Executive Job Search Coaching
Frank’s job search coaching draws on his extensive experience not only with ambitious professionals of all stripes but also as a consultant on hiring systems to a wide range of organizations. His industry leading credentials include the following: Career Management Professional, Global Professional in Human Resources, Certified Professional Resume Writer, and Certified Employment Interview Professional.
Frank’s career coaching clients are typically ambitious, high potential mid-level to senior leaders. They recognize that transitions are not only inevitable phases, but also positive opportunities.
Frank offers six types of executive job search coaching.
I. Job Search Strategy
Job Search Strategy is often the first and most foundational element of a successful job search. Frank’s Job Search Strategy coaching begins with a Career Brand Audit that identifies strengths and areas for development across multiple dimensions and helps target any short-term and mid-term development activities required for career transition success.
He then works with the client to frame a preliminary Job Search Roadmap that draws on both traditional and modern tools. The former includes mining of personal contacts, expanding professional networks, direct contacting of employers and hiring stakeholders, and optimizing the work of executive recruiters. More than ever it is also essential to make effective use of web-based resources including internet databanks and social media marketing tools, including but not limited to LinkedIn.
Collectively these strategies help the ambitious leader identify the top positions, both announced and hidden; conduct critical research into the organizations’ missions and challenges; and pursue them as differentiated “A-Players”.
Franks’ Job Search Strategy coaching may be delivered either on its own or as a supplement to one of the content development services described below.
II. Resume Development
The resume is the most obvious and elusive piece of personal branding for managers and executives. It remains the centerpiece of communication not only for job seekers but also for those wishing to market themselves internally for the next level of leadership. Frank Granek works in close collaboration with his clients to create resumes that project their professional identities with honesty, creativity, and aspiration.
Frank applies a proprietary 5-Level Resume Development Process.
Level 1: Job Target Strategy
Level 2: Content Structure and Flow
Level 3: Professional Profile Impact
Level 4: Accomplishment-Based Job Descriptions
Level 5: Visual Impact
The outcome is a document that is customized to the target organization’s mission and business exigencies and positions the candidate as clearly at the head of the pack in terms of knowledge, skill, experience, and mindset.
Building on an optimized resume, Frank helps clients develop impactful support communications, including cover letters and follow-up communications. These documents can, when executed artfully, focus the hiring manager’s attention and create behavioral bias in favor of the candidate.
III. LinkedIn Profile Development
LinkedIn is much more than a “Facebook for business people”. Used correctly it can help you strengthen your career brand, leverage your existing network, and expand your reach. The foundation of LinkedIn success is a professional and differentiated LinkedIn profile.
Frank applies his 10 Point LinkedIn Optimization Process to help his clients avoid the traps and capitalize on the potential of this increasingly critical communication vehicle. Frank helps his clients craft content that is at once authentic, compelling, and strategically aligned to career ambitions.
Optimized use of LinkedIn involves avoiding the “Dirty Two Dozen LinkedIn Pitfalls” – from misuse of keywords to ineffective summaries to failure to capitalize on groups. Frank’s process goes much further, however, by ensuring that the LinkedIn communications are appropriately distinct from, yet carefully integrated with, all other career communications, including the resume.
IV. Interview Preparation
Interviews for senior level positions present unique challenges. The interview cycle is longer and more rigorous. Candidates must describe a tentative roadmap for solving challenges and bringing the organization to the next level, based on deep understanding of the organization and a vision for the future. Candidates must demonstrate a more holistic leadership style, which in part incorporates mastery of the granular and a flair for the strategic.
Frank Granek’s interview preparation process empowers clients to meet all these challenges and confidently make a compelling case that they are not just qualified – but truly a cut above. He guides clients to leverage their gifts and differentiate at each stage of the interview process, from first contact to close at the senior stakeholder interview.
Interview Core Coaching is typically delivered over three 90-minute sessions. Interview Intensive Coaching involves a deeper exploration of both content and interview dynamics. Interview preparation coaching is highly customized. Typical elements include:
- Interview psychology
- Optimization of body language and voice
- Distillation of the personal value proposition and core messages
- Proficiency in behavioral and traditional question types
- Excelling at tough and “zany” questions
- Gap identification and management
- Stress interview navigation
- Phone and panel interview techniques
- Follow-up communications
V. Salary Negotiation
Salary negotiation is both the end game of the job search and a recurring phase of professional advancement within an organization. The stakes are high – not only monetarily but in terms of the interviewee’s long-term brand. Coaching can help you ensure you come to these conversations not only prepared, but with the ability to shape the game and the personal dynamics.
As a seasoned executive coach and trainer in negotiations Frank recognizes that some leaders may have a background in negotiation. Where appropriate Frank helps the coachee build on existing negotiation skills and customize them to the unique dynamics of salary negotiation.
Some of the benefits of coaching in salary negotiation:
- Apply fundamental negotiation principles – such as BATNA, ZOPA and target point – to salary negotiation challenges and opportunities.
- Conduct effective salary research to determine your value and its range.
- Learn to manage salary questions at multiple interview stages.
- Create a psychological bias toward a higher salary.
- Sustain rapport with negotiation partners to ensure you advance, rather than undermine, important relationships.
- Identify and capitalize on the diverse negotiation styles you may encounter across the table.
VI. Coaching for Selection Success: The Wider Game
Increasingly, savvy employers are applying extended and multi-dimensional hiring processes that go far beyond mere interviews. For top positions these are often the elements that help distinguish between front runners. Frank helps his coachees win the hiring game by approaching these elements with integrity, ambition, and proven techniques. These specialized services include:
- Interview assignment optimization
- Reference selection and support
- Psychometric test strategy
- Assessment center success
