Executive Career Change Tips
Making a career change at an executive or other senior-level position will require very different techniques from how you found your past jobs, especially if you have been at the same employer for more than ten years. Finding a job through a recruiter may no longer be an option for you. The rules for how your skills and experience were viewed by potential employers and recruiters early in your career have now changed dramatically. The career change tips I list below are specific to those at an executive level.
My specialty is working with those at an executive level who need to make a career change. I have learned what works and what doesn’t from multiple perspectives. I made a career change at an executive level. For example, I sat on the other side of the table as head of an executive search firm where we interviewed thousands of candidates. We often participated in employer interviews of candidates and learned what our clients considered most important when they selected executives for leadership positions.
I am often asked questions about some aspect of the career change process that people think are unique to them. Admittedly, some of the questions really are specific to them but most are similar to others. The tips listed below reflect those issues that seem to be the more common ones. Some of the tips respond to questions asked by journalists that were ultimately published in various media. (I have tried to identify the media when and where I knew it was published.)
You can review the list below to see if one of your questions resonates with the tip. (The tip numbers are the chronological sequence of when I prepared them.) To read the tip, click on the link to see if it addresses your question. If it doesn’t, click here to send me your question. I’ll respond directly to you and if I think your issue would be helpful to others, I’ll add the tip to the list below. I have grouped the questions into the following major headings:
- Career Change and Job Search
- Interviews
- Executive Resumes
- Self-Employment
- Other topics (that didn’t seem to fit in the above)
Career Change and Job Search
- Effective Job Search Strategies in a Recession – Tip 6
- Finding the Elusive Dream Job – Tip 1
- How to Find a Job When You Think There Are No Jobs – Tip 9
- Managing Your Career (Published by Training Management Review) – Tip 10
- Seven Career Pitfalls Affecting Women – Tip 17
- Ten Things You Must Do in a Recession – Tip 2
- Ten Things to Avoid Doing in a Recession – Tip 3
- Top 5 Job Search Does and Donts – Tip 8
- Turning a Temporary Gig into a Permanent Position (The FasterTimes.com) – Tip 14
- Enhance Your Job Search by Volunteering – Tip 5
Interviews
- Focus on Your Diversity Not on Your Ethnicity (Published by Diversity.com) – Tip 13
- How to Acknowledge Weaknesses in an Interview – Tip 16
- How to Impress Hiring Managers – Tip 4
- Five Deadly Interview Mistakes (Newsweek.com August 2009) – Tip 11
- Turn Being Overqualified to Your Advantage – Tip 12
Executive Resumes
- Resume Guidelines– PDF containing instructions and example of how to prepare an executive resume
- Resume Tips Employer Fraud (Prepared for ACFE June 2009 Conference) – Tip 7
Self-Employment
Other topics
- Email Etiquette at Work (Los Angeles Times article) – Tip 18
If you have a question you would like Carl to answer or if you are a journalist and you would like content on a specific subject relating to job transitions and career search that would be specific to executives and others at a senior level, Click here to contact Carl.