WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU

One of the great unknowns when engaged to TJS is what actually happens to your resume, cover letter, and any supporting documentation when they leave the warmth and safety of your computer (I'll make a leap of faith here and assume most such things are electronically submitted and do not require paper, ink, and a postage stamp.) and end up at your target firm's HR department or in the inbox of a contact.

There also is the consideration of what the hiring managers or sponsoring firms do with what you send them. You get the form response saying thank you, we will be analyzing your credentials and matching them to the requirements of the position, and we'll get back to you. But what actually happens?

First, incredibly, a job ad is not always for an actual open position. It may be for a position that is expected to be funded at some future date, it may be an exercise by the company to simply see what talent is out there, it may be an exercise to see which of the company's sources of talent (recruiter, job board, newspaper ad, or whatever) is the most fruitful, or it may in fact be to assemble a list of  candidates to fill an open position. With the competitive nature of hiring in financial services, all of these strategies are fair game but you will never know which is in play until later in the process, if then.

Right now, hiring managers would appear to have the upper hand as, despite the nascent upturn in the economy, there are still plenty of you (us) out there looking for the next challenge. They can wait to find exactly what they seek because chances are, it is out there. Incredibly, hiring managers will let businesses stagnate, or not get started quickly, so they can find the Hope Diamond in the rough.

I sat with a hiring manager some time ago and, after the conversation was over, knew in my heart, if not in fact, that I answered absolutely every question she had and felt strongly that there couldn't have been another candidate who was a better fit and would have brought as much to the table. (My cue was the amount of notes that were taken and the number of times I was told "that's a really great point" or "we really need skills like that" or "I hadn't thought of that approach, it makes a lot of sense.")  The kicker was that this was someone with whom I had a previous solid working relationship. I asked what the time frame for a decision was, figuring the next step was to meet the senior executives of the company as early as the following week. When the answer came back "A month. I am still assembling resumes. We'll have a short list in a few weeks.", I blew a very quiet gasket. Raise your hand if you have experienced this.

To me this conveyed both a lack of willingness to bet on a sure thing (remember what I have said about having confidence in yourself?), possibly a mandate from higher-ups to talk to as many people as possible no matter who comes through the door, or maybe even being unwilling to be put on the spot and make a snap decision. Stranger things have happened.

The whole purpose of this edition of the Blog is to allow you, dear reader, to go back over your experiences with applications and interviews and maybe see or pick up on things that you had not done previously. Please let me know if there is anything that I have missed.