Taking Aim At The Job Market

The Age

Saturday March 18, 2006

WENDY TAYLOR

Job hunting needs a clear strategy, not a scattergun approach. By Wendy Taylor.

WHEN Simon Philpot hit his early 40s, he found himself asking the question typical of people this age who have reached the top in their field. "Do I want to sit here for another 10 years or do I get out and try something else?"

Mr Philpot had joined the staff of a public hospital as an assistant accountant 19 years earlier and several hospitals and promotions later had achieved the role of the chief financial officer at Western Health. "I really enjoyed working in public health but I had achieved as much as I could in that system," he says. "I wanted to get into the private sector to work on the other side. I was really looking forward to doing something completely different."

Hoping to make the transition in one easy move, he began flicking through the job ads and talking to recruitment agencies - which is where he hit a barrier he hadn't anticipated.

"Because I had a health background, I was pigeon-holed," he says. "It didn't matter how often I met with people and said, 'I'm looking for something different, I have these transferable skills', the feedback was 'you have good skills and experience but you fall short because you have been in health all your life'."

Unclear on where he wanted to go and frustrated by the knock backs, he sought advice from a career management firm. The consultant told him to be more strategic in his job-hunting and warned him that moving from the public to private sector and changing industries in a single leap was unrealistic, a message he admits he was slow to hear.

"Frank (the consultant) said to look at the raft of fringe companies in the private sector that related to health; the private hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, private medical services and suppliers. He said that (a job in one of these areas) would be a stepping stone and get me private sector experience."

He took the consultant's advice and accepted a three-month contract as the financial controller of a private medical service provider, which has since become a permanent role. Eighteen months down the track, he sees his next move also within the private health sector.

"I have accounting skills but I also have a really in-depth knowledge of how hospitals work, which is of great value to these people".

According to Scott Spaulding, chief operating officer and a senior consultant at CFS Career Management, his clients have often struggled to find a new job because of poor job hunting skills and the tendency to undersell themselves, rather than through lack of skills and experience. And while recruiters are crying out that "it's a candidate's market", this isn't the experience of all job seekers.

"People in the over 45 category always find it harder than younger job hunters but they're not the only ones," Mr Spaulding says. "The biggest challenges are faced by people in the public sector trying to break into the private sector, expats returning to Australia after more than two years abroad who have lost contact with their networks, people with an eclectic background with no real depth of experience in a particular industry and people who are trying to return to corporate life after a stint in self-employment.

"The company also helps many people who have taken a significant break between taking a redundancy and looking for work again."

Agency clients are mostly professionals and executives aged from 30 to 50 who lack career direction or have been unsuccessful applying for positions.

"Far too many people put more planning into their renovation or holidays than they do their careers," Mr Spaulding says. "The constant among successful professionals is that they always plan ahead, they have good networks, exceptional self awareness and marketing skills and they always have an exit strategy.

"Conversely, those who struggle wait until a situation becomes unbearable or they lose control through a forced redundancy. They then go straight into their job hunting unprepared and end up targeting the wrong areas. They compete in the most competitive markets, that is, they apply for jobs in the paper, on the internet or they go to (recruitment) agencies.

"From our observations, people have to fit quite neatly into the box to get past recruitment consultants, though it might be easier now than it was a few years ago."

A job hunting strategy starts with the development of greater self awareness through analysing skills, knowledge, values, attitudes and accomplishments. A step, Mr Spaulding says, that also restores job hunters' confidence and ensures they present better in networking discussions and at interviews.

Career managers also help their clients explore new career options, research industries and identify specific organisations within an industry or market segment on which to focus a marketing campaign.

"The best way to break-in is to research companies and the best way to do that is to try and speak with people in these companies and to try to develop networks inside them. They may learn about specific jobs, career paths or options they may want to consider and so they become more focused," he says.

"Given that 77 per cent of jobs are not advertised, it's really important that people work all the job channels available, not just rely on newspapers and the internet."

© 2006 The Age

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