Top Five Reasons Why Executives Fail To Move Their Career Forwards

                                                                                         

As career experts with over twenty years’ experience of working with Executives, we can identify several reasons why many fail to move their career onwards and upwards. From our experience we have identified the following top five reasons which conspire to prevent Executives moving their careers forwards.

Lack of a clearly defined and realistic career goal

All too often the careers for many Executives are managed and developed by events, opportunities or other people. It is relatively rare that we find an Executive who has taken responsibility and managed his or her career through a clearly defined path.

Most Executives respond to external factors such as the call from the headhunter, promotion within their current organisation, or just spotting that plum job in the Appointments section of The Sunday Times.

Whilst these are activities that can and do happen to all of us, we believe strongly that an Executive should take charge of their career and manage it proactively. Specifically, they should have a long term career goal but throughout their career, should be measuring their progress to reach that long term goal. On occasions this may mean moving on from an organisation to undertake either increased responsibilities or a slightly adjusted career direction.

It is rare to find an Executive who clearly defines their next career move. We believe that Executives should set realistic and achievable objectives to move their career forwards. Just like any other business related project, the terms of reference, or in this case, the career goal, should be researched and then defined in writing. Research could be external in terms of understanding the Executive’s market value, but should certainly include a rigorous analysis of the individual in terms of their skills, work preferences etc.

The outcome of this research should enable the Executive to develop a written career goal that is attainable and time scheduled. Setting a clearly defined, written and realistic career goal is the foundation stone for successful career management.

A poorly presented CV

Most Executives do not have well presented CVs. Whilst grammatical errors are relatively rare, we find that most Executive CVs contain too much trivial and unimportant information and not enough vital and relevant information.

Most executive CVs have been written with the writer in mind and scant attention has been paid to what the reader would expect. For example, most Executive CVs do not feature a brief summary explanation of each company that employed them. Understanding the size, products and services marketed and key customer segments are extremely important to the recruiter. The writer simply assumes that everybody knows who ABC Widgets are.

Too often Executive CVs tell us more about the hobbies and interests of the individual rather than business achievements accomplished in their career to-date. Most CVs are lightweight on measurable achievements.

Writing and presenting your CV is a business project in itself. We would encourage Executives to seek help and invest time and even money to ensure that the principle weapon in their armoury to reactivate their career is as well presented as possible.

Lastly, most CVs are too long winded. The ideal length should be two sides of A4 and perhaps at most three sides for the more mature Executive.

Inertia

From our experience there must be thousands of Executives out in the marketplace who think they ought to be moving their career forwards but currently are doing nothing about it. Why is this?
It could be laziness or a risk averse approach to taking positive steps to move their career forwards. Whatever the reason this inertia is preventing many Executives from moving their career onwards and upwards.

Perhaps it is fear of rejection or a comfort with the “devil they know” coupled with an unwillingness to be rejected.

Whatever the reason, inertia in not helping most Executives. Our advice is to take control of your career and procrastinate no longer.

Limited knowledge of how to market themselves

In our experience, most Executives when considering a career move will alert a handful of headhunters / recruitment agencies and start paying more attention to Executive job advertisements on and off line.

In a recessionary environment when the vast majority of senior appointments are going under the radar, focusing only on advertisements and agencies is not a recipe for success.

Most Executives do not know how to network effectively. This is understandable since most of them have never been taught or coached. Most Executives do not understand how to exploit the invisible job sector and uncover unadvertised jobs. Again, not surprising if they have not been taught.

If you are serious about moving your career forwards you need to know how to exploit the invisible job sector. Our Executive Career Coaching Workshops provide this knowledge and understanding.

Unconscious incompetence

Most Executives are very good at what they do and consequently believe that their natural talents, expertise and worth will shine through any recruitment process and lead them to their next career move.

Whilst this may happen on occasions there is a serious reality check needed by most Executives.

The reality is that the best qualified person does not always get the job, but the best candidate usually does. This means that talented Executives have to become just as well qualified and effective as candidates when looking for a career move. In other words, most Executives do not know what it is they need to know. This unconscious incompetence can be restrictive but can be addressed, and reasonably easily.

Attending one of our Executive Career Coaching Workshop will equip the Executive with the necessary knowledge and understanding of how to emerge from a recruitment process as the best candidate and secure that top job. Further detail can be found at www(dot)executive-career-coaching(dot)co(dot)uk

About the author:
Guy Newton is the Managing Director of Executive Career Coaching and is a world renowned Career Coach. Whether you are “in between jobs” or simply seeking pastures new you will find a wealth of resources that will help you in your quest.

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