CheckMate

Unless you’re avoiding the news entirely (not a bad idea in general, but that discussion goes beyond this short post), you are no doubt inundated by now with all the financial gloom-and-doom from the past few days.

I always want to be able to add something useful or different here, but I don’t know that there’s anything significant I can add to the seeming billions of words floating around on this subject right now.

I’ll say this - take a deep breath and honestly assess your situation. If you are in dire straits (as in “I’m not gonna eat tomorrow.”), that’s one thing, and you have to take appropriate action. If you aren’t in that kind of situation - and I’m willing to bet the vast majority of you aren’t - do your best to remain calm, take a hard look at just how what’s going on is directly affecting you, and act / plan accordingly.

Beyond that, I did see what I thought was some sound, basic advice in this post at CareerHub: “Lehman Employees: Here’s What To Do Next”. The author outlines six specific steps, but I especially liked his overall theme:

“But Lehman employees - and indeed job searchers in other sectors - would be well advised to stop listening to all the noise, and instead focus on moving forward with a plan that will secure their next role.”

Sure, I know, as he also says, “Easier said than done.”, but it’s still dead on.

I won’t make any predictions, either, and I would strongly caution you to not buy into any of the predictions that others are making. The reality is that at this point, with things constantly changing minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour, nobody really knows how things are going to shake out, least of all me.

So, right now, unless you have some new overriding reason not to, if you still want a career as a financial advisor, I’d say keep pressing on toward that goal.

I see stories all the time - and you probably do, too - that are just press releases masquerading as news.

It’s not hard to spot these things - usually it’s something from MarketWatch with a location, date, and then “PRNewswire via COMTEX” on the first line. Plus they are normally very much self-promoting and self-serving - if the subject of the “news” is the source and the contact for the article…well, not too tough to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes you can actually even see the contact information for the outside person the company contracted to place the press release listed at the end of the story.

That doesn’t mean press releases are all bad - for example, in my last post I referred to an article that was picked up by MarketWatch which was the usual PR Newswire press release. In that case, though, there was actual data from a survey taken by the Association for Financial Professionals, the source of the press release, and I wanted to give my opinion about that data. Granted, still a press release, but one with some substance worth discussing, not something I tried to pass off as some landmark piece of news, and, most importantly, not something that we had anything to do with, or that was about us, or that we were the source for.

So, the next time someone touts something as “news” because it was picked up by one of the major business magazines (like Business Week, Fortune, or CNN Money), or news services (like Reuters or AP), take a closer look - you might be surprised to find out that it’s just another press release.

You know how I’m always telling you to look closely at numbers? Well, here’s yet another example…

I just ran across the Association for Financial Professionals’ 2008 Women in Finance Survey results under this headline in a MarketWatch story a couple days ago:

“Financial Professionals See Continued Weakness in U.S. Economy”

It’s full of statistics from the survey to back up that headline, including, perhaps most notably, this one:

“…89 percent of financial professionals expect their career to be impacted negatively as a result of the current economic slowdown…”

You have to go all the way to the bottom of the article to find the number that really got my attention, though, and the one I think is the most important statistic in the whole story:

“The 2008 AFP Women in Finance Survey, sponsored by Citi’s Global Transaction Services, asked 3,000 corporate practitioner members — evenly split between males and females — about the impact the current slowdown in the U.S. economy has had on job security and prospects for career advancement. The survey received 571 responses, with a response rate of 20 percent.”

Which means that all those numbers — and that headline — are based on a total of a whopping 571 people, and just one fifth of the total number of people they sent surveys to.

Now maybe a statistician would say that’s representative, but I’m not a statistician, and I have to tell you that I’m not so sure.

Hey, for all I know, the other 2429 people were too busy out making money to answer the survey…

Here’s another story in the “things you don’t see on the networks or major news services” category - it’s in today’s Ft Worth Star-Telegram:

DFW-Arlington area adds 68,000 jobs in the last year, the most in the U.S.

By JOHN AUSTIN
jaustin@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH – We’re No. 1, at least when it comes to job growth.

That’s the news from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which beamed a little economic sunshine into the local forecast this week by announcing that the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area led the nation with 68,000 new nonfarm jobs over the past 12 months.

Jobs in the D-FW-Arlington area grew 2.3 percent in July compared with the same month last year. Houston and San Antonio grew 2.2 percent each.

Read more…

What? I’m shocked…there are major metropolitan areas in the U.S. that have actually added jobs in the last year? Yep.

I’ve said this before and will keep saying it again and again…

Whatever you do, do NOT get caught up in the daily gloom-and-doom, “the economy sucks”, recession, etc., talk. No question, some people are being laid off, losing jobs, and running into some tough times - I don’t pretend that those things are not happening nor do I mean to trivialize the impact they have had on those affected. But there are also many companies still hiring and many unfilled positions out there for which we are currently recruiting.

More specifically, if you have a sincere desire to be a financial advisor, and you have the right background and abilities, you can become a financial advisor with a great firm. Period.

I’m going to take a break from the “Can you trust recruiters?” series, and may or may not return to it. Oh, there’s lots more to say in that area, but it’s not the most pleasant subject, and I do get tired of talking about it, as much as it really does need to be discussed.

Here’s something on a lot more positive note…

Great article in the Jacksonville Financial News and Daily Record today about Margaret “Mag” Black-Scott, who rose from being a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley to her current position there as vice chairman for national sales. I think you’ll find her background and career path pretty interesting (not to mention who she’s married to), but what struck me most was her comments here:

“If you look at the statistics regarding women in this business you’ll find we represent only about 15 percent of the financial advisors. Women on Wall Street face unique challenges but I think it’s a great business for women. Some don’t pursue finance as a career because they think it’s so risky, but look at how many women have careers in real estate. How risky is that? Morgan Stanley would like to convince more women to enter the financial services industry,” said Black-Scott.

Excellent points.

And, trust me, it’s not just Morgan Stanley - all of the major wirehouses are dead serious about adding a lot more women to the ranks of financial advisors.

This is the third part of a series about whether you can trust recruiters, and the kind of questions you should ask or ask about recruiters to help make that determination. In Part 1, I gave an overview of the reasons behind the series and guidelines for working through it, and in Part 2 I discussed the market leading position that a recruiter might claim.

In this third installment, I want to address the number of recruiters a firm says they have:

• Does the firm claim to have a large number of recruiters, say, several hundred or more?

• If so, how does the number of recruiters claimed stack up against the industry standard, i.e., known leaders among executive recruiting firms? (For reference, the Lucas Group, perhaps the premier firm among executive recruiters and a place we’ve mentioned previously, says they have 400 associates.)

• Is the firm claiming part-time independent contract recruiters in their total, possibly in an apparent attempt to make the firm look bigger? There’s absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with contract recruiters, but what about claiming them all as members of your firm so you can advertise having a large number of people? How does that strike you?

• Are the names of all of the firm’s recruiters listed on their website?

• How many of the firm’s recruiters do you see with an online presence, e.g. job listings, on social networking sites, and so on? If a firm says they have several hundred recruiters, I’d expect to see some evidence of the majority of them online, not just five or ten of the same names. Do you?

• Does the company list national or division directors? Are those one-person divisions (i.e., the director), or are there actually teams of recruiters assigned to those divisions? Are the team members’ names listed on the firm’s site?

This is the second part of a series about whether you can trust recruiters, and the kind of questions you should ask recruiters to help make that determination. In Part 1, I gave an overview of the reasons behind the series and some guidelines for working through it.

OK, with what I said in my last post firmly in mind, let’s start with this one - market leadership:

• Does the recruiter claim a leading position in a specific market (for example, “the largest recruiter in the xxxx niche”)?

• If so, what’s that based on - something you can easily check out or something you can’t (e.g., the actual firms who are using that recruiter, since that’s usually confidential)?

• Does the logic behind the recruiter’s claim make sense to you? Or does it appear to be some “creative redefining” where they have spun some very specific and narrow parameters in a way designed to give themselves an exalted position (i.e., the “whale in a bathtub”)?

• How does the claim stand up against known industry leaders? And by that I don’t mean staffing agencies like, say, Kelly Services or Robert Half, but recognized leaders in the executive recruiter world like the Lucas Group?

I said in my last post I was going to talk more about questions that candidates should be asking recruiters.

I wasn’t going to write about this subject because, first, it’s not real pleasant; second, my experience has been that potential candidates, recruiters, and business clients have already seen through some of the firms that are out there; and, last, I kept naively hoping things would change on their own. But, ultimately, I decided to, largely because I see so much stuff written all the time lecturing candidates about not lying, being honest on their resumes, not overstating their accomplishments, and so on (some of it on the blogs of firms who look like they might be doing some of those same things themselves), I thought it was time to address the recruiter end.

Not to mention some of the claims I see some recruiters make - I find myself waiting for the part where they tell you they heal the sick and raise the dead.

Let’s be honest - recruiters don’t enjoy the greatest reputation. And while a lot of that isn’t justified, there’s also a large part of it that we’ve done to ourselves. What bothers me so much about that is that, whether some of these guys realize it or even care, that kinda thing hurts all of us.

I had initially planned to write just a single post, but there was so much here, I decided to split it into several. The common theme for the series is this…

As much as I’ve suggested using recruiters in your quest to be a financial advisor - and still do - I also think some cautions are in order. There are definitely things I’d suggest you check out when you’re considering replying to an ad from a recruiter, or responding when one has reached out to you, or just reaching out to one on your own.

The bottom line is simple: Can you trust what a recruiter says, and, ultimately, can you trust that recruiter?

As you go through these, I want you to forget for now what anybody else - including me - might say about a particular recruiter, since nowadays anybody can say anything online, good or bad, and you may not be able to trust the source. Let’s just remove that variable and concentrate on what the firm and its people say about themselves. Because, in the end, what matters is your personal evaluation of the recruiter - does what comes out of the recruiter’s own mouth square with reality?

Look for patterns - one of the the biggest things to look at is whether the recruiter appears to consistently overstate things. Sure, we all want to put the best face on things, but I’m talking about stuff that goes beyond a little salesmanship. To go back to a reference I’ve made before, if you hear Jon Lovitz in your head saying “Yeah, that’s the ticket!” as you’re reading a recruiter’s website or talking to them on the phone, that oughtta be a big red flag warning for you.

Naturally, I also invite you to look at what, if anything, we say about ourselves in each of these areas and decide for yourself if we’re being accurate and truthful. We sure aren’t perfect, but I can tell you that, as a general rule, we try not to toot our own horn and instead let our actions, how we conduct business, and our results speak for themselves.

Seems like every organization, including all of us executive recruiters, says they are big on diversity. But what’s the reality?

According to a nice new short article on DiversityInc called “5 Tips for Working With Executive Recruiters”, it depends. The article has a number of good tips, but here’s the part I want you to key on, especially the last sentence (my emphasis):

Make sure diversity is high on the priority list.

When the recruiter is interviewing you, make sure you’re asking questions as well. Chief among them should be ensuring the recruiter knows you want to work for a company that values diversity.

“The candidate should ask what the diversity philosophy is at that organization. What do they have in place to support diverse talent, and do they have an inclusive culture?” says Janet Manzullo, senior vice president, director recruiting solutions at Wachovia. “Everyone says they have one, but when you can, get a recruiter to articulate what that means. That recruiter on the outside should know the company well enough to articulate that and if he doesn’t, that should send a signal to any candidate if the recruiter wasn’t familiar with the diversity strategies and philosophies of a given company.”

Exactly. You need to ask the right questions and decide for yourself how truly committed to diversity the recruiter is. Certainly the recruiter’s knowledge level of the diversity program and philosophy at the companies for whom they recruit is a key piece of that puzzle. And, as with many things, it’s not just the answers you get to your questions, but how the person you’re talking with answers them.

You know, this discussion brings up something I’ve been meaning to talk about for some time. I see an awful lot written about questions that candidates should expect in an interview, or questions that candidates should ask in an interview to look good, but not nearly as much about the questions that candidates should be asking recruiters. More to come on that subject in future posts.

Same story, different day…

I saw this headline early this morning (how could I not, given that it was everywhere):

“Wall Street to tumble on disappointing 2Q results”

As I write this a few hours later, here’s what’s been written over on the Yahoo Market Update:

“It looked like Tuesday was going to be an ugly session, with stocks opening sharply lower following worse-than-expected earnings reports from several widely held tech and financial names. Stocks then staged a turnaround, as a drop in oil prices prompted an impressive early afternoon recovery, led by the financial sector.”

(Albeit in the fine print, not the blaring headline, of course.)

Wait - what happened to the “tumble”?

Then again, there are about three hours left in the trading day as I write this, and the naysayers could still turn out to be right. But what does it matter?

I’m definitely not making light of the tough times some people and companies are finding themselves in now or trying to pretend they don’t exist. But it does get old watching people write this kind of stuff daily - why add to the problems we already have by predicting gloom-and-doom that may or may not even happen? I don’t see how it helps anything.

No matter what your personal situation is right now, just don’t get caught up in it. No point in it in general, and surely something you can’t afford to do when you’re a financial advisor.