When I interview candidates, the first question I ask them is to give me their elevator pitch in one minute. Many candidates resemble a deer caught in the headlights and I am very surprised. If you cannot explain who you are, what you can do for the company, your strengths in one minute or less - are you a good candidate?

I give them one minute only because I have sat through 4-5 minutes of torture when I used to ask the question “Please tell me about yourself” - believe it or not, I have heard everything from how the CEO in one of their previous employers sucked to how the candidate filed a patent on some esoteric stuff that had nothing to do to what we do. If the open position is for a product manager, it is a good question to ask because product managers have to create positioning statements, give an elevator pitch about their products to prospects. This also displays the communication skills of the candidate.

Elevator pitches should highlight your strengths so that it piques the interviewer’s interest that he wants to know more about it - now the ball is in your court where you can further substantiate on your strengths and make the connection as to how those strengths can help the company.

So what is your elevator pitch?

Once I finished my previous two posts on job hunting tips, I was asked by a friend who is now looking for a job on how to work effectively with recruiters during a job hunt. I have recently spoke to some HR Directors/Managers where this issue has come up as well and hence It occurred to me that this is something worthy of a post.

Here is what I have learnt about recruiters (and if I have a wrong perspective, I encourage recruiters out there to send in their comments so that I can get it right :-))

1) Recruiters are hired by companies usually only after their own recruiting efforts have failed - why - because recruiters need to be paid a hefty fee - usually a good percentage of the first year’s salary of the candidate they refer and gets hired.

2) Recruiters are in the business to make money - they work for the client more than they work for a job candidate - they are getting paid to get the best candidate to their client who hired them and not to make a case for you into a role that may not be an absolutely perfect fit (hence my comment in the previous blog post of “you need to be a round peg in a round hole”)

So what could go wrong where you as an innocent job hunter gets caught between a rock and a hard place - here is a typical sequence that could get you into trouble

1) You apply for a job at company X by sending in your resume (through a friend, apply directly etc.)

2) You get in touch with a recruiter who asks you to send him your resume. Unknown to you, he has been hired by company X to look for candidates for the same position as you have already applied for. The recruiter sends in your resume to company X.

3) You get hired

4) Controversy breaks out - who got you to company X first - your friend/yourself or the recruiter.

I have been told by HR managers that this is their worst nightmare when it comes to working with recruiters. I have also heard about companies getting sued by recruiters for just the above scenario. Last thing you want to get involved in as a new employee is this mess with your new employer.

So how do you protect yourself - set one ground rule right upfront before you engage with any recruiter- THEY CANNOT PRESENT YOUR RESUME TO ANY COMPANY WITHOUT TALKING TO YOU FIRST AND WITHOUT GETTING YOUR PERMISSION. Get them to agree to this before you send them your resume.

Good professional recruiters will know very well why you are asking for this and they will be more than happy to comply - the last thing they also want is the nightmare described above - unfortunately like every other profession, there are a few unscrupulous recruiters out there looking to make a fast buck.

If a recruiter does not want to agree on the above ground rule, don’t engage with them - it is not worth it. After all, your resume is your prized marketing material about the greatest product you have - YOU !! So you have the right to demand where it goes

Happy job hunting !!

In my previous post, I referred to a 1-2 page cheat sheet that I used to create for each company (say Company X) to which I had applied. Here are the key things that I used to have in the cheat sheet.

1) Market space - what industry is Company X in? What is the market growth?

2) Product line - what is Company X’s product line? What problems are they solving? Do you believe that these problems exist (remember the dot come era where companies created businesses to sell vitamins on the web?)

3) Competitors - who are the company’s competitors? Is the segment fragmented with many competitors or has the consolidation already happened and the competition is well established? Where does Company X stand?

4) Management team - Who is the management team and what is their track record? Have they done this before or what are their past successes?

5) Company info - how long has the company been in business. What is the current sales? Public or private - who are the investors and how much funding have they put in and how many rounds?

6) Position description - I copy and paste the job description and then highlight the sentences which call out the skills that are my strengths - this highlighting helps me to hit upon each of these strengths during the phone interview - the job calls for this, let me tell you about what I have done in this area ….

etc.

Here is a Cheat sheet sample that I had created for one of the companies that I was looking at - Mall Networks. I did get the phone interview, but did not hear back from them since (even though I did follow up :-))

I had mentioned in my last post that I would post tips from my experience looking for a job as a product manager - in fact I had to do this twice in the last 7 months. So here is what worked for me … Remember one thing - job hunting is nothing but a marketing and sales job of a single product - You !

1) Don’t respond to job postings unless you want your resume to end up in a pile.

2) Get your foot in the door: Instead, if you find a job in a company X that you want to apply for, use social networking sites such as LinkedIn (this is the only one I use) to see if you are connected to someone who works there or if one of your connections knows someone who works there - then get recommended. You are looking to get a foot in the door and get the first phone call. Candidates who have been recommended by internal sources will at least get the first phone call - it is up to you to take it from there. If you know someone at the company, it will also give you an inside scoop - what is the real story, how is it to work there, anything about your future boss you need to know about - his/her management style etc.

3) Call the hiring manager: If you are not connected to anyone, again use LinkedIn to see who the hiring manager could be - I look for titles such as VP of Product Strategy, VP of Marketing, VP of Product Management etc. If LinkedIn does not have it, look at the company’s website under the Team/Management section. Then call the company and ask for that person - if you do get the person on the line (tough because people are travelling or are in meetings), tell them who you are and why you are calling. If you get the standard response of apply for the job and send it to HR, be frank and tell them that you are trying to get your resume visible and ask if you can send the resume to him/her so that he/she can send it to the hiring manager. There is nothing wrong in asking, worst response you can get is a No. A lot of times this will work and it also shows your initiative and strong interest. Then email your resume within a day so that your name is still fresh in the other person’s mind. Followup with the person via email (no phone calls) after a week if you have not heard anything.

4) Email the hiring manager (long shot): If you do not get hold of the hiring manager over the phone, then try the long shot - you need to figure out if you can get his/her email address. How do you know if it is roberts@xyz.com or robert.smith@xyz.com or smithr@xyz.com - look at the bottom of the press releases at the company X’s website. The company’s contact for the press release typically puts his/her email address at the bottom - this will get you the syntax. Again, sending a cold email is a very long shot and may get you a response only if you are a very strong candidate. I will not follow up on such an email because you don’t want to spam the person.

5) Work your network - there is a great book of “Dig the well before you are thirsty” that is worth reading - basically don’t try to create the network just when you need it - keep your network alive, help others when they are in need and they will help you when you have a need.

6) Get involved in local product management associations - present at conferences on product management topics - you want to be seen as a subject matter expert - you need to do things (good things !) that will let you stand out in the crowd.

7) Always keep looking for a job - you never know what opportunities come along your way - but you don’t want to be switching too often either - pick a job that broadens your experience, stay there for a while, succeed and then think about making a career move.

8. Research, research, research - Get to know about company X as much as you can - as if your life depended on it - you need to comb through its website and know everything about them - where have they been (look at company history, look at old press releases), where are they going (job postings may give you an idea about their future direction), read about the company in the news - what else are others saying about the company (don’t just believe what the company says about itself). Last thing you want to be is a candidate who is not prepared.

9) Company cheat sheet - Prepare on companies you have applied to as if the phone could ring at the very next second for an interview. I created a 1-2 page cheat sheet on each company I applied for so that I can have this information at my finger tips (in case the phone rang).

10) Company’s customers - Can you find a way to talk to some of the company’s customers? If the company has a discussion forum, you may be able to find customers there - what do they think about the company? How are the company’s products perceived? What is the future of the company in the eyes of the customer? If you do talk to their customers, mention this during your interview - it shows how well you research something, how comfortable you are talking to customers etc. - good companies value this and if they don’t, it may not be the right place to work after all.

What about recruiters? I did not have good luck with recruiters - not that they are bad - but they are hired by companies when their own recruiting efforts have failed and hence recruiters only look for a round peg in a round hole - their clients give them specific requirements and recruiters cannot flex them too much to accomodate a candidate’s qualifications.

Tools that I used effectively:

1) LinkedIn
2) Indeed.com - it compiles jobs from different job boards and emails you a digest daily.

I did not find ladders.com useful - it costs a whole lot ($30/month) and it was not of much help.

There is nothing called “too much preparation” in job hunting. So prepare, prepare, prepare ….

After 6 months of working at RSA, I decided to pursue another career opportunity that came my way. On Friday, I joined salary.com as Director of Product Management. I find it very refreshing to get back into the internet space. So for the second time in 6 months, I am going to be drinking from a firehose, but something tells me that this time it is going to be easier and more fun than last time where I had to come to terms with encryption, cryptography and enterprise software. I am very excited about this new position. Given that I successfully found two jobs in the last 6 months in product management, I intend to write about some job hunting tips that I found useful. So stay tuned. I expect to write about it in the next week or so.