Networking, along with direct and targeted mail, is about building relationships while pursuing job opportunities. On the other hand, answering ads and working with search firms are all about pursuing specific job leads. You may ask “well, isn’t pursuing job leads what job search is all about?” No. We encourage our job hunters to form relationships with people who are in a position to hire you or recommend that you be hired. They may have no opening right now, but – if you stay in touch with them – you will be the one they call rather than posting the job. Therefore, the best “job leads” come through your building relationships with people who can best help you land interviews, which brings us back to networking and the direct and target mail approaches.

I advise my clients to scale back on the amount of time they spend answering ads, but to not abandon this approach altogether. There are some advantages to answering ads, such as learning more about which companies or industries are hiring; the types of jobs companies are looking to fill; learning the company jargon; and, how they title their jobs. However, the odds are against you because you are competing with often thousands of other applicants; a junior level person (or worse yet, a computer) will be screening your resume; and, a well thought out and uniquely positioned resume will go unnoticed if scanned electronically.

When it comes to search firms, you are dealing with a different ball of wax. I advise some of my clients to consider working with search firms as a supplement to their search, particularly those clients at the more senior or executive management level.  Headhunters certainly do not have a vested interest in you as a networking contact or in referring you to companies on an informational basis – there is simply no money to be made. However, if the firm has a strong relationship with a client company (the one with the open job) a good search firm can pave the way to getting you an interview. But even the best recruiters make only one or perhaps two placements a month – in contrast to their image of placing SO many job hunters!

However, there are advantages to working with search firms, so long as you don’t spend more than 6% of your time on them. They have access to positions not advertised (particularly those firms working on a retainer basis); they can provide a prospective candidate with more in-depth information about the people with whom they would be interviewing; and, inside information on the company culture, its employees, and its informal structure to name a few. Here’s the thing! Not all search firms are ethical and if they work on a contingency versus a retained basis it can be all out war to fill a client company’s open job(s).

Several years ago at a company where I worked as a corporate recruiter, we discovered one headhunter passing himself off under the name of one search firm to refer potential candidates to us, but passed himself off under a different name to “poach” employees from our company. Talk about your classic robbing Peter to pay Paul! The funny yet sad side of this story is the recruiter did not do a very good job of disguising his voice and we caught him in the act. Other search firms may be equally unethical when trying to circumvent a company’s established Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) laws in trying to place candidates. (If you have our CDs, be sure to listen to the one on working with search firms and answering ads.)

To make sure you are not the victim of a Peter robbing Paul scheme, try to keep these points in mind when working with search firms: find out if the firm representing you works on a retained or contingency basis (retained will be a much more quality search); see if the firm is a member of the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) which is the ethical standard for retained search firms; see if the firm is found in the Directory of Executive Recruiters to learn more about their services; and check the Better Business Bureau to see if they are cited for any violations. You will probably see our Peter robbing Paul guy listed there.

Again, don’t spend more than 6% of your time answering ads and 6% of your time talking to search firms unless they are resulting in meetings for you. Meetings are the only way to measure whether a technique is worth your time. If they are not resulting in meetings, do the tried and true: use direct and targeted contact and networking. While you’re at it, look at the free mini-course on our website in the “For Individuals,” “How to get a Job” section.

Happy job hunting.

• why demonstrating leadership makes you a more valued employee;
• that leadership ability can be learned;
• how you can lead from any position or level in the organization, whether you manage a staff or not.

Leadership is for everyone.

Those with the greatest work smarts exhibit leadership in their jobs, no matter what level they’re at in an organization. In a previous era, just doing your job well may have been good enough. But in today’s competitive global economy, taking the next step and displaying leadership is almost a prerequisite for getting ahead.

Let’s use a real-life example to illustrate what leadership is and why it’s so important.

Sharon managed a sales team. During her five-year tenure, she saw her job as:

• motivating the sales team to perform better;
• forecasting sales trends; and
• executing any other sales-related
• Tasks that her bosses needed. After Sharon left the company, her replacement Nellie came in. Nellie was told by her boss that she had “big shoes to fill.” At first, Nellie did all the things that Sharon did. But she also saw that the sales force was not as effective as it could be

because there were communication barriers between her department and other key support departments, including Marketing, Pricing, Finance, and HR. She was determined to break down these barriers, and began to enlist her bosses, her peers in these other teams, and her staff in pursuit of this objective. So Nellie saw her job as:

• influencing others to adopt her vision of better communication and information sharing between departments;
• motivating the sales team to perform better;
• forecasting sales trends; and
• executing any other sales-related tasks that her bosses needed.

So who’s the leader, Sharon or Nellie? Nellie is, because in addition to the managerial responsibilities she took over from Sharon, she demonstrated the two key aspects of leadership. First, she had a “vision” for where she wanted to take the department. And then she was able to “influence” others to support her vision and help make it a reality.

A year later, after successfully boosting her staff’s performance through the pursuit of her vision, Nellie was told by the same boss who made the “big shoes” comment that “You’ve thrown away Sharon’s old shoes. You’re the best hire in at least ten years.” Nellie had become far more valuable to the organization than Sharon because of the value she added as a leader.

So now we have these two underlying concepts that define leadership vision, and the ability to influence others to adopt and support your vision. How do you develop your own visioning and influencing abilities? Many people feel that great leaders are born, not made, probably because these leaders are so successful. While some may be born leaders, you may be surprised to learn that these leadership skills can be taught.

In the next sections, we will dive deeper into the meaning of vision and influencing. Then we’ll discuss some key competencies that you can focus on to help you become an effective leader.

Leadership consists of vision and the ability to influence others to adopt and support your vision.

VISION

Anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course.

John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

As we saw in Susan’s example, she brought to the job something Jeff didn’t – a vision for the path her department should follow to make it more effective. A leadership vision is a goal or objective that you feel strongly about and that you want others to support you in achieving. It’s an essential starting point for leadership.

Your vision will be most effective in influencing others to follow your lead if it is a simple, clear statement that everyone can understand, but specific enough to create a path for others to walk on. “We want to be the best” is not a strong vision because it’s too vague. Here are some other examples for leadership visions in the workplace:

• “Our separate departments should be working closely together on behalf of the client, instead of being walled off from each other as they are now”;
• “We need to start tracking every part of our process so that we can learn how to save time-to-market for the customer”;
• “We should adopt a new strategy around using data and information to make marketing decisions, instead of just using our intuition.”

The best visions incorporate elements of creativity, innovation, and appropriate risk-taking. Nowhere is this more evident than at Google, where visionary leadership has built innovation and risk-taking into the corporate culture. As an example, a Google executive made a multi-million dollar mistake, but instead of being reprimanded, Google’s co-founder Larry Page told her: “I’m so glad you made this mistake, because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.” (Fortune, “Chaos By

Design,” October 2, 2006.)

If you’ve read The Five O’Clock Club job-search books, you’ll notice the similarity between the leadership vision and the “Forty-Year Vision” used in the job search. The same principle is operating in both situations. Whether you’re articulating a vision for yourself in your career, or for others to follow in the workplace, setting that long-term vision is the first, essential step to realizing your goals.

INFLUENCING

So, now perhaps you have a vision for some aspect of your organization’s effectiveness. How do you make it happen? Well, if you manage a staff, you can order your staff to carry out your vision, but that’s not the most effective way—it would be better if they wanted to do it, or were even inspired to do it! And you certainly can’t order your peers or superiors to support your initiatives. If you don’t manage a staff, you definitely will need to rely on your ability to “influence” others. And, in fact, effective leaders are adept at influencing others to support their ideas.

Influencing Behaviors

As mentioned before, the good news is that you can learn the influencing skills that will allow you to build support for your vision. Some companies survey their employees to discover the skills that their own most effective leaders possess, and then seek to develop potential leaders’ skills in these areas. GE is an example of a highly successful company that has used leadership competencies to develop effective leaders. While the list of leadership competencies may vary between organizations, here are among the most common leadership behaviors frequently seen encouraged in organizations:

• Communicate Effectively
• Inspire Trust in Your Leadership
• Invest Yourself in Your Organization
• Adapt Your Leadership Style to the Situation
• Focus on Goals/Winning
• Maintain Momentum While all of these competencies help you to achieve results as a leader, the top three in particular help potential followers to buy into you as a leader, regardless of your vision. This concept of leadership buy-in is key. John C. Maxwell, the noted author on leadership, has shown that people need to buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

Communicate Effectively

Effective leaders use communication to focus attention on goals, to influence others to buy-in to their leadership, and to listen and learn from others. They do this by following these four principles:

• Communicate often.
• Deliver a consistent message.
• Listen to what others have to say in regular meetings and conversations.
• Emphasize an “influencing” communication style, as opposed to “telling.”

By communicating often, you will keep the goals you’re trying to accomplish at the top of everyone’s minds. By keeping the message consistent, you build trust in your leadership.

Communication is a two-way street—a leader must be able to hear what others are telling her. The information you gain from listening will give you a reality check, on both the vision itself (does it make sense to pursue?) and the progress being made to achieve it. By listening, you create continuous opportunities to alter your strategy or tactics to ensure your ultimate success.

If you seek to influence others to your vision, you need to be able to hear them and learn from them as well. Being open to learning from others connects you to reality and eliminates dangerous wishful thinking, but it also reassures others that what they do matters.

As you listen to others’ input, seek to constantly re-learn the answers to the following questions. If you answer “NO” to any of them, then ask yourself how you can change the answer to “YES.”

• Is my vision viable?
• Am I succeeding in enlisting others to follow me?
• Is the path we’re pursuing the best way to achieve the vision? (If you’re not sure, what are the pros and cons of the alternatives?)
• Am I coming across positively in my interactions with others?

Lastly, effective leaders add to their position of authority by going beyond telling subordinates: “This is what I want you to do.” Instead, they encourage others to buy-in to their leadership vision by saying “Here’s why I think this is important—you have a key role to play in achieving these goals, and here’s why.”

Your vision should be a simple, clear statement that everyone can understand, but specific enough to create a path for others to follow.

Case Study: Fred

Successfully Communicating

His Vision

Fred started his new job as head of a dispirited division at a major bank. Under the previous head, the division was widely perceived as dominated by cliques, low morale, and high turnover of valuable employees. The low morale was having a major impact on customer service and causing many high performers to leave.

Fred had a vision of superior customer service for the division, and wanted to create an organizational culture where high performers would want to work. Fred needed to get his message out to enlist others to follow and he also wanted to make sure he was getting the information he needed from his frontline employees.

Fred put in place monthly and quarterly meetings with different parts of his large staff where he did three things:

First, he clearly communicated his vision for the organization. Many initially were skeptical because they had heard it all before. But, in time, the consistency of Fred’s message and behavior would win over the staff’s trust in his leadership.

Second, Fred discussed the current situation in honest terms. In his monthly and quarterly meetings, the openness Fred encouraged resulted in many uncomfortable questions. For example, in one monthly meeting a questioner asked: “We’re so used to management by ‘flavor of the month,’ why should we believe that what you’re proposing is any different?” Another asked, “How can you expect us to deliver the customer service you want when we’re overworked and underpaid?”

Fred directly answered these questions by describing various initiatives and reiterating his commitment to hearing out and solving employee issues like these. But it wasn’t so much the specifics of the answers that began to win over the division’s employees. Rather, it was his willingness—for the first time—to address questions such as these, and the respect this willingness conveyed, that began to win over the department’s employees.

Third, Fred set up bi-weekly lunches with small groups of staff members at all levels of the organization. In these lunches, he did less talking and more listening. He made himself approachable with “open door” days, and made a point of attending social functions to chat with people. Through these forums he heard about important issues that were hurting department success, issues that had not been aired before. And every chance he got, he’d reiterate the goals he had for the organization, as a means of keeping everyone focused on the vision.

Through his openness to communication, Fred was able to completely turn around the organization within two years, transforming it into a leader in the customer service area. He also reduced employee turnover by roughly half.

Inspire Trust In Your Leadership

It’s hard to maintain any positive relationship without trust, and the relationship between a leader and potential followers is no different. To influence others to follow, you need to generate trust in your leadership. Trust means that those you’re seeking to influence know that you mean what you say, and that they can count on you to follow through. In the example above with Fred, his consistent communication of the direction he wanted to take the organization encouraged employees to trust that the message was sincere. But obviously words aren’t enough, and his actions effectively backed them up.

A common problem encountered by would-be leaders in some organizations is a perception by employees that “we’ve heard it all before.” You’ll often hear this from employees who feel their leadership doesn’t follow through on their words, and that every potentially worthwhile “vision” wasn’t worth the bytes it was e-mailed on. They become so jaded by words that didn’t match actions that a built-in inertia develops against following any vision, no matter how worthwhile. Building bridges through effective communication and trust will help to turn around this negative inertia.

Invest Yourself in Your Position

As a leader, the higher you move up, the more invested you need to be in the business you’re in. At a lower level, it can be more about your work/life balance. As you move up, you have greater responsibility to others, and you may need to give up your entitlements for the good of the organization and the employees for whom you’re responsible.

Adapt Your Leadership Style to the Task at Hand

Blanchard and Hersey pioneered the theory of “situational leadership,” the concept that effective leadership is task relevant. In our dealings with people, most of us will vary our style according to the person we are communicating with or the situation we’re in. For example, we might communicate differently with an employee depending on whether or not they are motivated, or whether or not there’s a severe time crunch.

As a rule of thumb, always strive to adopt an influencing and delegating leadership style to enlist others to help you achieve your vision. We’ve already discussed how the influencing style is a motivator, and delegating work frees up your time to focus on tasks only you can do.

There may be situations, however, when you need to adopt a highly directive style. You can determine whether the situation warrants this “telling” style by:

1. What your “rank” is relative to the person or people you’re seeking to influence, i.e. you can’t tell your superiors what to do;
2. What the employee’s competency is around the tasks you need performed;
3. What the employee’s motivation is; and
4. How time-critical is the task you need to get accomplished.

So, for a subordinate who isn’t motivated to perform a task with a tight deadline, or for a new employee who doesn’t yet have the competency, you will need to adopt a more highly-directive style to make sure you get done what is needed.

As you move up, you have greater responsibility to others, and you may need to give up your entitlements for the good of the organization and the employees for whom you’re responsible.

Case Study: Beth

Adapting Her Leadership Style with

Great Results

When Beth took on her new position as Sales Director, she initially tried to keep the reporting structure of her predecessor, so that all the sales representatives would report directly to her. Beth’s predecessor had by all accounts used a telling/highly-directive style in his approach to all of his subordinates. He made sure he was involved in all decisions and told his staff exactly what needed to be done, regardless of their development level. Needless to say, morale was low, particularly for the highly motivated, highly skilled sales team.

But with a major expansion of the organization underway, and with 20 people reporting to her, Beth was feeling overwhelmed. She was so busy helping them put out their daily fires that she was having trouble performing the tasks that she was hired to do, including coordinating with marketing and developing new sales tools to help her staff succeed.

So Beth decided to adopt a more influencing/delegative approach wherever possible. She did this by:

1. Dropping the number of direct reports from 20 to six, giving these six (who had the greatest skill level and motivation) managerial responsibility over the others.
2. Reducing her “open door” time to her staff, forcing them to come up with their own solutions to many of the problems they formally came to her for.
3. Presenting to her staff a “staff entrepreneur” model for how they can deal on their own with questions and problems.

The approach worked, and freed Beth up to focus on the strategic issues that only she could address. The change in style also resulted in an immediate boost in sales-force morale, with several top sales performers canceling their impending departures from the company.

Focus on Goals/Winning

In all your communication you should be focused on the finish line. Keeping that goal top-of-mind helps protect both you and those you’re seeking to influence from being sidetracked by issues of lesser importance.

Communication is key to keeping everyone’s focus on the goal. But sometimes so much is going on in an organization that it’s hard to keep focus. That’s why effective leaders know how to prioritize. In fact, it’s one of the most important things that effective leaders do. Use three parameters when figuring out your priorities as you seek to reach your vision, and prioritize them in this order:

1. What are you required to do?
2. What provides the greatest return on your investment of time or money?
3. What do you find most rewarding? Management guru Peter Drucker, in a Forbes.com interview, made a similar point in a slightly different way:

“Successful leaders don’t start out asking, ‘What do I want to do?’ They ask, ‘What needs to be done?’ Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’ They don’t tackle things they aren’t good at. They make sure other necessities get done, but not by them.” Successful leaders make sure that they succeed! They are not afraid of strength in others. Andrew Carnegie wanted to put on his gravestone, “Here lies a man who knew how to put into his service more able men than he was himself.”

Always strive to adopt an influencing and delegating leadership style to enlist others to help you achieve your vision. However, sometimes a directive style is called for.

What has worked for me in my positions, as well as for my clients who have used it, is the “80/20 rule.” This rule can be interpreted in the following way: You often spend 20% of your time getting 80% of the work done, and then the remaining 80% of your time getting that last 20% done. Looking at this from a cost/benefit point of view, getting that last 20% done is usually not worth the time it takes. So one way to prioritize is to focus on the 80% you get done quickly, and then forget the rest or put it off for another time.

As Voltaire once said, “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Don’t lose sight of your goal by focusing on the perfect, when the good will get you there as well.

Build and Maintain the Momentum

Look for the small wins and focus on the positive as you try to reach your vision. Celebrate the small wins with your team or colleagues—the audience you’re seeking to influence. Building momentum is especially important in\ the early stages of a project, or when you and your team are going through a tough time and the goal may seem farther away than ever.

To help build and maintain momentum, consider doing some or all of the following:

• Ensure that there are milestones or stepping-stones that can be celebrated early along the way to achieving your vision.
• Use e-mail thank-you’s to individuals or the team to recognize achievements that bring you closer to the vision.
• Consider other ways of recognizing progress, including team lunches, sending “good news” notes to senior leadership which recognize individual team members, etc.
• If unexpected obstacles develop, work hard to find any opportunity for celebrating a success.
• Keep a project plan, keep it updated, and circulate it so everyone can see the progress being made.
• Work to keep sidetracking discussions at meetings to a minimum. An important way of doing this is to suggest taking the subject “off line” for further discussion after the meeting, without all the team members present.

Look for the small wins and focus on the positive as you try to reach your vision.

Case Study: Jackie

Starting With the Quick Wins

Jackie, a new director of enrollments for a school, had a leadership vision of greater enrollments through collaboration between her enrollment team and other departments in the school, including Marketing, Financial Aid, and Housing, and the Teaching staff. She inherited a department where morale was low and the staff had “heard it all before.”

So Jackie started off looking for quick wins for her department to build morale and momentum for her goals.

She developed a periodicals rack in the department that contained marketing materials, financial aid information, teacher biographies, alumni locations, and international student visa information. Her enrollment team now had inter-departmental information at their fingertips that they never had before, and their sales effort became more effective. She chose one month to be a month of brainstorming new enrollment ideas, and her department came up with many new ideas that were easily implemented.

Jackie then began to tackle the harder tasks, meeting with Financial Aid and Housing, and developed with them a plan for faster approval of the most desirable students. Momentum and support for her vision began to build.

LEAD FROM ANY LEVEL OR TENURE

Sometimes new employees, more junior employees, or those without staff to manage, don’t realize how much real leadership they can demonstrate in their jobs. If you are in this situation, put aside for a moment your specific job responsibilities as your boss related them to you, that is, the things you have to get done. Then take a fresh look at how your job and skills fit into the bigger picture. Start asking yourself questions about your role or specific job tasks, such as:

• Why are we doing things this way?
• How could this be done better? What are the pros and cons for alternatives?
• What are the obstacles to an improved way of doing things?
• Where is the proper place for these tasks?
• When should this be done, or how often?
• Who should be more involved to make for a better outcome?

In answering these questions, you may hit upon ideas for a better way of doing things that could form your leadership vision.

For example, say your new job is to run reports and distribute them. You might think that doing a good job simply means running the reports on time, making sure there are no errors, and then quickly distributing them to the recipients. This is all true.

But, in addition to performing your specific job tasks well, you might start to ask yourself questions about this task. For example, why are all these reports necessary—can we save money by eliminating some? What’s the best way for a report to be sent out? Who should these reports go to? How could these reports be improved—is the correct information on them, and are they easy to understand? Do they really need to be produced weekly, or would monthly work?

From the answers to these questions you might develop a vision of more efficient and effective reporting. When I was starting out in my career, a colleague of mine in a new job had these very tasks as part of his job description. And, although not consciously intending to demonstrate leadership, he developed a leadership vision based on his answers to these questions. He sold this vision to his boss and ended up leading a successful reporting task force that reduced reporting costs by half, and did wonders for his performance review!

Even more junior people can reexamine their jobs to see how they can be done better.

AS YOU MOVE UP THE LADDER

Executives are usually given more autonomy, and more time, than lower level managers to prove themselves. The danger of this additional flexibility for executives is that they could invest a lot of time and resources in pursuing a vision that is at odds with the CEO’s outlook. You can counteract this danger by:

1. Striving for effective two-way communication up and down the ladder, and
2. Taking appropriate risks with the company’s resources. (By “appropriate,” I mean being careful with how much money and time you’re spending, especially if support for your vision is uncertain and spending these resources eliminates the pursuit of other potentially viable options.)

I once witnessed an executive vice president make this mistake at a company I was working in. Her leadership vision involved expanding internal computing resources by hiring staff and updating hardware, so that all customer facing departments would have access to the most up-to-date customer information. This vision unfortunately ended up conflicting with the CEO’s goal of outsourcing most technology capabilities. Clearly, there was a communication issue between the CEO and this executive, and much time and millions of dollars were wasted before these visions were in synch. This executive’s career was essentially over at this company.

IN CLOSING—THE IMPORTANCE OF ACHIEVING RESULTS

Ultimately, leadership competencies and effective management techniques don’t mean much if they are not accompanied by results. Great leaders and managers know this, and are always conscious of how well they can translate their mastery of leadership competencies and management skills into improved performance. But you need both the “what” (results) and the “how” (leadership) to be successful.

One manager I know was focused on results to the exclusion of how he was achieving these results. His lack of ability to effectively influence others and treat staff with respect resulted in short-term performance gains at the expense of long-term damage to morale and teamwork in the organization, and the departure of the most valuable employees.

You don’t have to be born with the skills of a great leader or manager to become one. All of the approaches described in this article can be learned. So, whatever your level in an organization or aspirations for promotion, study and practice these aspects of successful leadership and your success at work will be greater. And if you manage a staff, these management ideas will help you to improve staff productivity, lower turnover, and free up your time so that you can be more productive.

We enjoy all aspects of our relationship with the Five O’Clock Club. When we offer outplacement, the only option we offer is your support. Vice President, Human Resources & General Affairs, manufacturing company

And this from a senior HR professional who used The Five O’Clock Club for her own job search:

Dear Anita (her coach): The good news is that I found a job and will start at the end of the month! Hooray! And, I can honestly say that the change came as a result of using the Five O’Clock Club methodologies. I reworked my resume, focused on my targets and went to each interview acting like a consultant — prepared and confident. As you know, I had a short-term consulting assignment. When that assignment ended, my mother was hospitalized and I took care of her for the next two weeks. During those two weeks life was hectic. I had five interviews! By the end of the following week, I had … three offers! Three offers!!!

I would like to thank The Five O’Clock Club for the opportunity to participate in the program and my small group members whose stories and advice were invaluable. Most important, I would like to let you know how much I appreciated your support and guidance.

If we had more space, I’d be so glad to print lots more. We’re here for you.

Question: I thought that followers of The Five O’Clock Club methodology found their jobs in 10 to12 weeks and those who didn’t attend the Club found their jobs in 8 months. Now you are saying that the numbers are 16 weeks for Five O’Clock Clubbers compared to 35 weeks for those who are not. Could you help me understand the change? Thanks, Lenore

Answer:

Dear Lenore:

We’ve been in business for over 25 years. Historically, our average job hunter has taken 10 to 12 weeks, but those statistics vary according to the economy. For example, during the dot.com boom, the average job search took only 5 weeks! The historical average still holds true when you include every year.

However, at the present time, in this bad economy, professionals, managers and executives are taking an average of 16.4 weeks for those who attend the Club regularly, a number we are very proud of since those who do not attend the Club are taking 30 to 35 weeks on average.

Again, over the LONG run, the average is still 10 to 12 weeks. I hope this clears up the numbers for you. In good times and bad, Five O’Clock Clubbers always outperform the market.

Regards,

Kate Wendleton,

President and Editor-in-Chief

Pursuing A Job You’re Not Even Sure Exists

When Five O’Clock Club member, Martha, approached a contact at a major consulting firm about a possible position, it long remained unclear—even after a barrage of meetings—whether there was actually a job for which she was even being considered.

Martha had a background in performance improvement, specifically working in the health care and financial services industries. Upon coming to The Five O’Clock Club, she immersed herself in the Club’s materials, working closely with her coach, Suzanne Harwood, on her Seven Stories and coming up with a targeting list, a marketing plan, and a new résumé. “I did a lot of work in the books in the first two or three days,” she says, “because I was just so motivated and the clock was ticking— I needed money.”

The Club places a strong emphasis on direct contact in the job search process—directly pursuing contacts at companies where you want to work, whether or not they have an opening, and following up with them. Martha began this activity right from the beginning. Because of her background in performance improvement, she figured that her best chance of landing a new position was at a consulting firm. Martha approached contacts at forty different companies through a targeted mail campaign. Although she did no follow-up phone calls, one person contacted her— a woman she had known from her previous position at a major New York insurance company. This contact then referred her to someone else at a global consulting firm.

From this single referral, Martha landed a meeting with a senior executive in the firm. The executive wanted her to meet with several other people in the firm as well. Numerous other meetings with people lower-down in the chain of command followed. What was frustrating in all of this, Martha notes, is that a veil of mystery hung over what exactly the position was that she was being considered for, or whether she was even being considered for a position at all.

Martha and her coach often role-played so Martha could elicit more precise information from her contacts.

“They had a job opening that I saw posted online,” she says, “but they told me that I wasn’t qualified for it. It focused on the annuity business, which I really don’t know.” One contact in the firm noted that she had “a great background” but didn’t know the annuities business.

Finally, still somewhat confused, Martha eventually circled back to the senior executive she had originally met with.

“You are our lead candidate,” he told her.

“For what?” Martha replied.

Subsequently, she was able to review a description of the job opening that she was being considered for in their internal benchmarking group. She spoke to the individual that she would be reporting to, in order to get a better feel for the job.

Martha eventually received a phone call from the hiring manager offering her the position. “You have to make a decision quickly,” he pressured her, “because we have three other people we’re also looking at.”

The Club advises its members to try to have several offers in the works before accepting a new position, but Martha only had one. Lacking the leverage of multiple competing offers, she by-passed the salary negotiation stage, simply feeling grateful to have been offered a desirable position at a company that she was targeting.

Since beginning the new job, Martha was pleased to learn that several of her new colleagues are people she had worked with formerly in her previous position, making the transition that much easier.

“The job has some wonderful features, at least for me,” Martha says. “I work from home. Plus, I have a new dog, so he’s in the middle of it. And I can dress however I want and go into the office if I want to.”

The position also combines the three elements of the consulting business that she is most drawn to: research, analysis, and recommendations.

She networked with an employee of the firm who was a Five O’Clock Clubber!

Her Five O’Clock Club coach, Suzanne, notes that Martha showed tremendous effort in making this new position a reality. While Martha was frequently given inconsistent information from various contacts—some saying that a job was available for her, others saying that there wasn’t a job—she routinely asked probing questions during meetings and was very good about following up. Over the course of twelve group sessions at the Club, her coach often role-played with her to help Martha elicit more precise information from the contacts that she was meeting with at the consulting firm. “She prepped for every one of these interviews,” Suzanne says, “and she would always have a script prepared before she went in.”

Martha had also taken the initiative by frequently networking with an employee in the firm who was herself a Five O’Clock Club member.

“This didn’t just happen,” notes Suzanne. “There was a lot of stuff going on that Martha initiated, and all of it was very positive.”

Martha is very pleased with her new position and knows that there is much potential for growth within the company. But, bottom line, she says, “it’s a real job.” What had seemed so frustratingly abstract during the searching and interviewing processes is now a tangible reality.

Talk To The Receptionist

Mike had been a member of The Five O’Clock Club since 1999 and recently came back because he needed to find a new position in purchasing. He had responded to an advertisement for a job that interested him, but he knew that The Five O’Clock Club methodology taught that answering ads was a weak way to get meetings and that he needed to find other ways to get into companies.

Ever since joining the Club, Mike had attended at least one networking meeting a month. After applying for this latest position, he realized how important all of his networking activity had been. “I realized I had good connections in the purchasing field that allowed me to network into the companies quite deeply,” he says, “and get my résumé noticed out of all the other résumés that were out there.”

“I responded to all all sixteen requirements in bullet format. That made everybody feel like I was addressing all of their needs, which was cool.”

In addition to networking, Mike also made good use of the Club’s strategies in responding to the job posting itself. The advertisement had initially struck him as disorganized, as if it had been pieced together by three or four different people, each with different requirements. Mike employed the recommended checklist format in his reply, specifically addressing each of the identified job requirements by listing his relevant skills and experience in sixteen separate bullet points. When he later interviewed for the job, he found out that, in fact, a number of people had been involved in drafting the job announcement, and that the numerous and diverse requirements in the announcement reflected the organization’s own confusion about what exactly they needed. “The fact that I had responded to all sixteen requirements in bullet format,” Mike notes, “made everybody feel like I was addressing all of their needs, which was cool.”

Even though he had already interviewed for this position—and was actively networking into the company—

Mike did not abandon the rest of his job search, but instead continued to try to get the Club’s recommended six to ten things in the works. In addition to preventing him from putting all his eggs in one basket, this also meant that he was not just sitting at home agonizing about ever receiving a call back.

Mike also made a point of speaking to the receptionist when he went on the interview that eventually resulted in a job offer. He was already interested in the job, and thought that his experience and credentials made him a perfect fit, but chatting with the receptionist helped him realize that the company also had a great culture and very low turnover.

During the interview process itself, Mike followed his coach’s guidance to act like a consultant. He had five interviews in total, including the hiring manager, two other colleagues, the CFO, and the General Counsel. Each of these meetings required targeted follow-up letters, or what the Club calls “influencing letters.” Mike preferred to allow some time to pass before sending these out, but his Five O’Clock Club coach, Renée Rosenberg, pressed him to get them out right away while the impression he had made was still fresh in the minds of everyone with whom he interviewed. He quickly sent out letters thanking everyone for meeting with him, and further expressing his interest in the position. Even the receptionist received a letter from Mike.

Chatting with the receptionist helped him realize that the company also had a great culture and very low turnover. When he wrote follow-up notes, he wrote to the receptionist as well!

When an offer was made to him shortly thereafter, Mike returned to the company’s offices to submit his paperwork and noticed the receptionist beaming at him as he arrived. “She thought it was the coolest thing in the world to get mail,” Mike says. The ink was hardly dry on his offer papers and Mike was already being made to feel like part of the family.

He is now happily re-employed and very excited about his new purchasing job at a growing company in the medical field. “This is the third time The Five O’Clock Club has worked for me,” Mike notes. “It’s been great!”

The Methodology In Action

Having been out of the corporate workforce for more than a decade, Roberta was very uncertain about her job prospects as she tried to transition from being a stay-at-home mom to a full-time executive. Her résumé had a significant gap and she was no longer in touch with many of the contacts that she had once had in the business world. “I’d really felt like I’d forgotten how to look for a job,” she says.

After searching around for positions posted on the Internet without any success, a friend told her about The Five O’Clock Club. She realized that she had been out of the job market for so long that she was going to need help in her search. Initially, Roberta only checked out the Club’s books from her local library and began reading up on The Five O’Clock Club methodology. But she also felt like she needed more structure in her job search, so she signed up for the Club’s weekly group sessions, with Renée Rosenberg as her coach, and began actively utilizing the various tools that the Club uses to help job hunters.

Beginning with the assessment process, including the “Seven Stories Exercise,” Roberta zeroed in on the accomplishments that she was most proud of in her life and thought about how those accomplishments related to her career choices. “I found that assessment to be really helpful,” she notes, “in teaching me to talk about myself in a way that wasn’t really bragging, but that was emphasizing the things that I do well.” And going through the assessment process also helped her in crafting a Two-Minute Pitch—another technique the Club promotes to help job hunters succinctly talk about what they “bring to the table” when they make contact with a potential employer, such as at the beginning of a job interview with a hiring manager.

Roberta then focused her job search on two main things: direct contacts (contacting people she didn’t know at companies where she wanted to work) and networking her way into an organization with the help of contacts whom she did personally know. Roberta followed the Club’s methodology for direct contacts very closely and began a targeted letter-writing campaign to decision makers at companies where she wanted to work. Given the large gap in her résumé, she felt that she needed to find open positions before they were even posted so that she would not be forgotten amid a deluge of other applicants. She found these mailings to be very effective, especially when she followed up with a phone call. Email, however, was something that she tried to avoid, only employing it when she had a direct referral from a friend of a friend. “It really shows some effort when you take the time to write a letter,” Roberta says.

After hearing someone in her group at the Club talk about the success they had after actually showing up at an office building to try and make contact, Roberta decided she would hand-deliver a letter to a contact she had discovered on LinkedIn at a company she was targeting. She had selected this individual based on the fact that, according to his information on LinkedIn, they both had previously worked at the same company. “This guy will talk to me,” she said to herself.

Shortly after dropping off the letter at his office, Roberta received a call from him. “I got your letter,” he said, “and I just can’t believe that you wrote to me. I’m developing a new strategic marketing organization right now and I’m looking for people just like you.” She eventually received a job offer—through this direct contact, Roberta emphasizes, whom she “didn’t know from Adam.” At the same time, Roberta continued actively networking, knowing she couldn’t simply rely on a single promising job opportunity. The Five O’Clock Club stresses that its members should always have at least six to ten things constantly in the works. Someone Roberta knew even offered to help her network into the companies on her target list and created an Excel spreadsheet with his top recommended referrals at a number of those companies.

Renee Rosenberg, Roberta’s Five O’Clock Club coach, notes that the success that Roberta was having in her networking activity wasn’t just due to good luck. People were helping her, and responding to her, because they could see how seriously she was taking her job search and how much thought she was putting in to the networking efforts that she was making. “She was coming there saying, ‘Look, I’ve done this, I’ve researched this, this is my plan,’” Renee points out. “And when they saw that, they saw that what she was doing was substantial, and that’s why they wanted to help her.”

Roberta’s hard work soon paid off and she took a position that truly excited her. She recently received a promotion and is now a director of marketing at a multi-billion dollar company. She expects to be using her Two-Minute Pitch quite frequently as she meets all the new people that she will be working with now.

At the beginning of this process, Roberta was a homemaker who had not held a corporate position in nearly thirteen years. But the tools that she used to successfully enter the workforce again helped her breach an extensive gap in her résumé that might otherwise have seemed impossible to overcome.

“I really appreciate what The Five O’Clock Club did for me,” Roberta says. “It will help me for the rest of my life and I’ll never be afraid to look for a job again.”

Human resources people and hiring managers receive heaps of resumes for any given job opening, they miss, skip or toss a lot of them. Luckily, there are things you can do to avoid this. Career experts and a spokesperson for Glassdoor.com, a jobs and career community where people share information and opinions about their workplaces, weigh in.

In this game we saw how hard it is to move the football out of what is referred to as the “red zone,” which is a piece of football field territory 20 yards out from the goal line. When the offensive unit of a football team gets this close to scoring a touchdown they rely on a special set of plays to go “the extra yard” to score a touchdown. Conversely, the defensive unit of a football team now needs to change their strategy to hold back their opponents. These special plays and strategies become important once both teams are in the red zone because there is now a certain “finiteness” to the game.  In simple terms, it’s do or die, which also adds a psychological component known as “pressure” into the game.

So, what do football and the red zone have to do with job search? Actually, I could not think of a better analogy because under The Five O’Clock Club methodology job search is a matter of progressing through a series of “three phases” until you finally succeed in landing a new job. Phase one is preparing for your job campaign while phase two is about getting informational meetings and going on interviews. And much like football and the red zone, phase three of job search, which is about following-up after a job interview, can be the most difficult to execute. The follow-up phase also adds the psychological pressure of job hunters getting close to an offer. However, if people are not careful in thinking through all their options and strategies, they may end up becoming the proverbial bridesmaid — not the bride. Like being in the red zone and not scoring a touchdown, you may end up settling for a field goal!

Similar to being in the red zone, the follow-up phase of job search requires the most analysis and strategic thinking. In football, once your team is at the line of scrimmage, you have forty yards or less of field territory in which to work, the twenty yards out from the goal line, and the twenty yards of the end zone. So each play is crucial and both the offensive and defensive units of the respective teams on the field need to analyze each play objectively and methodically, while minimizing mistakes. So too in job search. For example, playing the role of consultant in knowing as much as you can about the company or organization with whom you are interviewing can be similar to the offensive unit knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the defensive unit, and how to outperform them in getting the offer.

A good football team — once in the red zone — will have a number of plays they can call given the defensive alignment of their opponents. Simply having one or two plays, even if well executed in the past, will not be sufficient if the other team matches up well to your offense. At the 5OCC, we stress the importance of having “6 to 10 things” in the works to keep several options open, and not just focus on one job opportunity that could fall away through no fault or your own. These options include speaking with 6 to 10 people in your network who are key influencers, and who are either part of the hiring team or contacts that can influence a hiring manager’s decision. Likewise, once in the red zone, the quarterback on the offensive unit cannot underestimate any one of the eleven players on the defensive unit in getting to the goal line.

Another key component in turning interviews into offers is knowing where you are in the hiring process. Inquiring into whether you were the first applicant interviewed, somewhere in between, or the last is a lot different than calling the hiring manager and asking if he or she has made a decision. The latter approach is neither good strategy or planning and is akin to a football team lining up in the red zone with no thought to their next play. Thinking through what you want to share with the hiring manager will vary depending on whether you were interviewed early on in the process (usually the most disadvantageous because the hiring manager has little to compare you to) or later in the process where you now stand a chance to gain some insight into your competition. Rarely does a football team score on the first down once in the red zone. Once they know how their opponents will line up defensively after the first or second play they now stand a chance of outsmarting the defense – or as we would say at the 5OCC — outshine your competition!

As we hit the two-minute timeout point in this blog, let me summarize that the most successful football teams are the ones that execute well once in the red zone and, by way of analogy, the most successful job hunters are the ones that excel at the follow-up phase of their job search. At the 5OCC, we use a basketball analogy to say that the ball is always in your court: Play the role of consultant, know where you are in the hiring process, eliminate your competition, overcome objections, and know who the key influencers are. So too in football, these same techniques will take you methodically through the red zone and you will ultimately score a touchdown.

The Giants won in the fourth quarter and they did it while in the red zone. Congratulations Giants and to all  you job hunters who excelled at getting an offer through your own fourth quarter heroics.

“If you’re skydiving, you check your parachute and all the other gear. You practice the optimum positions for correct landing,” says Karas. “In fact, you learn how to position yourself based upon the circumstances of each jump. Each landing can be different from the next. Interviewing requires the same kind of preparation, focus and follow-up.”

“Job hunting doesn’t have to be scary and intimidating and it doesn’t have to be a hopeless journey. I lead my clients through the Five O’ Clock Methodology,” says Karas, “It is a proven, research-based approach that provides my clients with a smart and organized approach to their job searches.”

Nancy reminds her clients to follow the Club’s philosophy for interviewing, which means thinking and acting like a consultant. They must know how to apply their qualifications and skills to the needs of the company and the hiring manager. It is also vital to know how to answer any doubts a hiring manager might have. Remember that a first interview is only the beginning; it rarely results in a job offer.

Here are four fundamentals to keep in mind to ace the interview:

1. Learn as much as you can about the organization and the position.

Before the Interview:

• Research the company in as much depth as you can. What are its goals and mission? Who are its competitors, and how is it faring in the present economy? Is the industry expanding or shrinking?
• What are the primary issues and challenges it may be facing?

During the Interview:

• Be proactive in asking questions based on your research: you want insider insights on the problems, issues and challenges.
• Share examples of how you have handled similar situations, showing how you can apply your experience and talents to address the issues and create viable solutions.
• Let the hiring manager feel that you are there to help and find solutions.
• Keep this in mind: you may often be able to help define the job description, as you show the manager how you can help solve the needs of that department.
• Find out why the desk is empty!
  • Was there someone in this position previously? Is it a newly created position?
  • What happened to that person?  Was he or she promoted or laid off?
  • If the person didn’t work out, what qualities were missing that were needed for this job?
  • What qualities would the ideal candidate bring to the job?

2.   Learn as much as you can about the hiring manager and the HR people who will interview you.

Move heaven and earth to get the names and titles of the people with whom you will be meeting. If you don’t know—and neglected to find this out when the interview was set up—call back to find out. The Internet may be your best friend in this endeavor. You are likely to find a lot of information on LinkedIn, and a Google search may turn up unexpected details. Nancy tells a story about her own experience that sheds light on why it is so important to do this:

“Years ago, I interviewed for a position with a large company in Northern California.  Before the interview, I did my homework, researched the company and the HR Manager I was scheduled to meet with. I looked her up on LinkedIn and learned that she was very involved in a local charity for special needs children. I researched the charity too. When we met, she was not friendly. In fact she was extremely cold to me and seemed really annoyed that she had to meet with me. Somehow I needed to break the ice and find a connection between us—or this interview was going nowhere. I decided to break the ice by talking about the charity. I told her—and this was no lie, said just for flattery—that  I was a big fan of all their efforts and if I were to relocate to this area, I would love to contribute to the organization and become a part of their volunteer staff. I mentioned to her that I had done some volunteer work for similar organizations. This topic provided us with a common bond.  It told her something important about me. She began to warm up and she was far more receptive to me as the interview went on. In this more congenial atmosphere, we were able to discuss the position and the needs of the company—and how I could address those needs and present solutions.”

3.  Ask about Your Competition and Your Weaknesses

You really do want to find out how you stack up again others, and if the hiring manager has reservations about you. And yes, you can ask! Near the end of the interview—if not before—do some probing. Ask the hiring manager or the HR team if they have identified any candidates who are a good fit for the position. You may also ask, “Where do I stand as a candidate in comparison to the other candidates?” You also want to know how close they are to making a decision. How many people have they interviewed, and how many are scheduled after you? But above all, you need to find out if they have any reservations about you: “Is there anything about my background that would make you hesitant to hire me?”  All of this information can help you as you prepare your follow-up.

4.    Send an Influencing Letter

The real work—turning interviews into offer—begins after you have left the interview. The key is brainy, strategic follow-up. This continues the process of building a relationship with the hiring manager. You want to dispel any doubts about your suitability, and influence the decision-makers. It’s up to you to make the case that you are the right candidate for the job.

Most people send a simple thank-you note, but this will have little impact. Karas says, “An influencing letter is one of the most important components of the interviewing process and The Five O’ Clock Club Methodology. You don’t want to ‘leave the decision in their hands.’ In your letter you may be able to smooth over anything that did not go well during the interview, and answer questions that left you tongue-tied.  Demonstrate again that your credentials and your interest in the position make you the right fit for the job. Send a proposal along with your influencing letter to show the manager that you are already thinking about how their needs can be addressed. This will surely set you apart from the competition.”

In your influencing letter:

• Address the hiring manager’s needs.

• Suggest solutions and submit a proposal, based on what you learned during the interview.

• Dispel the concerns and doubts that the hiring manager may have had about you.

• Show more interest and competence than your competitors!

Are you afraid that this all will make you appear too desperate, or that you will be perceived as a pest? Five O’Clock Club research has shown that this is not the case. Most candidates don’t follow up at all. If they do, they send the standard thank-you note and make one phone call to inquire. Such calls are commonly not returned and no real information is gained. Calling the hiring manager’s office to follow up after an interview is not a good idea. It doesn’t provide you with that golden opportunity to further influence and connect with the person. Sending an influencing letter is the right way to go—then make a follow-up call because there is something new to talk about! “Don’t wait for the job offers to come to you,” says Karas. “Follow these The Five O’ Clock Club techniques and go out and get them!”

HR Handouts and Recertification General Credit Hours Awarded: 1.25 click here to download

An Elite Panel of Employment Law Leaders, never before on the stage together:
On the defendant’s (employer’s) side:

• Ronald Green, a Co-Founder of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., and founder of its national Labor and Employment practice.
• Betsy Plevan, Partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department of Proskauer, co-head of both the International Labor & Employment Group and Class/Collective Action Group

On the plaintiff’s (employee’s) side:

• Wayne Outten, the founding and managing partner of Outten & Golden LLP, one of the preeminent law firms representing employees.
• Anne C. Vladeck, of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C., focusing on workers and civil rights cases.

And moderator:
Cynthia Estlund, Catherine A. Rein Professor of Law, New York University School
of Law, who has written on a wide variety of topics in labor law, employment law, and workplace governance.

Ronald Green

Ronald Green is a Co-Founder of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., and founder of its national Labor and Employment practice. He is resident in the New York office. An accomplished trial attorney of international reputation, Mr. Green represents multinational and domestic corporations, defends corporate executives and sports and entertainment luminaries, particularly in sensitive and highly publicized litigation, and advises on a wide variety of labor and employment matters.

Mr. Green is one of the pioneers of the use of preemptive litigation in suing current and former employees, and others, who threaten to bring legal proceedings of an extortionate nature against the firm’s clients. He also is an innovator in the use of the federal Declaratory Judgment Act to protect clients’ business interests that may be at risk from disaffected employees.

Among the more than 100 cases that Mr. Green has tried to conclusion were a number of significant class actions, which are rarely tried and in which complex econometric models were used with great success. He often is sought by other law firms to lead their litigation teams in cases of unusual complexity.

Mr. Green has represented prominent companies and individuals in a range of industries and businesses, including David Boies, the renowned litigator; Bill O’Reilly, the author and FOX television personality; the New York Knicks basketball organization; NBC; Morgan Stanley; and The McGraw-Hill Companies. Although financial institutions and the media represent a significant portion of his clients, Mr. Green’s representation spans a cross-section of industries, as well as a host of U.S. and foreign trade and business associations, including:

• The German-American Chamber of Commerce
• The International Chamber of Commerce
• The Keidanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations)
• The Korean Society
• The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

A member of EBG’s Hispanic Business Group, Mr. Green’s affiliations with the Hispanic community are both personal and professional. His maternal family hails from Buenos Aires and remains mostly in Argentina. He has represented a number of Hispanic owned companies and has lectured frequently in Latin America, as well as in Europe and Asia, on conducting business in the United States. Mr. Green has traveled extensively throughout all of these regions.

Building on EBG’s achievement in co-founding the International Lawyers Network, which now consists of more than 90 law firms on six continents, Mr. Green led the firm’s Labor and Employment practice as it successfully trail blazed and continues to expand the use of global affiliations with law firms that are able to provide employment- related representation for multinational companies worldwide, including firms in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, as well as in China, Japan, and Korea, and throughout the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Prior to co-founding EBG, Mr. Green gained substantial labor regulatory experience while working for the U.S. Department of Labor. As wage and hour trial counsel and as civil rights counsel for the Department’s Office of Contract Compliance, and thereafter as head of the Civil Rights Division, he helped author many of the agency’s regulations. Mr. Green also played integral roles in the litigation and settlement of the landmark AT&T case and the Steel Industry Consent Decree. Previously, Mr. Green served as a captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps.

Mr. Green teaches courses in labor law and equal employment law and policy as a member of the adjunct faculty of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He has been a consultant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the American Arbitration Association.

In addition to lecturing extensively throughout and outside the U.S., Mr. Green is a prolific author. He is a co-editor of the HR Banker Newsletter, and has written and co-authored numerous articles for legal and business publications, including:

“The Employer’s ‘Sue First’ Strategy: In high stakes litigation, ‘preemptive strike’ has produced results,” The New York Law Journal.

“Contract Modification or Cancellation and Breach of Contract Defenses in Times of Economic Crisis” (White Paper) (co-author)

“Circuit City Stores v. Adams: The End of the Long and Winding Road to a National Policy Favoring the Arbitration of Employment

Disputes,” The Journal of American Arbitration, Tulane Arbitration Institute, Vol. 1, No. 2 (co-author)

“The 1992 State by State Guide to Human Resources Law,” Panel Publishing (co author)

“Negligent Hiring, Fraud, Defamation and Other Merging Areas of Employment Liability,” Bureau of National Affairs

“New Trends And Developments in Employment Law,” published by Visual Education Corp. for its Career Information Service

“Executive Guide to EEO Laws,” Hill & Knowlton

“Affected Class Relief and the Contract Compliance Program,” Employee Relations Law Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3, published by Executive Enterprises

“The Equal Employment Compliance Manual,” Callaghan Law Book Company

“Equal Employment Opportunity: Laws and Regulations Impacting on the Banking Industry,” Bank Personnel Division, American Bankers Association (co-author)

“Comparable Worth—The Compensation Issue for the 1980s?” Industrial Relations Research Association Series

“Trends in Age Discrimination Litigation,” reprinted from the Proceedings of The New York University 35th Annual National Conference on Labor, Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.

Mr. Green is a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Congress. He also is a member of the Franklin Lodge of the Order of Free Masonry. He is active in the alumni associations of New York University, Brooklyn Law School, and The George Washington University Law School.

Mr. Green has been included in Chambers USA (2002 – 2011), The Best Lawyers in America (1987 – 2010), and Who’s Who Legal: The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers (2002 – 2011). He has also been selected for inclusion in New York Super Lawyers – Metro Edition (2006 – 2009).

Mr. Green, who is (reluctantly) retired from formula auto racing, maintains collector car museums. He also is a collector of antiquities.

EDUCATION

• LL.M., George Washington University Law School, Labor law, 1973
• J.D., Brooklyn Law School, honors program, Law Review, 1968
• B.S., New York University School of Commerce, 1965
• Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, Pending

Betsy Plevan

Betsy Plevan is a Partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department, co-head of both the International Labor & Employment Group and Class/Collective Action Group, and a former member of the firm’s seven-person Executive Committee. She has built her practice handling all types of labor and employment litigation, as well as counseling clients in employment matters. In addition to maintaining her active practice, she recently completed a two-year term as President of the New York City Bar.

Betsy’s practice includes representing clients in such diverse industries as banking and finance, health care, entertainment, publishing and consumer products. She spends considerable time representing leading law firms in counseling and litigation assignments. She has handled both single plaintiff and class action lawsuits involving issues of discrimination, harassment and employee benefits matters. Betsy has successfully tried a number of jury and non-jury cases in New York and elsewhere in the U.S., and her trial work has been recognized by her induction as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She also has argued more than 50 appeals in state and federal courts, and she has been elected a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.

Betsy has been involved in representing employers in sexual harassment matters for many years. Noteworthy cases include, among others, her retention by Meritor Savings Bank to handle the remand of the landmark Supreme Court case in this area. She also handled, on appeal, the landmark case in which the New York Court of Appeals reversed a $4 million punitive damages award against the magazine Penthouse on the ground that no punitive damages are available under the State Human Rights Law.

In the employee benefits area, Betsy has handled class action lawsuits involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duty, COBRA violations and termination of retiree benefits. She also has extensive experience counseling employers on litigation avoidance and sexual harassment investigations and training management employees in these areas.

Betsy is frequently quoted in national newspapers, legal and other trade publications and has appeared on television to discuss employment issues, especially sexual harassment suits, about which she has lectured and written extensively.

EDUCATION

• Boston University School of Law, J.D. magna cum laude
• Editor, Boston University Law Review
• Wellesley College, B.A.

Other Distinctions

• Lawdragon “3000 Leading Lawyers in America” 2010
• Top 100 New York Super Lawyers 2010
• Top 50 Female New York Super Lawyers 2010
• New York Super Lawyers 2010
• Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers
• Fellow, American Academy of Appellate Lawyers
• Fellow, College of Labor & Employment Lawyers
• “Nation’s 100 Most Powerful Employment Attorneys,” Human
• Resources Executive, Lawdragon 2010
• “100 Best Lawyers in New York,” New York Magazine
• 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America, National Law Journal
• Chambers USA: Labor & Employment (Band 1) 2003-2011
• US Legal 500: Labor & Employment: ERISA Litigation 2008
• US Legal 500: Labor & Employment: Labor & Employment Litigation 2008, 2011
• US Legal 500: Labor & Employment: Workplace & Employment Counseling 2007, 2009-2011
• The International Who’s Who of Management Labour & Employment Lawyers
• Best Lawyers in America 1993-2012
• “Best of the Best,” 2009 Euro money Expert Guides
• ORT Jurisprudence Award
• American Jewish Congress Louis D. Brandeis Award
• Boston University Law School, Silver Shingle Award for Distinguished Service to the Legal Profession
• Jewish Theological Seminary, Simon Rifkind Award
• John J. McCloy Memorial Award, Fund for Modern Courts
• Milton Gould Award for Outstanding Oral Advocacy, The Office of the Appellate Defender
• Human Relations Award, Anti-Defamation League Lawyers Division
• Whitney North Seymour Award, Federal Bar Council
• NYLPI Law & Society Award

Wayne Outten

Wayne Outten is the founding and managing partner of Outten & Golden LLP. His practice focuses exclusively on representing individuals in all areas of employment law. He co-chairs the firm’s Executives and Professionals Practice Group.

Mr. Outten has lectured extensively on employment law, especially on negotiation, mediation, and arbitration of employment disputes, on employment and severance agreements, and on retaliation and whistleblower claims. He is a widely published author whose work is frequently found in legal and popular publications.

Mr. Outten was selected by his peers as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” for at least 20 years and as one of New York’s Super Lawyers for many years – where he is listed as one of the Top 100 lawyers in New York. He was selected for the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America in 2006 and for the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Lawyers in America in 2007. Best Lawyers designated him “Lawyer of the Year 2010” for Labor and Employment Law – New York.

Mr. Outten is a founding member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and served on its Board for more than 11 years; he is co-chair of its International Law Committee. He founded the New York affiliate of NELA and was its president for more than 15 years. He is a co-founder and officer of Workplace Fairness, a charitable/educational organization.

He was a founding Governor of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers (1996-2003). Mr. Outten served on the Council of the Section of Labor and Employment Law of the American Bar Association (2000-2008), is co-chair of the Section’s Membership Development Committee, was Liaison for the Section’s Committees on Employment Rights and Responsibilities and Pro Bono Work, and was the employee co-chair of the both the International Labor & Employment Law Committee and the Employment Rights and Responsibilities Committee

He is an active member of the New York State Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Section, is on its Executive Committee, and was co-chair of its International Labor & Employment Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Committees. He is a member of the Employment Disputes Committee of the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution. For almost 20 years, he was a member of the Board of the New York Civil Liberties Union (and its Nassau chapter), and he was a member of its Executive Committee.

Mr. Outten’s notable cases include a recovery of $12 million in a gender discrimination/retaliation case against Morgan Stanley in federal court and (with partner Larry Moy) a $18.9 million arbitration award in a breach of contract case against Deutsche Bank – one of the largest arbitration awards in an employment case.*

Mr. Outten received his B.S. from Drexel University in 1970 and his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1974, where he was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1979. He was a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Gus J. Solomon, District of Oregon (1974-76) and was an instructor at the NYU School of Law (1976-1978). He was an associate and then a partner at Lankenau Kovner & Outten, LLP (1979-1998).

He is a member of the bars of New York, the United States Supreme Court, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

*Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Anne C. Vladeck

Anne C. Vladeck is a partner at Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C. where she focuses her practice on employment matters, including discrimination, sexual harassment, defamation, union-side labor law, and litigation. In addition to being an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University Law School, Ms. Vladeck is the President of the Federal Bar Council Inn of Court, a trustee of the Federal Bar Foundation, and a member of the Professional Discipline Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Ms. Vladeck received her B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. She has previously served as an adjunct faculty member at Fordham and Cardozo Law Schools. She regularly speaks on employment law and related topics at the Practising Law Institute, ALI/ABA, ABA, NYSBA, and N.Y.U. Conference, among others.

EDUCATION

• University of Pennsylvania, B.A., magna cum laude, 1975
• Columbia University, J.D., 1978