Good afternoon, Ruth,

It’s too bad about the Environmental Coalition role. We can keep an eye out for whom they hire when that’s posted. That may yield some insight into why they didn’t continue with you. It may be your lack of fundraising experience, or it may be other existing relationships were stronger and pulled the hiring decision in the direction of another candidate. 

The Government Admin job probably went to someone well known to the community and the Party, if not to the Executive himself. It looks like selections of people for prestigious positions with that organization go to people the Leaders and Party know, like, and trust. To get into a position like that, you’d have to be engaging with a lot of people. You’d need to connect with and be well-regarded by people the decision makers trust. Their first priority is “a safe hire,” ensuring no embarrassment or faux pas.

Leaders can’t just apply for a position and get it on the merits of their past experience. It’s the future that counts. The way past this discouraging situation is through

• connecting with people who share their interests,

• communicating with them again and again over time,

• telling them they really want to connect with more people who share their interest

so the referring parties do the favor of introducing them to “people who will take their call” – their friends in other words. They have to have consistency and visibility to have credibility.

Leaders make decisions that other leaders will agree with. They won’t pick you just because you’re the best player on the block. You need people to refer you. I would go back to Jim Bryan, and Steve for a start. And the environment-related introductions I gave you.  You need to ask, “who else should I talk with, and are you in a position to introduce me,” so that a buzz develops about you. If there’s a buzz, you don’t have to meet as many people.

With all the talk there is about the ease of getting jobs, low unemployment rate, and available resources like online job postings, one would think it should be a lot easier to connect with an employer who wants to hire good talent that gets the work done. Yet in my experience it doesn’t work that way for people who are beyond early career levels. LinkedIn and Indeed’s research shows that professionals get jobs through applying online only 6% of the time. The higher up the ladder a person is, the smaller that percentage gets. (Here’s a blog post about it if you want to read a little bit more.)

If you think about it, whoever hires you has to put their reputation, role and stature in the community, finances, team members, friends, funders and even their families in your hands. You have to be known, liked and trusted for them to make that announcement.

An example from one of my own recent clients is a gentleman I’ll call Seth. Seth had run a very successful call center for a major company. It was so successful it was bought out. He worked hard on his resume and personal presentation and had terrific references and experience. He had reasonable expectations both of his talents, the types of jobs he could be hired for, and his salary. He went to a few networking groups, but mostly applied for a lot of positions online. He even got a third interview with an organization we both thought he would be terrific in.  But he didn’t get the job. By this time he’d been out of work for a year and was tired. Not paying enough attention to his family bothered him while he focused all his attention, time and energy on finding a job.

Discouraged, when a distant cousin was starting a business and needed help, Seth agreed to work with his cousin even though it was a completely different field and profession and did not require that much of his skill set. Still, it was nice to know he belonged. And he did have some accomplishments there.

A year later, Seth felt better about himself, working in a business that was run well, even though the work itself wasn’t appealing to him. He received paychecks and, with less tension, had space in his mind to pay more attention to his children, wife and home again. He started working out again, went to his kids’ games, and talked with people. This time Seth only networked with people he knew and was given introductions and ideas. He did not apply online. One of his contacts told him about a job leading the inside sales team of a terrific company that is growing. That contact made the introduction. The Company leadership liked and respected the referrer and Seth had a fairly easy time landing the position.

I tell you all this so you see the pattern. I imagine you put hours into finding compatible openings, more hours aligning your background with their needs on paper, and then hear nothing back on your investment.

Ruth, I say this with in a soft and gentle voice: 4,000 case studies show us you need to connect with people who will hand you along. You need to find out about them, too, so you can follow up again, keep building the relationship. That way they are not taking a risk when they hear of something and wonder if they should refer you. When a buzz develops about you, you don’t have to meet as many people.  The ones you meet will do the aligning of your background with openings for you.

Even if you can’t get physically here, you need to make connections voice to voice, so people with connections start getting to know and like you - so they think of you when you are not in the room. Your follow-up will support the sense that you are trustworthy. Visibility is built up over time and really needs to be consistent so people know you mean it when you say you’re available and that there are no impediments to your coming. Through conversations they will get to know the parts of your background that are relevant to them, and you will learn theirs. They will experience what it’s like to be with you. Then they can recommend you. And then when they hear of something, they will let you know about it. They might even speak to the organizational leader on your behalf. They’ll likely test the waters with the decision maker even before telling you.

Now, I’d like to draw your attention to the differences between being a consultant and a member of a leadership team: A consultant looks for problems (and sometimes opportunities) that he or she can help the existing team with because they lack a set of strengths and the investment in hiring the problem solving strengths is not in line with their longer term planning, and they have to be thinking this way about themselves.

A candidate for a leadership team looks for teams with strengths he or she admires and wants to work with (almost regardless of the content because the people they resonate with will be involved in the field of interest). And the team wants this candidate to work with them because they see him or her having strengths compatible with their own, similar values, work styles, and a feeling of teams-manship.