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LinkedIn vs. Resume – The discussion continues

CFO Coach Cindy Kraft blogged CFOs and LinkedIn, the Evolution. The blog discusses the story of a recruitment firm that would only be focusing on working with CFOs that have a LinkedIn Profile.

My readers will know that I am a big proponent of LinkedIn for CFOs (or any other executive). You can read my previous blogs on the subject:

While I am a fan of LinkedIn for CFOs, I think that people that are looking to hire CFOs (search firms included) that focus solely on LinkedIn are missing a large pool of talent.

Today, it is easier than ever to find talent using LinkedIn. This makes companies and some recruiters (retained and contingency firms) take shortcuts to find talent.

Is LinkedIn a great place to find talent?

Absolutely.

Is it the only place to find talent?

Absolutely not. (Read: When hiring a CFO, is LinkedIn the place to look? )

Finding talent is easy. Finding the best talent to meet the needs of a company is not. Securing that talent is even harder. Ensuring that the talent is hired, stays and delivers multiples of the value of the cost spent on hiring and compensating that talent is why a company decides to work with a quality executive search firm in the first place.

What lessons can CFOs (or other executives) learn from this?

Executives that are not actively searching for their next opportunity beware: You want to be hired by a company that understands the value of executive search and is willing to retain a quality search firm to not only find you, but secure you and keep you for the long term.

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1 key difference between your LinkedIn Profile and Resume

I have written about whether a CFO (or any executive) needs a Resume in addition to their LinkedIn Profile. I made the point that a resume isn’t always necessary. My friend Cindy Kraft disagreed with me. We can both be right at the same time, can’t we?

While LinkedIn Profiles are great for building personal brand and getting attention when looking (or not looking) for a job, there is one key difference between the LI Profile and your resume.

Your resume – needs to be updated when looking (actively or passively) for your next role.

Your LinkedIn Profile – MUST always be up to date.

 Why MUST your LinkedIn Profile always be up to date?

I will give you insight into something that annoys your favorite Executive Search consultant.

Companies hire my firm (Stanton Chase International) to help them hire the most appropriate executive. When working on a mandate, I use LinkedIn (in addition to other tools and methods) to do research on the people that I would like to speak with to see if they are a potential fit for my client.

Do you know what happens when I’m looking for someone who could be interesting for my search, yet they are no longer working for the company they say they are working for on LinkedIn?

They miss an opportunity.

Do you want to make sure you are found when people have an opportunity for you?

Keep your LinkedIn Profile up to date.

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5 Most Popular Names for CFOs (2012 Edition)

What do you call your CFO?

If your company hired or promoted a CFO in the past year in the United States, there is a good chance your CFO may have the following first name.

Men

    • Michael / Mike
    • John
    • David / Dave
    • Steve / Steven / Stephen
    • Mark / Marc

Women

    • Mary
    • Christine
    • Karen
    • Janet
    • Laurie

We have tabulated this information from the over 1,000 CFOs that moved in our CFO Moves Blog since we started in September 2011, till the end of June 2012. CFO Moves is prepared each week and published each Monday, so you can have one comprehensive source for CFO Moves across the USA. Our team at Stanton Chase tracks CFO Moves in our quest to be the most knowledgeable and up to date Executive Search firm focusing on the Chief Financial Officer.

Does this mean that you need one of these names to be a Successful CFO?

Absolutely not. However, consider that like many of the visual, non-visual, and cultural assessments made in a hiring process, it could have an impact, depending on whether a company wants to hire a traditional CFO or not. I see this as food for thought, not an opinion based on fact.

What do you think?

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CFOs & Reputation Management

The Chief Financial Officer cares about reputation. They care about their personal reputation, the reputation of the company that employs them, and the reputation of the people and companies their employer does business with. Reputations are very important to CFOs.

Michael Fertik, founder & CEO, Reputation.com

To find out more about how Reputation Management affects the Chief Financial Officer, I spoke with Michael Fertik. Michael is founder and CEO of Reputation.com, a leading and award-winning Internet Reputation Management Company based out of Redwood City, California. Reputation.com’s mission is to empower individuals and businesses to control their privacy and reputation online.

Fertik sees Reputation Management as a very important issue for CFOs. He finds that CFOs are not only a key organizational leader working to manage the reputation of the company, but that Chief Financial Officers are also very aware that managing their personal reputation is key to their career success. In today’s age where every person has to manage their own career and be their own PR agents, being responsible for your own reputation is important to CFOs, who tend to have high profile visibility on the internet.

With CFOs often responsible for Risk Management at a company, Fertik finds that CFOs are many times the one calling on Reputation.com to help instead of the head of marketing or communications.

Fertik believes that CFOs need to know how important Reputation Management is to a company. Referring to a survey of risk managers, Fertik points out that the number one major risk to a company is not financial risk or catastrophic risk, but reputation risk. He points out that this is true no matter the size of the company.

There are 2 factors that affect a company’s reputation according to Fertik.

Product / service reputation. This impacts corporate reputation, customer reputation, business positioning and strategic leadership reputation.

Personal reputation of key executives, including the CFO. Every potential and current  customer, supplier and employee is looking you up on the Internet AND making decisions based on what they find. Fertik says that surveys show that the internet is the number one source of information on people and companies and that people rely overwhelmingly on quick assessments based on very quick searches to make actionable decisions about those subjects.

How does Reputation.com help CFOs manage their Reputation Risk?

Reputation.com’s product suite, with dashboards, maps and understandable tools, makes it easy for Risk Managers and CFOs to identify and remedy online reputation problems.

CFOs that have been part of an executive team that has had to deal with a reputation crisis know that these challenges can have catastrophic impact on their company and its employees. In a crisis situation, Michael’s team at Reputation.com continues to deliver results as reputation crisis experts with their ability to operate 24/7, using their tools and learned knowledge from helping companies in crisis all over the world.

Fertik recommends that companies take a proactive approach to managing Reputation Risk. He says that it costs 20 times more on average to solve a reputation crisis as opposed to preventing the problem from happening on the internet in the first place.

Have you ever had to manage a reputation crisis as CFO?

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No Employer wants a Stale CFO

Yet many CFOs do not keep themselves fresh.

When I ask CFOs why they don’t find the time for conferences or training or coaching or personal development, they answer “I can’t find the time” or “I’m too busy”.

That, my CFO friends, is nonsense. You know it, and I know it.

And your employer knows it too.

Think back to all the important things that happened in your career and in your life. If they were really important, you always made time for them.

I have met a number of CFOs (who happen to be CPAs) that ‘forget’ about Continuing Education, until they ‘forget’ to file the Continuing Education report with their State Board, and get ‘reminded’, and then try to fill their dance card with useless or irrelevant PD courses.

So why don’t CFOs make time to stay fresh?

Reasons can include (but are certainly not limited to):

  • Not liking learning
  • Thinking they know it all
  • Being afraid of change

Combine a Stale CFO with an average CFO job tenure of 3 years (at best), the Stale CFO is a likely candidate to be unemployed for a while once the inevitable happens.

What can a CFO do to stay Fresh, add value to their current employer and be desired by their next?

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Does a CFO Need a Résumé?

Focus has its benefits. So does the world of social media.

Working in Executive Search, I have focused on delivering human resources of the financial kind to companies for over 11 years now. For the past couple of years, I have put significant time into a sustained and targeted social media effort to let companies (new, current and previous) and CFOs know that I understand them.

As part of this focus and effort, companies ask me to help them hire their CFOs, Chief Financial Officers ask me to help them build their finance teams, and Finance Executives reach out to me when they are in between career opportunities.

When I speak with CFOs, they ask me for my feedback on their résumé. Although I can say that I have read thousands of résumés in my career, I do not consider myself a résumé expert. From time to time I may have a piece of advice that could make the document more effective, but this is not where I add value to a Finance Executive in search of their next opportunity.

On the topic or résumés, I came across a couple of items that piqued my interest recently.

CFO Magazine published an article by David Rosenbaum entitled No Résumés Required. The title interested me. The article was interesting and worth reading, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be about. It did give me the impetus to write this blog piece, so I’m grateful to CFO Magazine for publishing it and to David for writing it.

Cindy Kraft wrote a blog titled I Just Disagree…, where she discusses her disagreement with résumé experts who recommend regular modifying of résumés depending on the position job applications. My comments on Cindy’s blog caused her to disagree with me (finally – we see eye to eye on many topics). It wasn’t actually a disagreement, but when someone says “Interesting perspective, Samuel” what they really mean is…

The premise I made in my comments on Cindy’s blog were:

CFOs who are working don’t need a résumé to attract a new opportunity. All they need is a well done LinkedIn Profile. If the person that finds them needs a résumé, they can use their LinkedIn Profile as a base. I’ve interviewed many quality people based on their LinkedIn Profile alone.

If a CFO has really done their homework and is visible, marketable and branded, the only time they need a résumé is when they are actively looking for their next opportunity.

In essence, there are 2 types of CFOs that can be hired.

  • Employed
  • Unemployed

The Unemployed CFO certainly does need a résumé, because it is (for now, this may change in the coming years) the recognized tool of a job seeker and the people that take employment applications.

The Employed CFO does not need a résumé, nor does he or she need to take the time to prepare one. They are not looking for a job. What an employed CFO needs is to have an appropriate Personal Brand developed, which includes, but certainly not limited to, an effective LinkedIn Profile. When I’m looking for CFOs, my research is wide and varied, and is based on the needs of my client. Whether an Employed CFO has a résumé or not is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is their experience. If they have a proper Personal Branding strategy that leaves an appropriate digital footprint, it certainly makes it easier for me and my team to find them.

I keep on being amazed every week when finalizing my team’s CFO Moves blog, and finding that CFOs who are being hired have a weak LinkedIn Profile, or none at all. In some ways, it makes me wonder how these CFOs get their new job. (Read: When hiring a CFO, is LinkedIn the place to look? ) It does prove that CFOs get their next career opportunities from various sources, but mostly from people that already know them and trust them.

Unemployed CFOs need marketing materials. A solid résumé is still necessary today, in addition to proper Personal Branding.

Employed CFOs do not need a résumé. They just need to have a proper Personal Branding Strategy. If a recruiter asks them for a résumé, they can politely mention that they are not actively looking for an opportunity at this time, and would ask them to refer to their (always) current LinkedIn Profile as a substitute.

Companies hire people, not résumés.

Contact Information

You can reach Samuel by:

Telephone
San Francisco: +1 (415) 738-2070
Montreal: +1 (514) 907-0925

Email: samuel@dergelcfo.com