Career Planning Series: Managing your career trajectory

2007-09-12T13:31:00.001-07:00

Now that the dog days of summer have come and gone, we can all look forward to getting back into the swing of things and putting our noses to the grind stone, whether it’s back to work, back to school or back to both! And as we begin a new cycle of productivity after a nice Labor Day break, it’s a perfect time to visit the issue of managing your career trajectory.

As a recruiter, I often look at career trajectory as a measure of a candidate’s level of sophistication and ability to manage their careers. This is particularly valuable to me when ascertaining the maturity level of more senior candidates, with 10-15 years of experience. As a candidate it’s advantageous to acknowledge this perspective on your career early on, so that as you reach greater levels of experience you know you’ve had some conscious influence over the trajectory itself.

What I’m looking for when evaluating a candidate’s career trajectory are consistent patterns of evolution in the candidate’s career. To illustrate, if I was recruiting for a managerial role, depending on the level of the position I might look for a career trajectory that looks something like the following:

Individual Contributor role – performing specialized tasks as part of a larger team with some degree of individual discretion and control.
Team Lead or Supervisor - performance management, resource planning, limited hiring authority and project involvement.
Manager or Department Head - managing supervisors or team leads, performance management, financial budget management, hiring authority, departmental goal setting, project management and decision-making.
Director or VP – decision-making, hiring authority, financial budget management, managing middle managers, setting strategic direction, company policy creation, senior management interface and managing external vendors and partners.
SVP, EVP and C-Level – corporate strategy, executive leadership, fiscal decision-making, product focus, relationship management, public speaking, board involvement, guiding and coaching more junior management staff and corporate policy setting.

While this example may be the ideal, the reality of today’s employment market often reveals a less traditional candidate pool where candidates have left large companies, joined startups, gone back to mid-size companies and sometimes started their own businesses. This forces me as a recruiter to focus more on the content of a person’s work experience and less on the formal titles, but there is definitely a need to be aware of both.

Again, what I’m really looking for in candidates is a consistent pattern of growth in responsibility, domain knowledge and exposure to a diverse set of challenges and situations that makes them more of an expert in their particular field or industry, whether they’re a manager, technician or analyst.

Hello Carnegie Mellon Students

2007-07-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

As an executive recruiter, I am fortunate to be able to meet some incredibly talented and interesting individuals. I recently met a Carnegie Mellon West alum with whom I was very impressed. And having been a part-time student myself, I decided to volunteer some of my time and expertise to share what I’ve learned in the executive recruiting business about successful career development strategies.

Over the next ten months, I’ll be covering the following topics as I believe they are the most critical issues in developing a successful career path.

Resume Writing Tips and Techniques
Career Management Insights – Creating that Perfect “Arc” of experience!
Developing Productive Relationships with Recruiters
How to Get the Most out of Social Networking Tools (LinkedIn, etc.)
How to Get the Most out of Networking
Strategies for Using Job Boards
How to Sell Yourself
Successful Interviewing Techniques
Offer Negotiation
Contract or Full-time? What Makes Sense for You?

Each month, I’ll cover one topic, and I hope that you will feel free to post questions and concerns that may arise from my comments. I also encourage you to post ideas for other topics that you have interest in and make this a dynamic, interactive forum for all. While I do have extensive experience myself, I know that I only get better at what I do by listening and learning, so I want to learn from you too!

So here’s the first topic:

Resume Writing Tips and Techniques

If you’re new to the job market or you've evaluated your current employment situation and decided that it’s time to look for something new, keep a few simple things in mind that resume readers look for BEFORE you start sending out those resumes …

Keep it short – No one wants to read a 14 page resume, regardless of how true it all is. Work with a friend or mentor to get your resume down to 2 pages or less.
Make sure the formatting is consistent and that you use a “normal” font like Times New Roman or Arial. Save the flash for the interview.
Correct all spelling mistakes. It’s 2007 and if you don’t have access to spell-check, you’ve got bigger problems than finding a job!
Don’t EVER cut-and-paste a previous job description into a section of your resume. It’s obvious when this is done, and it makes you look lazy and uninvolved.
Make sure all your contact information is available and current – It’s hard to follow-up with a wrong number or a bounced email.
Resumes with a brief summary of skills and a chronological listing of work experience work best – don’t make the reader have to figure out what you did where with a functional resume!

Ask John

Career Planning Series: Managing your career trajectory

Hello Carnegie Mellon Students