THE STORY OF "ANNIE-JO"

NEXT MONTH

I’ve been wanting to write this newsletter since last week, but like everyone else I know, client priorities and trying not to fall too far behind took precedence. So, after making this a "must" for today, I am sitting at the word processor at 8:30 PM. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? If I weren’t so committed to telling you this month’s story, I would be watching a great escapist movie (maybe that is why there are so many of them out.) Never mind—it’s time for a tale or two that you’ll find incredibly candid and, hopefully, insightful.

In the past few months my staff and I have been working (by our standards) hand-in-glove with candidates at a critical point in their job-search process. We have been at the offer stage with sought-after, excellent professionals at the mid to senior levels. We have seen our clients win and lose these top performers, in some cases for mistakes they made at those tense moments, and in other situations because the candidates were not prepared.

THE STORY OF "ANNIE-JO"

I went back to two of those people and asked if I could interview them about the critical factors that ultimately shaped their decision. I also asked about the help they had received from recruiters and the role "headhunters" played in this process. Here is the first chapter. Of course their identity is protected.

The story of "Annie-Jo" – with seven years of high tech experience, Annie-Jo was clearly on a fast track. She fit squarely in the high demand marketplace for Public Relations Managers in San Francisco. Her career started with a top five New York-headquartered agency right after graduation from a prestigious East Coast University. She was assigned first tier corporate clients and earned a role that brought her in contact with senior officers of Fortune 500 companies. She stayed there a very respectable two and a half years and decided to move to California because she liked the environment on the West Coast. Annie-Jo quickly found an excellent company in the Bay area—which was her first choice—that tapped prior client experience gained in the agency.

I know the team that hired her and the outstanding talent on-staff that she learned from. She also worked for one of the most demanding corporate communications executives in the area. Only the strongest, smartest and hardest working professionals survived that culture. During her two year tenure she was caught in an acquisition and survived a departmental downsizing from 12 to three. It is always a telling signal knowing who are the "keepers" and whose jobs vanish. Clearly she was a producer.

Sensing there was no future, and with an impossible workload, she put out feelers to move to a corporate environment that would take her where there was the greatest growth potential. She was interested in a start-up situation, and very importantly, one where she was excited to work with the people on her team. Annie-Jo found a top corporation and jumped on board. She was assigned to create and implement the first PR campaign for the company’s flagship product. She negotiated a telecommuting relationship—one day a week traveling 4-hours roundtrip to company offices in South Silicon Valley—the other working from her home, just north of the city. As usual, she was extremely successful in accomplishing her charter, and could justifiably say, "this is what I have achieved on my own." Annie-Jo was a victim of her own success. The marketing team insisted that she accept a promotion and work at their offices (the 4-hour a day commute was impossible and relocation was not an option.) It was time to move on.

Up to this point her career track was straight-up—not a misstep, not a wasted motion. Each position built on the previous one and added substantive new skills and accomplishments to her portfolio. She was ready to try something experimental—a start-up located where she lived. She saw the opportunity to balance work and personal life, an important value to her. She idealized a start-up and thought it would be an apolitical environment where the team would work together and have fun. Unfortunately, she found a different reality. The company was not properly financed, the environment was far more political than she had expected—and she was not growing. It was time to cut her losses and get back on track. This is where my team and I entered the picture.

Annie-Jo instinctively recognized that she was at a turning point in her career. She sensed she could stay at the level she was at or take a position that would help her grow at an accelerated pace. She wanted to do the right thing and not jump just to get out of a dead-end situation. She said this must be the most carefully thought-out decision of her career. She evaluated the pros and cons of corporate vs. agency. She wanted to manage people and be exposed to a variety of challenges. She wanted to prepare herself one day to have the option of a successful free-lance career. Her first instinct was to look for a corporate job since that had been her most recent experience.

She jumped on the web and visited the sites of companies within a short commute of her home to see what job opportunities were listed. She found a PR Managers spot and immediately sent a resume directly to HR (Human Resources). She sent a resume to three headhunters and two friends—for a total of six in a matter of days. We were one of the contacts to receive her e-mailed resume.

To an experienced recruiter it was clear she had excellent credentials. And, that was just what happened—her initial outreach immediately drew results. The HR manager called the next day to set up a phone interview. We emailed her a response and asked if we could explore several situations, both corporate and agency. The other two recruiters responded quickly as well. In one case the opportunities were with small agencies that didn’t strike her as career enhancing. With the other, the posts were with excellent companies, but simply too far away.

Annie-Jo found differences with the recruiting organizations. She said she was taken aback by the brashness of one recruiter who also struck her as chaotic. She didn’t work long enough with one firm to form an impression. She said we (JC & A) especially took a personal interest, spent more time with her and were very good with follow-up. All behaved in an "ethical and good manner" and she had no problems with any of the three. She said she saw recruiters as helpful in the process and as "nice facilitators."

Within a week of starting her job search, Annie-Jo was seriously considering and being wooed by two excellent potential employers. She was surprised at how fast the market moved. She did not feel the need to explore any additional opportunities. Her challenge was to balance the timing so that she could consider two offers simultaneously. On the corporate side, there were four rounds of interviews: a phone interview with HR , a personal visit with the hiring manager and three members of the team, another visit with the product group and finally an interview with the head of the corporate communications department. It took less than four weeks and the company extended the offer.

Meanwhile (Ms.) Marty Wright from our team, introduced her to a mid-sized agency with a distinctive culture. The head of the firm has a finely honed sense of the type of individual that fits—very smart, balanced (driven in a healthy way), team player and self-assured without being aggressive. Our client had reviewed over 50 resumes from us and had hired only one candidate. So, when Annie-Jo received a "thumbs-up" from the interviewing team, we all focused on making this match work. Marty began a schedule of almost daily calls to the client and to the candidate.

We told our client that Annie-Jo was being courted by a corporation and that time was of the essence. We talked about an offer that needed to match what she would be receiving from the company (As basic as it seems, candidates are not always forthright about telling a recruiter what the timing issues are—unless asked directly. The same holds for dollars extended in competing offers.)

Marty asked what figure Annie-Jo needed to make both offers approximately equal—so that money was neutralized as a factor in her decision. It was a number above the range for the position at the agency. We suggested that they put together a package of salary and sign-on bonus to bring us into the ballpark. The client listened. We told them she needed to make a decision by Friday on her other offer and that she was coming in for a final interview on Thursday.

The head of the firm had to adjust his travel schedule to meet her that day, and squeeze into the tiny window she had (to reply to the competing offer) which turned out to be only 24-hours. We worked with the agency’s HR Manager and agency head to put an offer together which was faxed to her on Friday. Marty was graciously relentless with the client. We did not intend to loose this candidate for the wrong reasons.

By now, Annie-Jo had had about three weeks to decide what was important to her. This was not a great deal of time to make what she considered to be the most critical career decision up to this point in her working life. As she evaluated her choices over those critical days and hours, this is what emerged as key both on an emotional and intellectual level.

In all of her other career moves, she said she had felt elated by the people and the company she would be joining. It was at a "gut" level that she reacted to each situation and that had served her well. She felt that same elation after her visit to the agency and said, "I really liked them and felt a great energy and excitement." It helped that she had visited the firm years ago and was impressed by the founder then and could see the growth and progress the company had made. On the other hand, the corporate offer impressed her as well. Annie-Jo’s meeting with the head of the group went very well and she said she really liked her. The culture was open and team focused—and it did not hurt that the location was less than 20-minutes from home.

Annie-Jo evaluated the corporate position and said that while she would be working for a bigger piece of the company (a larger scale assignment) it was more of a lateral job doing product Public Relations. She would be the only PR professional assigned to the division, and not part of a team—which was one of the issues in her previous corporate post. At the agency she would be part of a team and have the opportunity to manage other professionals.

She saw the size of the agency as an advantage. It was big enough to have the resources to create and implement strategic and large-scale programs with "major league" clients, yet at a point in its growth where she could see significant opportunities for career advancement—without having to make a job change. She also saw the opportunity to work at the agency with a variety of clients as an advantage that would broaden her experience and ultimately be more interesting.

As Marty and I had hoped, the money issue was neutralized. In the short term the agency job was slightly less lucrative, considering a commute into San Francisco was involved. However, the long-term prospects for promotion and financial gain were excellent.

As clear as these points are now, this was not a black and white situation. Annie-Jo accepted the agency offer and Marty and I were probably more relieved and thrilled than our client. I asked Annie-Jo a telling question. "If the agency offer had not been adequate, or if the specific "fit" with this firm had not been so "right", would you have accepted the corporate offer? Or would you have decided to pursue other agencies for the same strategic and career goals that led you to accepting this offer?"

She answered, "I probably would have accepted the corporate offer. I wanted to leave my (previous) employer and I’m still young enough and have the time to address the long term issues later." And that in a nutshell is why people do what they do and explain it later. Never think that the process of changing jobs and being strategic and thoughtful about careers is entirely (or even mostly) logical. Perhaps that is why seasoned managers breathe a sigh of relief when their new hire walks through the door.

What was interesting to me was that Annie-Jo understood so little about our role in this process. We pride ourselves on how different (and better) we are (compared to other recruiters). To her, we were helpful but not that distinguishable from other "headhunters." What we each were useful for, of course, were the assignments we could present to her. She had no idea how closely we teamed up with the client to counsel and cajole them into moving at what (for them) was lightening speed. We helped her receive an offer that made sense and was acceptable without negotiation. To her, it seemed so smooth that she didn’t give a second thought to how it all came together.

And in fact, in the best case scenario that is how it should play out. If we are effective in fulfilling our role, the client should be the hero/ine in this scenario.

As much as I believe in the value of relationships, in this market with the emphasis on lightening quick decision-making, those with the best information and the ability to move that information have the edge. If you cannot keep up, you are simply not a player.