Insight From A Recruiter…That Affects Your Hiring Managers Too.
I have thought long and hard if I wanted to write this one. It’s one that has been circulating in my head over the last few months, but I have been hesitant to share this information for fear of offending anyone. However, weighing the concern of offending anyone with the ability to get one more person hired clearly outweighed my personal feelings. The purpose and the only purpose of these blogs is to educate my faithful readers.
Your Story Is Not Unique To Your Hiring Managers
So here we go…Everyone who calls me thinks their story is unique. Their background in the municipal world is unique. Only they have done what no one else has done in this industry. Maybe for a few that is true, but for the remainder of the callers it’s plainly not true. From their perspective, they may think they are unique, but from a recruiter’s perspective (or your hiring managers) who talks to hundreds of public finance professionals yearly, the story is not. So, why am I bursting someone’s or lots of bubbles right now with this true statement? It’s because you need to shape the actual uniqueness that is who you are, take that, and make yourself marketable with the characteristics that make you unique.
Who You Are Is Unique…Now Market Yourself!
Here’s the rub: what do you think is unique if I’ve heard the story over the last fifteen years? Now imagine what your hiring managers hear every day as people always want to be unique and different. If you know you’re not unique, you are not going to position yourself that way; however, you should use those thoughts to make you marketable. Don’t start every interview or call that you are unique. That is going to turn off the hiring managers as they hear this all the time. As for talking to a recruiter, you should present all your skills, take the ones that you think are unique, and highlight them with what you can bring to the new firm. For example, if you think you are different because you have five skills that no one else has altogether, take those five skills and roll them into one revenue-producing concept that will make a hiring manager excited about chatting with you. Find a way to meld all those skills into one exciting executive summary.
The Key: Your Executive Summary
Yes, we are back to the executive summary. Over the months this has been a continuing suggestion versus the resume when you are getting down to seriously interviewing. By taking those skills that make you unique and blending them into an executive summary, it will clearly state what you can do for the company along with revenue projections if you are on the revenue side. That will make you unique because very few people do this. As many life coaches have professed over the years, don’t tell me what you can do but show me. The executive summary with your unique flare will do exactly that. So, yes you are unique now parlay that uniqueness to excite your hiring managers or recruiter.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving Holiday, and the start of a great holiday season! Finally, a word that has nothing to do with public finance: let us continue to keep the hostages and all those who are suffering at this time of the year in our thoughts daily.
Conclusion
You don’t need a resume to chat with us! If you would like to discuss your options, please reach out for a confidential conversation at 760-477-1284 or email at [email protected]. He can also be reached on LinkedIn. Harlan publishes a blog every Thursday here. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter here, which is a compilation of our weekly blogs, so you never miss one. You can find our listing in the “supplier and services” section of the Red Book under the title of “executive recruiting.”
About Harlan Friedman, JD & Founding Member, H. Friedman Search LLC. Harlan is a thirty-year veteran Public Finance Banker turned recruiter who specializes in the placement of all levels Public Finance Bankers, Healthcare Bankers, Municipal Advisors, Compliance Officers, Issuers, and Bond Counsels.