networking Archives | Christopher Frederick

Tag: networking

New Thinking for the New Year – Upgrade Your Approach to Recruitment

Posted on January 8, 2014July 12, 2017 by peter

After a brisk 2013, the new year has found employees in the real estate sector emboldened by improving job prospects. Construction, especially, is expected to be the third biggest job creator among U.S. industry sectors, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently predicting annual job growth of 2.6 percent. In the out years, the BLS in December predicted 50.6 million job openings across the economy between 2012 and 2022. Unemployment remains at 7 percent, but improving conditions mean employers and job seekers alike should position themselves for a new hiring landscape in 2014.

On the Move

Job openings nationwide climbed to nearly 4 million in October, reaching levels not seen since the first months of the recession in 2008. The Labor Department also noted that more workers – 2.39 million that month – left their jobs voluntarily than in any period since October of 2008. That indicates a confidence on the part of employees that they can find more fulfilling or lucrative work. Those hunkered down in positions that offered stability during the recession but no longer meet their professional goals should keep a close eye on the career moves of their peers and managers. Opportunities could emerge in the coming months in the form of lateral openings at different companies and vacancies caused by managers taking the jump to more advanced positions.

Network Now

Even in a rising market for property values and skilled personnel, it’s important to make use of resources that have evolved since the last time real estate companies found themselves in tight competition for talent. LinkedIn, for example, grew its membership 38 percent, year over year, in the third quarter of 2013. With 259 million members globally, it’s become critical to maintain a presence on that network. Even if you’re not actively using social media to find leads, potential employers are.

At Christopher Frederick, we’re also taking the hiring process to a new level. We’ve built the fastest-growing digital network of any traditional recruiting firm, while staying true to the level of personal service we’ve provided our clients for decades. Our proprietary network reaches nearly 200,000 leaders in real estate. Unlike automated online services, though, we use this as a tool to reach the most qualified candidates before a personal, one-to-one approach to screening job finalists, all at no upfront cost to our clients. Call us any time if you’d like to learn more about how this approach can enhance your search for the leaders who make your business excel. Whatever your goals for 2014, keep your head up, look for new opportunities, and develop a strategy now to make the most of a recovering job market.

At Christopher Frederick, we’ve spent more than two decades helping some of the biggest names in real estate hire the talent that keeps them growing. Contact Chris Hingle at chingle@chrisfred.com. Or visit our website at www.chrisfred.com where you can find exclusive job listings for real estate executives.

Social Beyond Media: Add value to your network by developing relationships

Posted on April 1, 2013July 12, 2017 by peter

It’s no secret that most managers would rather hire from their networks than sort through strangers who reply to a want ad. Accordingly, candidates today direct much of their job-hunting effort to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to reconnect with any and all contacts who might pass along a promising lead.

Social media can prove remarkably effective for staying in touch with colleagues. But the ease of connecting online is no excuse to neglect the real-life relationships that often have the greatest consequence in shaping a career.

Face time trumps Facebook:

It takes seconds to ask for or accept a social media invite. Inviting someone to coffee or offering to buy lunch, on the other hand, involves a degree of gumption and effort that shows you are really serious about your professional relationship with that person and your industry. The same goes for approaching someone at a conference, mentoring, introducing yourself in a social setting or volunteering to help with leadership tasks within a professional organization. Face-to-face meetings and the conversations that result create associations outside the parameters of what’s usually discussed on social media, and someone’s real-life presence will always stick in a person’s mind more prominently than an online profile.

Don’t just look up:

Colleagues at or below your level of responsibility can sometimes prove just as valuable as the executives whom everyone in the building wants to know on a first-name basis. People at the department level know that department’s needs. They know who’s coming and who’s leaving and what the budget looks like for next year. Forming relationships with coworkers or potential coworkers through shared interests can create insight into the precise personnel needs of a company at a given moment. Such relationships needn’t be strictly professional, either. Join the company bowling league. Have margaritas after work. Look for coworkers at your kids’ sporting events and activities. Recreation and friendship can often lead to lasting, meaningful professional connections.

Don’t just talk about the job:

As former Silicon Valley recruiter and author Nick Corcodilos advises mid-career job seekers: Keep your focus on the needs of the person you’re meeting with. Offer to sit down with a manager at a company you’re interested in and talk about his or her challenges in areas where you have expertise. Offer advice and critical discussion to help that company run better, and do it outside the context of a formal job interview. If you can prove valuable to an organization before you’re even employed there, you’ll likely find yourself on the short list of candidates when a job opens up later.

Regardless of your current place on the career ladder, the value of a professional network comes not only from the number of people within it, but also from the quality of those relationships.

For more than 25 years, Christopher Frederick has helped executives and companies in real estate build relationships and place the best talent in some of the industry’s leading roles. To learn more about how we can enhance your next executive search using our extensive digital network of professionals, contact Chris Hingle at chingle@chrisfred.com. Or visit our website at www.chrisfred.com.

Remember Me? Five ways to stand out as a job candidate

Posted on October 31, 2012July 12, 2017 by peter

A strategic approach to job hunting can help savvy applicants stand out from the crowd. Here’s how:

1. Make contact. As in any business transaction, it’s always better to approach a prospective employer through a referral or a personal contact – particularly in an era when many job applications are gathered online and sorted by machines. Hiring managers feel more comfortable and take on less risk when hiring someone they know or have met in person. For job seekers, it pays dividends to prioritize networking over searching through ads or sending unsolicited applications.

2. Be specific. There is no industry board or government agency that certifies people as “visionary leaders,” “team players,” “results-oriented” or any of the other vague superlatives people add to resumes. If it’s a description that anyone can self-apply, then most probably have. Instead, use language in application materials that is unique to you. What’s the largest number of people you’ve supervised? The biggest project budget? What specialized industry knowledge have you developed that is possessed by few others? What are concrete examples that show your leadership and smarts? Perhaps your sales team managed to grow revenues when your overall industry was in a downturn, or you created a process that made your business more efficient. No one remembers the self-anointed “visionary leader” in a stack of resumes. Executives remember the employee whose good idea saved the company 20 percent of a project’s cost.

3. The “Golden Rolodex” Even big business can become a small world over time. Your mentor from a college internship, your repeat client at a previous company, the talent you hired that has since moved on – all of these people are advancing in their careers just as you are in yours. Keeping in touch through a short email when the chance arises, crossing paths at a conference, or even sending a holiday card can lead to unexpected opportunities. Keeping an extensive database of contacts over the years, no matter how seemingly trivial, can serve you throughout your career.

4. Have something to say. Every professional develops a level of expertise at what he or she does, and engaging with like-minded professionals can grow your network and open doors. Keeping a blog that offers real insight into your industry, cultivating an interesting Twitter feed or updates to LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks can generate an audience of potential employers. You may never get a chance to pitch the top executives of your dream company directly, but if one of them finds value in what you write, you’re doing something very similar.

5. Write a cover letter. A surprising number of people send a generic form letter to accompany their resume. This can indicate to a hiring manager that you’re applying to as many places as possible without consideration for the demands and benefits of the opening at hand. Cover letters are a single page that need not contain Pulitzer-worthy prose. But they can be a highly valuable chance to pitch why you’re interested in a company and why, beyond the impersonal qualifications on a resume, you’re the best person for the job.

For more than two decades, Christopher Frederick has been a trusted recruiting partner to the real estate industry. To learn more about how we can help your company benefit from our extensive network’s fast and affordable new search process, contact Chris Hingle at chingle@chrisfred.com. Or visit our website at www.chrisfred.com.