It’s a good reminder to look at all our avenues of putting ourselves “out there” and ensuring that they are all aligned.

I enjoyed reading your strong and positive response to my earlier comment (I’ll pass your constructive suggestions on to my friend). And I agree the basic career management theme expressed:

even if you feel like road-kill, there’s no way you should let yourself be road-kill!

Tony Johnston
President
Compass North Inc.
http://www.CompassNorthInc.com

Thank you for your insights. My Finance Executive did indeed use my feedback as the motivation he needed to re-examine his brand and put together a more compelling story to take to the job market.

You make an excellent point about the complexity of creating and presenting a compelling personal brand when you are tied to the reputation of another organization – perhaps one whose brand is permanently or temporarily tarnished. In fact, I think I have the seeds for my next blog – thank you.

There is no question, career transition can be hard and potentially demoralizing. If we get caught up in the spiral of lament about those elements of our career path that are beyond our control, it only becomes more painful and dis-empowering.

In the case of your friend, I would suggest that a big part of the his career management homework right now will be to assess his “take aways” from each experience. There is certainly an interesting story to tell about what it took to lift a company’s value 10-fold in less than 2 years, and what it was about the corporate culture that made further change difficult. Likewise, there is a really interesting story to tell about how he went about transforming a financially struggling publicly-traded company into a viable private entity. There is probably an interesting story to tell about Bre-ex – what signals did the non-complicit executives miss, and what can your friend teach other organizations about governance and compliance control based on his “take-aways” from that period.

Your friend’s challenge – and opportunity – is to package these stories in a way that is credible and directly relevant for today’s executive job market. Easy – by no means. Time-consuming – undoubtedly, even in the best job market. Fair – who’s to say? Impossible, no.

Well written post. Surely it must have rocked your Finance Executive out of whatever ‘woe-is-me’ temporary or near-permanent indulgence he was into.

And I agree with your undercurrent theme that, regardless of how life goes, it’s best to muster up a positive outlook while projecting as strong (and professional) an image as you can.

Now, about your suggestion of using personal success stories to amplify your value-add, I think that’s definitely a good one, and something everyone should do. If they can’t do it on their own, that’s where you and your professional career marketing/resume crafting skills can come to their rescue.

But still, I would caution that your Finance Executive’s situation might be a bit more nuanced than your first have taken it to be. I say this because narrow-minded discriminatory behaviour is unfortunately an all-too-common occurrence, particularly in the new-hire process, and especially at the executive level. And it’s not just based on age, skin colour or gender.

An example of this I offer is that of a fellow baby-boomer friend of mine who just got axed as the CEO of a mining company. That occurred despite his doing a great job for them helping lift the company’s value 10 fold in less than 2 years. So now he finds himself back in job search mode again after just getting through his last hunt challenge seemingly yesterday. Back then, he found things really difficult and drawn out because his track record of success had some glitches in it he couldn’t control. The first was that he was one of the innocents caught up in working as an executive for Bre-X while their insider fraud unfolded. The other came from having later had the misfortune to join a TSX listed company just before it started on a path to bankruptcy protection and an OSC temporary suspension of trading before he led it as their new CEO to emerge and carry on as a viable private company. Now, after this latest relatively short CEO stint, he wonders if he can find another top position, even anytime soon. Or will it turn out that he too has been effectively put out to pasture like so many other top ‘past glory’ execs we know in common. Unfortunately, he can’t financially afford to see that happen. The bottom-line reality for him is: no matter how slick and glossy the set of success stories he produces for others are, he’s found it’s all too rare for him to make it through the seemingly mindless cull, cut and discard process involved in most executive new hire projects, all because his past has blemishes in it that he couldn’t (in any practical way) control!

So, yes Karen, fate can be cruel and unavoidable too. And life isn’t always fair or just, for too many a good person is forced to suffer an unkind outcome often in silence and obscurity.

But, enough of that for me – it’s time I get on with other business.

Tony Johnston
President
Compass North Inc.
http://www.CompassNorthInc.com