| Now that the economy is back on track, let’s look at the last few years and see what lessons we can learn. Normally, people look for jobs because they want to improve their situation. In bad markets, layoffs force people into the market against their will. Since almost everyone getting these e-mails is a manager, this might be a good opportunity to draw some conclusions about how the employment market treats managers. Maybe we learn something from the experiences of managers who’ve been laid off over the last few years.
Let’s consider three things. One, how to make early choices that can minimize the damage if you are forced into the market by layoff, plant closure, etc. Two, once you’ve made your formative career decisions, how do you maximize your career options. Three, what to do if the worst happens.
Let’s begin with the first area. At some point early in your career, you’ve made decisions that eventually lead you to a management track. Occasionally, when evaluating those options early in their career, some people neglect to consider what might happen to them in the event of a layoff. Here are some of things you need to keep in mind.
When evaluating opportunities using the ‘What if this goes bad?" crystal ball, I think an often neglected thing to evaluate is location. I don’t mean location in relation to commuting time. I mean ~ Is the job located in a region where there are other potential employers for your skill set? There is nothing worse that moving your family to a new area, working for a few years, getting downsized, and then realizing most other opportunities for your skills or industry are located 1,000 miles away. The best local example I’ve seen is the semiconductor/telecomm industry and the unfortunate people from Agere in Reading. Many want to stay here in the region yet they are finding that their industry’s center of gravity is elsewhere. That’s means either a relo or an industry change. Industry changes can be very difficult in a soft market. When evaluating any opportunity look at the locality too. It would be great to be in Tampa but if the only other companies in your industry are in Seattle, a layoff could be disastrous. Of course, if you and your family don’t see eventual relocations as bad, this is of lesser importance. But remember, you may not mind having to relocate when your children are 3 years old. Try it when your 15-year-old daughter just got chosen to be a cheerleader.
Think ahead. If your most important goal is to be in a particular part of the country, try and begin your career in an industry well represented in that region. On the corollary, if your primary goal is to work in a specific industry, you should live in the area that industry is centered. Once you decide which is more important, geography or industry, you can do your research appropriately.
The second question is, How does a manager manage their career to make themselves more marketable if they are ever laid-off? I’ve probably spoken to hundreds of managers over the last few years in that situation. Here are some ideas.
I think a key consideration is to avoid working your entire career at one company. Loyalty is nice but unrequited loyalty can be painful. If you have a regular series of promotions with one company over 20 years, that’s fine. But a resume with 20 years at one firm, the last 10 years in the same job, frankly does not look good. Please keep in mind that this does not apply to every person. It’s not a law of physics. It’s a generality and it doesn’t mean I am suggesting that you change jobs for the sake of changing jobs. This is a warning about the dangers of complacency. My evaluation of how people are received in the market shows that a person laid off after 20 years with one firm has a resume that doesn’t look as good as someone who has changed jobs a few times (not too often) and who has tested the market previously.
I think there are two reasons for this, one is a perception and the other is more concrete. Let’s start with the concrete reason. A manager with 20 years in one company might have rusty interview skills. Interviewing, especially for a managerial position, is a skill that needs refreshing on a regular basis. Knowing that in the past you’ve been able to walk into an interview and get an offer will give you more confidence in your ability to do that again. That’s human nature. You can alleviate this by being more active in your own company’s hiring process. From my perspective, there are two types of managers. There are managers who are aggressive in finding people for their own department and there are those who are hands-off. The hands-off manager sees employment as a nuisance and hates to interview or make hiring decisions. They often rely on HR to drive the process, in effect isolating themselves from participating in a key interpersonal part of their job. That gap in their experience often becomes evident when they are forced to approach the market on their own behalf. Often, these are the people who end up spending hours/days on Web posting sites and never picking up the phone to network. The best advice I can give to a person who likes their job but has been with the same company for decades is to be sure you know people outside your firm and industry; recruiters, past job candidates, etc. If you don’t know how to be a living, breathing person to people outside your immediate sphere of influence you will handle your personal job search poorly.
The second reason that the 20-year employee may not be as attractive as the occasional job changer is that the job changer has demonstrated that they can successfully work in different systems and cultures. Working in one system for decades creates a question in a new employer about whether the individual can adapt to their environment. The occasional job changer’s ability to successfully fit into a new situation is taken for granted. This is not as big an issue if your experience has been with a smaller firm. Smaller firms, by their nature, require adaptation. One of the most startling things I noticed in researching this article was made by tracking the resumes of senior people from large companies after they had been laid off. In almost every instance, after a layoff, the person drifts from company to company with each employment stint being shorter and with a lesser-quality company. First post-layoff job might be 2 years, second 1 year, third job 6 months and then, who knows? There’s an old military saying-if you are not moving up, move out. As a manager, keep that in the back of your mind as a potential alarm against complacency.
OK, you’ve done all your analysis and evaluation and managed your career well but you’ve still been laid off. That can happen to even the best person with the most well conceived career track. What happens now?
Hopefully, you have developed a good network of people outside your firm on whom you can call- people like me, vendor contacts, etc. Also hopefully, you’ve been kind and decent to all of them while you were a manager. One of the most revealing conversations I’ve ever had was with a Chief Engineer at a mid-sized firm. He had just gotten a resume from a fellow who had just been laid off from a prior client of his company. He was amazed to get the resume because he said the in the 5 years prior, the fellow had been arrogant, rude and impossible to work with. He had no intention of calling the fellow back. It’s very difficult for a Senior Manager to understand that his authority comes with his title and when the tile is lost, the authority goes away. Unless you’ve treated people in your community (industrial, geographical, discipline) with dignity you can’t rely on any help from them as an informal network when you need help. Courtesy, even in business, is a lubricant.
As a rule, there are fewer managerial jobs open than staff jobs in any given area. The reasons for this are obvious. There are fewer manager jobs in any company to begin with and companies prefer to promote. Generally it requires either an unexpected resignation, a management change in direction or strong corporate growth to send a firm on a outside search for a manager. In a soft market, which is when you are most likely to be laid off, the strong corporate growth will be very hard to find.
Basically, we are left with replacing a person who resigned or finding a job where a company is going through a change in management philosophy. Obviously, analyzing a situation where you replace someone who left is commonplace. We all know what to look for and there are rarely hidden traps. Common sense tells us to find out why they left, how long they had been there and what was the history of the person before them.
The analysis of the management change opening can be more complex. I have seen those type of openings with smaller firms who are growing and need to put together a new management team to manage the growth (a good thing) or with companies that want to adopt a new technology or attack a new market (more questionable). In the first instance, a $5,000,000/year machine builder may be poised to take on new business that can grow them to $20,000,000. A smart CEO should know that increasing his company size by that much will require new systems and procedures. He may need to bring in some new blood from companies at the $20,000,000/yr level to drive that process. Coming into a situation like that, the analysis required is pretty basic. Is the expected growth based on fact or hopes? Does the company understand that in order to grow they will need to make investments to support that growth? In other words, has management made a realistic assessment of the risks/rewards of the growth?
The second scenario, a company adding a new technology or attacking a new market, is more problematic. Here is an example I see constantly. Acme Machine Company makes equipment for the auto industry. The auto industry goes into contraction and Acme’s business suffers. Acme sees that the pharmaceutical industry is still spending on capital equipment and feels that with some minor modifications, they can sell their equipment to a new industry and maintain revenue in a down market. Great, says Acme, let’s hire someone to lead that effort. Acme hires a Senior Engineer from an OEM that specializes in equipment for the Pharma world. This lucky fellow gets a VP title and hears that he is going to be responsible for moving the company in a new direction. Super.
In his first week, he meets with the sales people in the company. These are fellows with 20 years of selling to the auto industry. Many grew up in that industry, some don’t have BS/BA degrees and all have seen the auto industry contract before and they all know that it comes back eventually. Most have no interest in learning new tricks. Our new VP sees a problem. The Pharma world is not composed of risk takers. Our new VP’s Pharma clients want to see a different type of person across the desk than Acme’s current sales team. When our new VP meets with his boss about hiring a few dedicated salespeople from his industry, he is told that the company is not budgeted for that. OK, first storm cloud has appeared.
In his second month, he meets with a potential client. This is a firm that he knows from his prior company and he has designed equipment for them before. Prior to agreeing to a contract, they want to know how Acme will validate the equipment they are designing. Do they handle validation in-house or hire a consulting firm? When Mr. VP goes to his boss to strategize about the best way to handle validation, his boss has two comments. The first ~ "What’s validation?" and the second ~ "It’s not in the budget."
This is a simplified scenario but I think you get the idea. Beware of companies who are being forced into new markets. Any attempt to move in a new direction will require patience and commitment. Make sure your potential new employer knows this. Lay out what they will need to do in the interview process and gauge their reaction. Too often I’ve seen the situation described above worsen. As the new VP asks for more and more resources, Acme’s original market starts to return to health, making the original premise unnecessary. Acme decides the new market isn’t worth the trouble and the new VP is history. Make sure the commitment is there before proceeding. If you have the resources, great. If not, think twice before tackling an undoable job.
Hopefully, none of you will ever be in a position of being forced to seek a new job. If you are ever in that spot, this will discussion might give you some ideas on how to cope. As always, please email your comments, questions, arguments, etc. Also, as always, remember Right Recruiting for any hiring needs!!!
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