Job-Hunting Pros Help A Generalist Highlight Her Many Unique Skills

Generally speaking, generalists are dead meat.

That’s what Liz Wachsler discovered when she began seeking a full-time position as a strategic-marketing manager 15 months ago. Despite her impressive 11-year record with big-name businesses such as NBC, the marketing consultant lacked the highly specific experience that picky employers increasingly prefer.

By JOANN S. LUBLIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

http://www.wsj.com

One recruiter ignored her because she had never peddled baby wipes, for instance. "People want to hire specialists rather than jacks-of-all-trades," says Ms. Wachsler, a 39-year-old resident of Fairfield, Conn. "No one knows where I fit," she complains. "So I fit nowhere."

Plenty of applicants hit the same brick wall nowadays because companies want new hires to closely match their job descriptions. So I asked executive recruiter Pat Mastandrea and coaches Joshua Ehrlich and Damian Birkel to confer with Ms. Wachsler and critique her job hunt. They devised remedies that might benefit overlooked generalists everywhere.

Their most important advice: Ms. Wachsler should stop seeing herself as a generalist and instead focus on her unique, transferable skills. In this highly competitive job market, she "must be better able to market and sell herself," says Ms. Mastandrea, head of Cheyenne Group, a New York search boutique specializing in media and entertainment.

"Liz needs to develop a pitch that centers on her definition of an ideal job," concurs Dr. Ehrlich, president of educational services for BeamPines, a New York executive-coaching and assessment firm. Even her business card "should reflect this centralized image" by listing her key areas of expertise on the front, adds Mr. Birkel, a career counselor at human-resource consultants Williams, Roberts, Young in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Ms. Wachsler now realizes that telling hiring managers she wants to get out of consulting is less useful than describing her work passions and strengths. "I need to identify things that make me stand out and show how I will do my job differently than the next person with my exact experience," she says.

The trio also recommended that her résumé include a wider array of quantifiable accomplishments. "All résumé bullet points must command attention," Mr. Birkel says. A truly impressive one "shows me numbers."

Ms. Wachsler agrees the résumé they saw portrayed a well-rounded individual who could "do a lot of things" rather than a results-oriented achiever. But she was unsure how to measure multiple impacts of, say, her stint as an interim marketing executive for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s television unit in 2003. On Dr. Ehrlich’s recommendation, she bought seven sessions with Donna Schwarz, a New York career coach in private practice who helped polish her résumé.

The revised document states, among other things, that Ms. Wachsler saved the TV unit $2 million in ad expenditures by generating 150 free commercials through a customized promotion mailed to station managers. A dividend, she says: The enlarged catalog of results provides "specific accomplishments to talk about in a job interview."

Equipped with her improved pitch and résumé, Ms. Wachsler should spend more time networking and avoid employment ads because they rarely bear fruit, the three counselors say. Her background gives her "a tremendous natural network in the sales, marketing and special-event areas," Mr. Birkel notes.

"She needs to focus 80% of her job-hunting efforts on networking," Ms. Mastandrea adds, while Dr. Ehrlich urges Ms. Wachsler to call about 25 contacts a week and meet 10 face to face every week, ending each meeting with a request for at least two more names.

Ms. Wachsler says she initially concentrated on answering job postings because she felt disconnected after two years of home-based consulting. "I was spending a lot of my time spinning my wheels," she admits.

She networked infrequently, she says, partly because she feared prior associates might not remember her or would be unable to help. Nothing happened when she did try to reach an ex-NBC female executive via e-mail and voicemail. Then, Ms. Wachsler unexpectedly encountered the woman while both were getting manicures one Sunday in Fairfield. The executive provided contacts at several concerns and told Ms. Wachsler to mention her name.

During a recent meeting with one of them this month, the contact "even talked about creating a position for me," Ms. Wachsler marvels. Networking in person "puts a face on the name," she adds.

With Ms. Schwarz’s assistance, Ms. Wachsler recently overhauled her outreach push. Her potential contacts list has grown to 60 from six, grouped by their approachability. She finds she’s not only more confident about networking, but also better organized and better prepared to promote herself. Job hunting the right way "is so much easier," she concludes.

Ms. Wachsler is now getting more job interviews, and she hopes they will lead to the corporate marketing job she seeks. Stay tuned.

• E-mail comments to me at [email protected]. To see other recent Managing Your Career columns, please go to CareerJournal.com.

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