EDITORIALS

By a significant margin, we are the largest networking group of senior financial executives in the entire world. Not only that, but by any measure, we are more connected with each other on a national basis than any other organization as well. And, our reputation is well known. We no longer...

As someone who always suggested to his children that a pair of scissors would be a good tool for putting together jigsaw puzzles, perhaps I am not the right person to be constantly preaching about “qualified members only.”Still, having the SPECIFIC experience for a particular job posting i...

The FENG is a society based on helping others. (Not that they actually need our help, of course.)I realize that, at times, members are in a sensitive state and I try to act accordingly. But, I don’t really know if providing brutally direct advice is better than soft peddling what they abso...

The mindset that is most appropriate for a job search is very much like my Army experience where we used to lament what we referred to as “hurry up and wait.”As raw recruits, we were expected to arrive at points at the previously appointed minute, whether or not others were ready for us. W...

Just as an experiment, I unplugged my phone from my desk today and took it upstairs and put it on our bathroom scale. (My office is in my house.)I am sure the scale is wrong because I couldn’t get the scale to even register the weight of the phone. But then, the scale is generally used to ...

The volume of your responses to job leads posted in our evening newsletter is always a concern of mine.With the potential strengthening of the job market for senior financial officers, one of the many things we have going for us AT THE MOMENT is our fine relationship with the search commun...

Life onboard a boat, whether sail or power, is in many respects different than life on dry land.I was watching Ax Men on the History Channel several years ago and the crew dropped a bolt on the ground from one of their pieces of equipment for which they didn’t have a replacement. Despite t...

One of the great challenges we face as financial folks is explaining to non-financial types what we do for a living. And, some of us financial types do things that are so esoteric that we need to work hard to even explain what we do to fellow financial types.At one time, I was Chief Financ...

One of our members wrote me a while back and asked me about how to keep a proper attitude when your job search stretches into what seems like an eternity. The reason he addressed this question to me is that he noted that I have mentioned on several occasions that beginning in March of 1991...

I have had several at length conversations with members from financial services organizations over the years. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, I have no experience working at a bank, insurance company, capital markets firm, or asset management organization. As a result, I have been so...

Although most of us have acquired enough manners over the course of our lives that we know enough not to ask a stranger to give us his/her seat on a bus or train, when it comes to networking, I find that many folks don’t know when they have overstepped their bounds. The approach I would...

One of the many skills we always need to be polishing as financial professionals is our listening skills. The problem begins with the fact that as financial professionals we are more comfortable receiving our information in written form. Put us in a "selling" situation, especially over ...

I hope that over the past few days everyone has gotten a few ideas for the framework of their resume. In order to “get into the game,” you need to have a clean looking resume with the major points discussed in the past few days “looking good.” Now that your resume has been selected for ...

The 80/20 rule I have always been a keen observer of managers. One of my favorites was a gentleman who worked at the Thomson Corporation in a senior financial role. He was one of those tall wiry types who always seemed to be in motion even when he was standing still. Sort of like you...

You would think that with all the books and materials written about how to write a resume, that each and every one that came across my desk would be close to perfect. Well, you would be wrong if you thought so. Under the heading of “explaining the meaning and purpose of life,” I thought...

Maintaining your self-esteem during a job search can be difficult at times, especially if your search has been going on for any length of time. So much of who we perceive ourselves to be comes from the reflection of our personalities upon those with whom we are engaged on a daily basis....

One of the most endearing qualities of us financial folks is that we almost always have a firm opinion about everything. And, if we don’t have an opinion about something, we figure we can reason one out. (Hey, just take the facts and multiply by two!) It is sort of part and parcel of wh...

There are many things that can happen to you in your life that change your perspective. Losing your job and/or having to find another one, easily falls into this category. As you all know, The FENG is a networking group, it is not a job listing service. Sure, we publish lots and lots of...

The sharing of job leads has been an integral part of The FENG for so long that I have come to believe that everyone in the entire world understands the reasons why we do it. Alas, it isn’t true. A few years ago, I had an exchange with a member of the search community who was upset that...

In the closing scene of the first Godfather movie the individual who betrayed Don Corleone is being led away. Just before he gets into the car to his certain death, he turns to consigliere Tom Hagan and says that he hopes he understands that it was all about business and that it was nothin...

Over the years that I have been writing editorials, I have devoted a lot of time to discussing the basics of job search. Why? Because I often can’t believe what folks send us for assignments being handled by The FECG. In a world of more candidates than there are jobs, people who screen ...