Thought Leaders
 Wharton’s Career Management Director Offers Advice for the Mid-Career Executive

Surprisingly enough, Peter Degnan found his job as director of MBA Career Management at the Wharton School through a want ad in The New York Times. He also made the leap across industry and geography to Wharton from serving as CFO of the Asian operations of Lehman Brothers and COO of UBS Japan. While most job searchers find positions through networking and interviews, Degnan’s own experience proves that there are no absolute formulas for a successful job search.

With his finger on the pulse of career searches of hundreds of MBA graduates, and many more alumni, Degnan probably has a better sense than anyone of the changes in the overall job market, successful strategies, and what might be ahead. He shared his perspectives in a recent Q&A with E-Buzz.

Suppose you are a manager who has been laid off mid-career. What would be the first things you would do to gear up for a job search?

First of all, relax, and don’t panic. Stay focused, and solve the problem. In the best world, if your firm provides outplacement services, that would be a useful channel to get refocused and reeducated to the job search process. Even if this is not provided for you, the key thing is to be able to take a step back and relax. In some cases, you have a family with bills to pay. You need to push that stuff to the side to the extent you can. It is the same issue with students who have been turned down a number of times. Their frustration levels may be growing. They start developing a chip on their shoulders, and any recruiter is going to pick that up. So it makes it harder for the next interview. You need to remain relaxed and maintain a positive attitude.

For midlife career changes, this is an opportunity to discover what career you really want to pursue. Is what you’ve been doing over the last few years really what you want to do? Sometimes good things can come from problems. Do you really want to stay in that field or function? Absolutely go back to it if it is right, but not if you aren’t passionate about your work. This is the same thing we tell current students. If you don’t feel strongly about what you want to do, recruiters will pick that up in a second. At every forum, students ask recruiters what is the most important thing to convince them you should get the job. The answer is passion. Not just in words, but to demonstrate in your actions that this is what you enjoy doing.

Fit is also important, particularly for mid-level people. It is not simply the skill sets you have, but it is your style and approach. Are you going to fit into the organization? A lot of times, the interview comes down to chemistry. Sometimes the smartest person doesn’t get the job. Sometimes you know if the fit is right in the first 5 minutes. A lot of people miss that. They have this strong resume, but many times it is not what is most important.

You’ve reached a dead end in your job at a particular company. Business is down, growth prospects are slim. But you want to stay in the same profession. What do you do?

I assume that you’ve had an opportunity to meet your counterparts in other companies and have built a solid network of contacts at other firms. The best thing is to being able to call your counterpart and say: I’m thinking about making a move here, what do you think? The network is what is going to help. Every time you meet people, on the streets, at the dry cleaner, they are a possible contact. Also, don’t forget about your fellow alumni from your graduate or undergraduate school. You never know where you are going to see them again. I hear stories about people who make the strangest connections. They bump into someone, and it leads to a job.

What if you find that you don’t have a strong network? How do you go about building it?

Everyone, as they continue through their working career, should focus on expanding their networks. You should be doing this across the board. Most industries will have trade associations and conferences, a collection of people in that particular world. Begin to interact with and talk to them. This is a good way to build networks.

What if you’ve lost interest in your current career but don’t have the luxury of pursuing your passion as a poor starving artist? You still have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed. How do you make this kind of leap mid-career without too much pain?

You always have to be honest with yourself about what your passion is and what you can afford. You cannot ignore the financial aspects of things. If you have children in school, a mortgage, and car payments, you have to understand what you can afford to move into. It is something you really need to think clearly about and feel good about. Attitude is important. If you are taking a job that is a cut in pay, you may miss the income. So you really need to fully understand the financial implications and make sure it is workable for you and your family.

You need to think creatively about how you can work in the areas you are passionate about. Suppose you have an interest in landscape painting. You may not be good enough to make a living by setting up an easel in the country, but you could own a gallery or be an art dealer and earn a decent living from something you enjoy.

Some of these transitions are hard to make, so you may need to do it in more than one step. Someone who works in the not-for-profit world might come to Wharton thinking of becoming an investment banker. That is a difficult transition to make, particularly in a tough job market when firms are not as willing to invest in potential. They are looking for people who can hit the ground running. I’d advise them to take a half step. You might first join a treasury office in a manufacturing company. This will give you some skills on the finance side and experience in the capital markets at the company level that could then be used to move into investment banking.

This planning seems rather deliberate, but in an environment where things are changing rapidly, how far can employees plan out their careers?

In my own career, I think I planned nothing. I had a general idea. I knew when I graduated that I wanted to work on Wall Street, but after that I had little real control over my career and plans. I never planned to go to Asia and within a couple of months, I had a one-way ticket to Japan where I spent 12 years. And I never planned to go into higher education.

Planning is helpful, but it is more important to be ready when opportunity knocks. Be prepared for opportunities. If the right one comes along and it makes sense, go with it. If you make a mistake, that’s OK. It is often a bigger mistake to walk away from something simply because it doesn’t fit with your plan.

What are some of the capabilities and experiences that can boost the marketability of a mid-career manager in today’s environment?

The biggest challenge for mid-level people is being able to demonstrate your ability to manage people. That has become the most important skill over time. That is something you don’t learn in a graduate MBA program, although there are leadership courses. It is being able to manage people and provide the right incentives to bring them together and solve a problem. The more that you can demonstrate this ability the better; it’s a skill companies value greatly. I remember being at a session at the GE training headquarters, and someone drew a chart that hit home. It showed that 10 percent of the world you have influence over, and the other 90 percent you have responsibility for. The difference is leadership. That is maturity and experience. It is the ability to deal with the fact that you have all these people who do not report to you, and you have to get them to help you.

Second, technical skills in your respective area are also critical. As a manager, you have to show you have knowledge in your area.

Third is vision. Being able to know where you think the business is heading, where you think problems are going to develop, to anticipate things, put into place solutions or new ideas early, having the ability to think a couple of steps ahead. The older you are and the higher you are in the organization, the more these skills become important.

What does it take to get hired and stay hired in today’s environment? How has it changed over the past 10 to 20 years?

The job market has gotten tighter, and companies want people who can hit the ground running. Five years ago, they might take really smart people, bring them in, and figure out what they can do later. They feel confident they’ll contribute something. Today, they need to know this person can do the job today. They want people right now who have a certain background and can start generating revenue immediately. That has probably been the biggest change.

Job changes also are more rapid. I suspect that over half of the MBA class will turn over jobs in the first few years. A lot of firms expect that, so they hire more people up front because they know there are only a certain number that will survive. One of things we’ve pushed in my office is for students to focus on job skills they can use over the rest of their careers, not just for the first job out.

What kind of services are available to support mid-career job searches?

Wharton has resources for its alumni, and most schools do, so first check with your undergraduate or graduate institutions. These include research capabilities, data bases, and job skills resources. There are also a number of good websites, such as Executive Planet, which offers a full range of modules to help executives get reacquainted with how to write a cover letter, network properly or sharpen interview skills, conducting a successful job search, and getting back up to date. Managers can also connect to external job boards that have more high-level listings than Monster, including Netshare, and Sixfigurejobs.com. There are also sites specific to an industry, such as Bankjobs.com.

    

This month's articles: