usually enter into the dialog already on the defensive, they communicate evasively, and so they dedicate their power to defending their public picture as a substitute of studying all they will. The finish result’s that they waste loads of their — and their contacts’ — time.
Another unproductive tack is to spend 80% of your time attempting to clarify why you’re sad, or leaving, or bought fired — a destructive strategy that anchors your dialog prior to now when it ought to be constructive and centered on the long run. You’re a lot better off spending 20% of your allotted time explaining your state of affairs and focusing the remaining 80% on what you’re in search of as a substitute.
The finest follow in networking conversations is to be direct, succinct, and constructive. People need to know why you’re calling them and what you need from them, and the extra senior they’re, the extra probably they’ll be to anticipate a quick, govt abstract of this type: “This is why I’m calling you. This is what I want from you. I hope that there’s enough in these two points for us to have a 10-minute conversation.”
6) Failing to tailor your story
Executives trying to make a transition usually spend inordinate quantities of time perfecting a single script — the fabled “elevator pitch” about their “core skills and abilities.” They do that assuming that this script will make them universally related, however virtually invariably what they find yourself with simply isn’t satisfactorily tailor-made to the wants of the receiver.
We’ve seen loads of executives attempt to strategy networking the best way they might work with head-hunters: They write a generic e mail, simply altering the title and one or two sentences, connect their resume, and ship it out to a bunch of folks. Likewise, many stroll into a gathering and robotically state their one-minute pitch even when it doesn’t match the distinctive circumstances and necessities of the one who’s listening.
That simply doesn’t work. Yes, determining your core storyline (Who am I, and why am I right here?) is necessary. But you may’t assume that you simply’re going to be saying the identical factor about your self to each individual you meet. Nor are you able to assume that each listener is succesful of translating your pitch into their very own enterprise context.
In the top, right here’s what it’s essential keep in mind: It’s not about you. If you hope to clinch a job for which you’re really nicely suited, it’s essential determine how you can make the change from speaking about your self to speaking knowledgeably concerning the firm and its issues — after which to articulating how nicely outfitted you’re to resolve these issues. As Spish has discovered, that’s the way you create alternatives for your self: A big share of probably the most senior executives he’s coached have ended up shifting into roles that didn’t even exist earlier than that they had their dialog.
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When you’re a senior govt, networking is a fragile, advanced, and time-consuming job. Ego and impatience, left unchecked, will sabotage your success. The finest strategy is to assume of networking as an alternative not simply to scout out your subsequent function but in addition to strengthen or deepen relationships you have already got — and, even higher, so as to add new relationships that can assist you be a greater skilled in your new job and the others that come after it.
