Flawed CFO Social Media Strategy

Obviously this Finance Chief hasn’t read any of my blog posts on the subject nor the excellent recent post by Jeff Ishamel.

Barrett Peterson (@CFOBP) asked me this: “How does an individual with that level of judgement become a CFO? Clearly old enough to know better.” These headlines just might scare Finance Executives all the way back into the 19th Century.

There are ways Chief Financial Officers CAN use social media to …

– further positioning as a subject matter expert;
– talk about passions and interests around a particular subject; and
– drive brand differentiation

… WITHOUT defaulting to complaining about their company or job or violating corporate confidentiality.

Finance Executives can also choose NOT to Facebook, tweet, or blog … but please don’t pass on having a branded and compelling digital footprint on Linkedin. If you don’t know how, email me … we can effectively navigate the sticky wicket together.

“Can’t I just go around the recruiter and contact the company directly”?

My answer is ALWAYS the same … NO! Attempting to knock the recruiter out of the process is a bad idea. It’s always a bad idea. In fact, it’s always a very bad idea.

So, when Matt Bud, Chairman of the Financial Executives Networking Group, addressed this issue in a recent newsletter, I requested his permission to repost it in my blog. It’s worth reading.

<<This particular search firm posted with us on a regular basis. In this case, the posting included the name of their client. You see, they felt that the relationship they had with The FENG was so strong and their confidence in us so high that they could provide this information and not get hurt. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Several of our members decided that they knew best and submitted their credentials directly to this search firm’s client. Not smart. Not only had they most likely eliminated any chance of their being considered for this relatively high paying job, but they had also embarrassed the search firm and burned a long standing relationship of trust that our organization has had with them.>>

Recruiter KO

It makes perfect sense to control your recruiter relationships, in fact, I advocate controlling with whom you work and to whom your resume can be released. But believing yourself to be clever in going around a recruiter who has shared a great opportunity might actually result in much more negative consequences than merely being eliminated from consideration for that particular opportunity.

Delivering a KO to the recruiter might actually be delivering one to yourself as well.

“Between 2010 and 2011, a CFO was almost three times as likely to leave a company when a new chief executive was hired from outside, rather than promoted internally.”

I’ll let the Wall Street Journal speak to the specifics of those numbers … and I’ll talk about what every wise Finance Chief should take away from the numbers.

Preparedness. 

At the risk of beating a dead horse, there are a few realities that come with losing a job.

To busy working to think about your career?

You can be completely blindsided. Yes, even those who deal with the corporation’s finances can get hit from left field. Working one day, unemployed the next. It happens. And it has the potential to be devastating on so many levels when / if it does happen.

You’ve lost the power of passive positioning. There are none so loved and desired as those Finance Executives and Chief Financial Officers who are gainfully employed and seemingly happy and content. You are no different from a skill set perspective than while you were employed, but you are now wearing the black mark of unemployment … and that’s just an additional challenge to overcome in a journey that is already very challenging.

Network? What network? Remember how you were so busy working your job that you didn’t have time to network? Well, now you have all the time in the world. The problem is … your network knows exactly what you need and what it is unable to deliver (a job) most of the time.

Time is of the essence, I’ll just throw a resume together. Big mistake. You know the old cliche “you get one chance to make a first impression”? Yes, it applies to your job search. It is not only difficult to rebound and reposition yourself from that first impression, but it takes some time to figure out what it is about you that is marketable … what a company would be willing to pay, and pay well to get. If you don’t know those things, your resume won’t matter.

The latest statistics from the 20th annual Execunet Job Market Intelligence Report, senior executives are taking an average of 5.7 months to transition. Realistically, plan on 9 months.

Don’t get blindsided. Long before you want to move into a new position, at least move in the direction of being prepared for the next great opportunity!

– His humility;

– Golf isn’t #1 in his life, although he’s a total winner at golf having won the Master’s on April 8th; and

– His joy in life isn’t rooted in winning at his job. He knows there is more to life than his job, and even winning at his job.

At the end of his blog post, Scott Eblin asked a question that caused me to pause and ponder …

“What do you have in your life that makes you happy when you don’t win?”

What about you? Have you given thought to what you have in your life that makes you happy when you don’t win at your job? As in,

• You lose your job?
• Or, lose fulfillment in your job?
• Or, do battle with the CEO / Board every single day?
• Or, take a job to pay the bills that is beneath your skill set, ability, and pay?
• Or, remain unemployed longer than you ever thought possible?

What happens then?

Life's curve balls

Executives at the C-level can really struggle with separating their identity from their job title. When “job title” is gone or changed, the struggle only intensifies.

Waxing somewhat philosophical on this Monday morning but, I’d love to hear .. when life, and specifically your career, is throwing you curve balls, where do you find happiness -and- the motivation is get up and do it all over again the next day?

Where Samuel and I definitely agree is on this:  Finance Chiefs need a clear and compelling, branded marketable value proposition (MVP). It’s critically important to know your value and be able to articulate your value in order to be competitive today.

Where we deviate is over the end product. If a CFO is going to do the hard work necessary to get to the point of knowing his MVP, a resume – that contains the tangible piece of all that intangible work – in conjunction with a Linkedin profile, just naturally makes sense … at least to me.

Samuel doesn’t “need” a resume when identifying candidates, but will instead rely on a complete and compelling Linkedin profile to assess a candidate’s worthiness. I believe he is way ahead of his time. There are not many executive recruiters who are at that place … at least not in my experience, nor in the experience of my clients. And, 99% of my clients are employed not unemployed.

In fact, I just spoke with a recruiter from Spencer Stuart who places CFOs who said, “I am so glad to know about you. I constantly have senior finance executives who are totally clueless about where to even begin creating a resume.”

Is not having a resume worth the risk?

We might get to the point where resumes aren’t needed, but once again, in my opinion and from my experience, we are not there yet. And I liken the “advice” that a CFO doesn’t need a resume to the same “advice” given by some that everyone should write their own resume. It’s just NOT good advice for every Chief Financial Officer. And that advice is sometimes followed to his own detriment.

What happens if you buy in to the mindset that you no longer need a resume, get a call from the percentage of the recruiter population who has a dream job AND requests your resume … and who isn’t at the place where a Linkedin profile is sufficient? Will you lose out on the opportunity for that dream job? You might if you’re willing to sacrifice a marketing document that clearly delineates your branded MVP – and which takes effort and time to create – for a list of responsibilities and duties (sometimes called a resume) that you throw together in order to fulfill that request. And what if the competition IS able to hand over his compelling marketing document on the spot?

Samuel and I do agree on one other thing … companies hire people, not resumes. That is why a CFO MUST be crystal clear on his MVP.

What does your digital footprint say about your ability to do a CFO job?

But what about when the power of social media is reversed? When recruiters and HR use your digital footprint to “more accurately predict” your “likelihood to succeed in a particular job”? So says an article by Kristin Swagman on “The Degree 360.”

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. For candidates, it’s in large part … “personal branding.”

Let’s look at how a couple of scenarios that your branded positioning, visibility, or lack thereof, can impact that predictive analysis by a recruiter.

Branded Positioning … The best possible positioning because you are playing from your strengths to a targeted audience. Because your message is so rooted in who you are and how you deliver, clear, and compelling; it is much easier for a recruiter or HR executive to understand not only what you’ve contributed but how you’ve contributed.

Placeholder … You’re on social media, but you’re not in social media. There’s a big difference between showing up and engaging. It’s the difference between showing up at a networking event and doing the wallflower thing versus the verb thing … actually raising your visibility among people who need to know about you. Are you a social media wallflower? If so, what is the message that is being sent to recruiters on your likelihood for success in a particular role they are trying to fill? Is it the message you want them to receive?

Invisibility … Your message is moot. You’re invisible. There is no way to assess your success factor for a specific position. And that, in and of itself is a message. I blogged about this a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t read it, you might want to. Here’s a snippet from Dorie Clark …

… lacking almost any online presence — they strongly suspected he had fabricated his background …

Branded visibility is one of your best career tools for winning the competitive edge. If you would like to know the other tools executives should have in their career tool boxes to ensure a competitive advantage, please join the Proformative webinar on Friday, May 4 at noon Eastern.

Ginny Schlosser, a Senior Finance Leader and Human Capital Strategist, contributed this job search tip to last night’s FENG newsletter, and with her permission, I’m re-posting her comment and her reasons …

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I couldn’t agree with you more about establishing a LinkedIn profile.  I can’t believe it when a FENG member calls or emails me about something, then when I try to look them up in LinkedIn, either they’re not there or they’re there with no picture, no experience, and fewer than 10 connections.  REALLY?????

So, with tongue-in-cheek, I offer up these Five Good Reasons Not to be on Linked In:

1) You’re independently wealthy, and you don’t need or want to work in the finance profession any longer

2) You receive daily calls from headhunters about great jobs (decisions, decisions)

3) Your mom isn’t in Linked In, so why should you be?

4) You’ve already built a first-class website (which sings your praises) that appears at the top of every search engine’s listing of your name

5) You’re too busy networking with decision-makers at great companies

6) [Bonus Reason] You don’t believe Linked In is worth more than $5 a share, and you’re protesting the market value of approximately $100 a share

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So if you’re not on Linked In, what’s your reasoning … tongue-in-cheek or otherwise?

Ginny Schlosser can be reached via email or through her website or Linked In profile.

“Customizing your resume for each position you apply to can be critical in today’s job search.” 

If you are changing your resume every time you send it out, that tells me that you have:

No focus

You don’t know what you want so you’re willing to be anything or all things to all people … rather than being well-positioned from what you do best and most enjoy doing.

No target

You have no idea who your target audience is or who needs the skill sets you bring to the table so therefore, any company and every company is fair game. But, that often leads to a protracted search and the increased chances of landing in a place that isn’t a good fit for you or for the company.

A flawed strategy

Your job search strategy is primarily, or solely, comprised of searching for posted positions and then firing off your resume to anything and everything that looks like it could be a fit. With fingers crossed and the “right” re-tweaking, you send off your resume and then sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. Did your resume really go to the proverbial “black hole” rather than to the desk of HR? It’s a flawed strategy.

At the Chief Financial Officer level, customizing your resume for every position should not be necessary. Your marketable value proposition (MVP) and messaging to a targeted audience should be so crystal clear that “resume” revisions for every position are simply not required.

I’ll be talking about the tools that every executive should have in his career toolbox with Proformative members on May 4 at noon Eastern. Hope to see you on the call!