bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), pp. 36–37
by Carol N. Markham
Judging by the current level of job dissatisfaction at External Affairs, it would not be surprising if some of our colleagues considered, from time to time, options beyond the green pastures of the Department. For these, the creative approach to job-changing might provide an answer.
There is a truly fascinating book geared to the individual with substantial work experience. Someone with character, a track record, interesting presence, stamina and a cast-iron stomach; with intimate knowledge of at least ten airports on seven continents; who can carry the baggage of three individuals and major state secrets at the same time; who knows when and how a little local “grease” will help a rocky situation. The kind of individual the Foreign Service knows and loves so well.
The book is called RITES OF PASSAGE AT $100,000 + : The Insider’s Guide to Absolutely Everything About Executive Job- Changing, by John Lucht, published by The Viceroy Press Inc. (New York, 1988 $C34.95). This book has been selected by both “The Executive Program” of Macmillan Book Clubs Inc. and “The Fortune Book Club”. As the MBA Faculty Chairman of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration says in a particularly American manner, “(It) should be read by everyone within shooting distance of an executive recruiter.” Or more ominously, as the Executive Vice-President of McGraw-Hill Book Company says, “If you can’t find a job using this book, you’re unemployable.”
With these accolades, can it slice bread too? Well, yes. Even if you are not planning to move to greener fields, it gives many pointers which can be put to good use in one’s normal work situation. The book starts with a quote from John Lucht saying, “This is what I tell my friends.” So now we know where we stand. The book is thorough, readable, and friendly.
Although the arbitrary salary level Lucht has chosen may be a bit rich for the Canadian market, and the book concentrates largely on the business field, a foreign service career does have parallels. Lucht has chosen this salary because “ …at six figures the rules and methods for job-changing are different than at lower levels. There are more initiatives executives can take, more INAGING YOUR MONEY/L’ARGENT ET VO opportunities to be explored. But also more pitfalls and more misinformation.” He chose his title because he makes an analogy with primitive societies which take their “initiates” aside and give them a cram course in what they ought to know for their future well-being. They receive practical knowledge once-and-for-all, and they receive “secrets” which presumably they otherwise would never discover. Lucht draws on his seventeen years of experience as an executive recruiter to tell you the inside and outside stories of how to obtain your next job, and what happens from the other side as you take each step along the path. This book is of interest at all stages in your career — when you are dissatisfied, as well as when you are happy with your current job.
As most people do when initiating a job search, this book recommends beginning with the people you know. However, Lucht cautions that while you can make a relevant contact more enthusiastic, you can’t make an enthusiastic contact more relevant. What makes a contact “relevant”? He sets out a hierarchy of relevance: control of jobs; vantage point; and the absence of control and vantage point (therefore the last is low priority, and encompasses people outside your field, hence dependant on off-the-wall suggestions, or serendipity). Knowledgeable enthusiasm would thus include co-workers; closely-dealt-with outsiders; by-reputation-only contacts; and non-business connections (ie, long-shots; the sarne as the lowest priority of relevancy).
Lucht has no patience with the “Alex Bludgeon” type of job-seeker whose three basic rules of the job-search are: (1) never fail to get into the office of anyone whose name is mentioned to you; (2) never depart with less than three names; and (3) never leave follow-up solely in the hands of the person you just saw. His conclusion; “There you have it: up-to-date, truly aggressive networking, as practised by a master. Alex Bludgeon is managing to get into the offices of a great many executives…and to walk out with the names of plenty of additional executives, whose offices he’ll also penetrate. He has virtuoso mastery of the techniques of modern high-pressure networking. It’s the objective he’s lost sight of. Alex is not getting hired.”
As you can imagine, Lucht considers this aggressive approach to be intrinsically offensive. He therefore suggests ways to be polite while still conducting an active and thorough job-search. You can get around the dilemma by: emphasizing close, rather than distant, contacts; leaving appointment-solicitation in the hands of the person whom you’ve just seen; listening carefully during your selt-introductory phone call; accepting immediate help on the phone, rather than holding out for a visit; making lots of polite contacts, keeping records, and using time as your ally; concentrating on your current industry, where talking to you will seem most relevant; trying to have something other than just your employment interests to talk about; trusting your own good instincts, good manners, and good taste, whenever they conflict with what “experts” are telling you to do; and using the various job-changing techniques for what each can do best. All perfectly sound advice whether you are attempting to change your job or to practise the fine art of diplomacy.
His chapters on job-recruiters and their firms are revealing. For one thing, he says that although these firms may have hundreds or, in the case of really large firms, thousands of potential job vacancies, you will only hear about one at a time. You will never be given a list of interesting possibilities from the firm’s files and asked to select the most appealing. One prospect is all you will be given. Only when you unequivocally either take it or reject it could you expect to receive information on another prospect with that firm. Similarly, only one agent in the firm will work on your file. Therefore, in his experience, those who wish to change their job must know how to deal with recruitment firms. This basic advice is centred on self-interest. With respect to a contigency recruiter, he believes you are always better off going to a potential employer on your own, unless the recruiter: has a valid listing; is exclusive (no other recruiters, retainer or contingency, are involved, which is not easy to know); and the job is one you would not have pursued if it were not for the contingency recruiters persuasion.
Concerning retainer recruiters, self-interest is served when the recruiter is searching: to fill a job you could perform exceptionally well; for someone with exactly your qualifications; is personally convinced that you possess those qualifications; considers you are not blocked by the you-work-fora-client “off-limits” rule; and when the recruiter does not already have plenty of other fine candidates. Lucht goes on to indicate that all six objectives must be satisfied before you should go with the retainer recruiter. However, most people look only at the first criterion: performing a job exceptionally well. As he says: “ ’Exceptionally well’ doesn’t mean ’competently’. Since the retainer recruiter is being paid upwards of $30,000 to ’search’, what he finds had better be something special.”
Moving from recruitment firms and recruiters (he devotes many chapters to every aspect of both), you are probably interested in what kind of covering letter should go along with a resume, and what your resume should look like. Well, you are in for a surprise. First, you have to write many letters (500 or 1000). This is because if the person to whom you are writing is not looking for a recruit at the precise moment of reading your letter, it will go into the garbage, or on a file for six months, and then into the bin. The chances that the individual is hiring are minimal, but if he is you might get an interview. According to Lucht’s statistics, 1000 letters might generate 10-12 responses, of which only 2 or 3 are for interviews. He gives many pointers and provides lists on to whom these 500 or 1000 letters should be sent.
His advice on the art of writing a resume is equally startling. It should not be confined to two pages. This is for the individual straight out of college, new to the job market, or perhaps with only one or two jobs. He theorizes, “Think about it for a minute. On two pages you’re barely able to list your name, address, office and home phone numbers, college degrees, a couple of personal facts, and lay out a reverse-chronological listing of all the companies you’ve worked for and the progression of titles and responsibilities from college to now…all requisites of a good resume….So in two pages, you are able to list all the job titles you’ve held and give a skimpy description of responsibilities for the more recent and important ones. Unfortunately, you haven’t got room to say much, if anything, about what you achieved when you held those responsibilities. And achievements proving you’re special are what a prospective employer is looking for.” According to Lucht, for each additional page in your resume, your success rate goes up several hundred per cent, and he has a table to prove it.
Lucht’s theory stresses the importance of the resume providing both a quick orientation on who you are and also being thoroughly convincing. While brevity may facilitate the first part of the equation, usually it fails to resolve the second part, that of convincing the reader. Lucht is not substituting length for content; what he says is that the “long copy sells” principle does both: “A very brief resume could have performed the quick orientation and helped turn your reader off. Unfortunately, it probably couldn’t have turned him on…and on…and on…to the point of picking up the phone and calling you.”
The book devotes attention to developing an etfective resume. It also goes on to discuss the interview, negotiating the employment contract (getting plenty, and making sure), and then what he terms, “Rites of Passage: What, When, and Whether”. Knowing the available techniques for making a career change, Lucht applies these techniques to “the three degrees of job-changing interest” which everyone has throughout their career: “happy where you are; unhappy…but you can’t show it; and, unemployed. “ The book ends with a section on how to expand one’s career, and finally, provides a long appendix on sources of information for a job search.
So there we have it: an excellent book on how to broaden horizons — even beyond the Foreign Service. It should be mandatory reading for everyone who does not believe they have options.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), pp. 36–37. Read the rest of this issue →
