Yes, employers want it both ways. They may advertise a position asking
for only three-to-five years of experience, but have a description
that looks impossible to do unless you have ten-to-fifteen years of this
experience. Some of the reasoning is to keep the compensation expense
reasonable. This makes good business sense, since there are more applicants
than jobs and competition is intense. With over twenty years of
experience in the financial industry, I started most of my conversations
with that fact, thinking that the tenure would elevate my status. I quickly
found out how careful I needed to be in communicating that information,
because I was aging myself—and potentially increasing my price
compared to the competition. I no longer wanted to lead with that fact.
Instead, I used a more targeted approach. As previously mentioned,
I averaged eighteen months a position for twenty-three years, so I used
language that made sense to the particular conversation. I batched some
jobs together to elongate the experience level. For example, “I was in
operations management for a total of five years.” Instead of singling out
each role separately where I had project management, risk management,
and compensation management experience, this method does the math
for the recruiter or hiring manager, instead of them having to add up all
of my experience in different positions. By no means did I misrepresent
myself, I just spoke the language and didn’t invest so much energy into
detailing how long I had certain responsibilities in each designated role.
I became better at explaining the overall impact I had when I was in the
role, which seemed to move me further into the conversation. The quality
of the meaningful work that I executed and delivered became the higher
priority—not the length of time spent doing that work.
Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):
- Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
- Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
- Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
- The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
- From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
- The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood
See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com. Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com
MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby