Surface Ripples

I Don’t Understand What You Do

This was the phrase a recruitment agent (or “headhunter”) used with me once.

Thanks to my varied international leadership background, I didn’t fit into any one neat little “box” that they could relate to.   I’d run retail banking operations, middle office operations, trade finance operations, worked in HR and also as a corporate lending manager.  I’d overseen correspondent banking relationships for Asia and worked in an investment bank on the client management team.  Before all that, I’d been a ships agent in the South of France!

I’d worked in nine different countries, each with its own separate culture leading teams there.  To be honest, I don’t think these poor people had ever encountered anyone with the same experience before!

No wonder they were confused!

At the time I thought it was their job to work out what I was good at and could offer to others. 

No.

After having run countless CV writing and interview sessions where I tell my delegates that quite often, they have to “make it easy to understand them”, I realised that I’d failed to understand where the recruiting agent was coming from.  Their job was to match up the right candidate with the right job. 

What they needed from me was what I felt would be the right job.  I had plenty of transferable skills, but people want to know where those skills will help them.

I don’t think any “headhunter” ever refused to meet me (some even called me out of the blue!) but I understand now why they found it difficult to “place” me.   I needed to help them understand what I could do better.  That was on me and I didn’t realise it at the time.

As people go through either the job hunting or interviewing process (either as an interview or interviewer) we fail to understand the other person’s position.  Interviewers want to know, quite simply, whether we will help their organisation succeed in its goals and it’s up to us to understand the organisation, the industry in which it operates and its goals through diligent research.  Knowing this, it’s far easier to relate our past experience and our current skills to what the employer may need in our view.

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given by one of my university tutors was, “Always assume that the person reading your essay is an idiot,” he then added with a grin, “especially if it’s me!”

Those words have stuck with me ever since.  He didn’t mean that I should assume I was more intelligent than anyone else but rather that sometimes people think in different ways and need help understanding another person.

I now understand better where I went wrong and can help others overcome this in their job searches or when they’re interviewing others.  It’s taken time but I can now pass that hard-learned lesson onto others.

I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. 

Labels: Career, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 09:43