Job search & career branding – How to stand out from the crowd
One of the many things I appreciate about the web is the opportunity to connect with a really interesting and diverse group of people. Typically, we stay in the realm of cyber-networking, but occasionally we transcend the limits of the computer to connect in person. Last week I had the chance to talk with one of my favourite bloggers, a finance executive who writes meaty articles on leadership, governance, risk management, staffing, finance – the nuts and bolts of what it takes to be in business. He isn’t afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, to ask the tough questions, to point out the nakedness of the emperor, and he isn’t afraid to create content that requires readers to exercise their scroll-down finger.
Eventually, as I always do, I turned our conversation to my favorite question. “What is your biggest challenge?” His answer, to use my son’s vernacular, left me gob-smacked. “My biggest challenge is convincing CEOs that, as a Certified General Accountant, I am just as good as a Chartered Accountant.” To understand my reaction, I need to provide some background details that perhaps verge into TMI territory.
When I was pregnant with our youngest child, my husband went through an archetypal mid-career crisis. Unhappy with his job, not seeing a lot of opportunity for growth, he decided he needed a change. Personally, I love change. Thrive on it, in fact. So I was ecstatic, and encouraged him to figure out what his passion is, and go for it. Over the next few weeks, while he considered his options, I was already mentally making plans to sell our house and backpack with our kids around Europe. It came as a bit of an anticlimax, therefore, when he finally announced his life-changing plan. “I’m going to become an accountant.” For the next seven years DH balanced a full-time career with 30 hours a week of brutal and sweat-intensive study in order to earn his Certified General Accounting accreditation. All of which is to say, I have some inkling about what it takes to become a CGA, and have a tremendous amount of respect for the designation.
As a career consultant and resume writer, I have worked with 4,000+ clients over the past five years, including more than 200 accountants of various stripes. This gives me a unique perspective on how CAs and CGAs differ. The typical CA I have met has been an accountant, through and through. Accounting is all they’ve done since graduating university. It is a rare CA who has ever run a company other than an accounting practice, or even a department that wasn’t strictly accounting & administration. CGAs, on the other hand, typically have five years or more of professional experience under their belt before they even start the program, and typically earn their accreditation while working full time. This means that a newly accredited CGA probably has more than 15 years of business experience, both accounting-specific (a prerequisite to earn their accreditation), and more broadly based in operations, strategic planning, supply chain management, production management, human resources.
So now, back to my Finance Executive. Unfortunately, he allowed himself to get dragged into a suckers game. I’m not talking about the territorial shoving contest that competing accounting bodies are currently engaged in for the right to be called Public Accountants in Canada. I’m talking about a no-win branding strategy that starts with the phrase “I’m just as good as.”
Any good marketing expert will tell you that there is no credible way to end the statement “just as good as” except with the phrase “at a fraction of the cost.” Knowing what I do about typical career profile of CAs versus CGAs, I could see half a dozen stories that my Finance Executive could use to distinguish his career brand, without ever having to resort to “just as good as.”
He could recount his superb track record for bringing companies back from the brink of bankruptcy, not only through good accounting practices, although they were definitely part of the picture, but through good financial and business practices. He could talk about cashflow optimization and cost management strategies that make good business sense, and how he used them to drive successful turnarounds. He could also discuss the company that called on his services too late to be saved, and what he can teach other companies from this experience. He could describe his understanding of the language of money – not merely from an accounting perspective, although he has that in spades – but from a business perspective: what it takes to attract investors, build confidence among creditors, safeguard shareholder interests. He could emphasize his approach to ensuring that a company doesn’t just look profitable, but is profitable, and stays profitable, both in the short term and for the long haul.
In professional branding, as in product branding, its all about differentiation – finding a way to make yourself stand out from the crowd. I’m a firm believer in the power of a good story for creating a distinctive brand. What do you have to bring to the table that is unique, one-of-a-kind? What stories can you tell to back it up? How can you make those stories relevant and interesting to your target employer, so that they recognize you as the perfect solution for their challenges?
If you can do this in your resume, your cover letter, your interview, your networking meetings, your blogs, your LinkedIn profile, your web presence – you’ve got it made. If you can’t, you may be left in the unwinnable position of trying to justify why you are “just as good as” the other guy.
6 Responses to “Job search & career branding – How to stand out from the crowd”
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Meet Karen Siwak
An award-winning Certified Résumé Strategist, Karen has crafted top calibre career transition packages for thousands of clients. Her specialty is helping people identify and articulate their unique brands and value propositions, and she is passionate about empowering clients with the tools, strategies and confidence to take control of their career search. Read more...
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October 14th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Suzanne. Suzanne said: Great blog post on career and personal branding from @ResumeStrategy. http://bit.ly/43INog [...]
October 14th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Karen – great personal relation to the challenge of branding in job search. The CPA’s in the US tend to have similar challenges. One distinct CA who is running a great Canadian brand is Jim Balsillie at Research in Motion, who I understand is heaviliy involved in the sales/marketing process, but they are few and far between. Just my toonies worth.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Karen –
Well written post. Surely it must have rocked your Finance Executive out of whatever ‘woe-is-me’ temporary or near-permanent indulgence he was into.
And I agree with your undercurrent theme that, regardless of how life goes, it’s best to muster up a positive outlook while projecting as strong (and professional) an image as you can.
Now, about your suggestion of using personal success stories to amplify your value-add, I think that’s definitely a good one, and something everyone should do. If they can’t do it on their own, that’s where you and your professional career marketing/resume crafting skills can come to their rescue.
But still, I would caution that your Finance Executive’s situation might be a bit more nuanced than your first have taken it to be. I say this because narrow-minded discriminatory behaviour is unfortunately an all-too-common occurrence, particularly in the new-hire process, and especially at the executive level. And it’s not just based on age, skin colour or gender.
An example of this I offer is that of a fellow baby-boomer friend of mine who just got axed as the CEO of a mining company. That occurred despite his doing a great job for them helping lift the company’s value 10 fold in less than 2 years. So now he finds himself back in job search mode again after just getting through his last hunt challenge seemingly yesterday. Back then, he found things really difficult and drawn out because his track record of success had some glitches in it he couldn’t control. The first was that he was one of the innocents caught up in working as an executive for Bre-X while their insider fraud unfolded. The other came from having later had the misfortune to join a TSX listed company just before it started on a path to bankruptcy protection and an OSC temporary suspension of trading before he led it as their new CEO to emerge and carry on as a viable private company. Now, after this latest relatively short CEO stint, he wonders if he can find another top position, even anytime soon. Or will it turn out that he too has been effectively put out to pasture like so many other top ‘past glory’ execs we know in common. Unfortunately, he can’t financially afford to see that happen. The bottom-line reality for him is: no matter how slick and glossy the set of success stories he produces for others are, he’s found it’s all too rare for him to make it through the seemingly mindless cull, cut and discard process involved in most executive new hire projects, all because his past has blemishes in it that he couldn’t (in any practical way) control!
So, yes Karen, fate can be cruel and unavoidable too. And life isn’t always fair or just, for too many a good person is forced to suffer an unkind outcome often in silence and obscurity.
But, enough of that for me – it’s time I get on with other business.
Tony Johnston
President
Compass North Inc.
http://www.CompassNorthInc.com
October 20th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Tony,
Thank you for your insights. My Finance Executive did indeed use my feedback as the motivation he needed to re-examine his brand and put together a more compelling story to take to the job market.
You make an excellent point about the complexity of creating and presenting a compelling personal brand when you are tied to the reputation of another organization – perhaps one whose brand is permanently or temporarily tarnished. In fact, I think I have the seeds for my next blog – thank you.
There is no question, career transition can be hard and potentially demoralizing. If we get caught up in the spiral of lament about those elements of our career path that are beyond our control, it only becomes more painful and dis-empowering.
In the case of your friend, I would suggest that a big part of the his career management homework right now will be to assess his “take aways” from each experience. There is certainly an interesting story to tell about what it took to lift a company’s value 10-fold in less than 2 years, and what it was about the corporate culture that made further change difficult. Likewise, there is a really interesting story to tell about how he went about transforming a financially struggling publicly-traded company into a viable private entity. There is probably an interesting story to tell about Bre-ex – what signals did the non-complicit executives miss, and what can your friend teach other organizations about governance and compliance control based on his “take-aways” from that period.
Your friend’s challenge – and opportunity – is to package these stories in a way that is credible and directly relevant for today’s executive job market. Easy – by no means. Time-consuming – undoubtedly, even in the best job market. Fair – who’s to say? Impossible, no.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Karen,
I enjoyed reading your strong and positive response to my earlier comment (I’ll pass your constructive suggestions on to my friend). And I agree the basic career management theme expressed:
even if you feel like road-kill, there’s no way you should let yourself be road-kill!
Tony Johnston
President
Compass North Inc.
http://www.CompassNorthInc.com
November 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I enjoyed this article, Karen.
It’s a good reminder to look at all our avenues of putting ourselves “out there” and ensuring that they are all aligned.