|
What to Do When A Firm Considers You For Two Job Openings Allan Whitescarver was vying for two different marketing posts at a big San Francisco law firm when a hiring official wondered which one represented his true passion. "Neither,'' Mr. Whitescarver admitted. He preferred to be its public-relations manager, even though the job didn't exist there. Asked to choose between the two, he became a business-development coordinator. He performed so well that six months later, the firm made him its first communications director. He lucked out. Being considered by a potential employer for two jobs at the same time sounds exciting, but it isn't always twice as nice. "You're walking a tightrope," notes Mr. Whitescarver, now U.S. director of communications for a different employer, Clifford Chance, a global law firm. Unless you handle the situation deftly, you could land the wrong spot -- or none at all. You have to show interest in one job without knocking yourself out of the race for the other. "This is a difficult type of negotiation," observes Smooch Reynolds, president and CEO of The Repovich-Reynolds Group, an executive-search firm in Pasadena, Calif. For starters, find out why both are open and which offers the best chance for advancement; maybe it's part of a hot area. But don't tip your hand prematurely about your favorite. An employer's outside recruiter can bolster your double-headed job pursuit by helping you match your talents against each opportunity's requirements, Ms. Reynolds says. "Make sure you have a competitive advantage" for both, she recommends. Ms. Reynolds recently advised a man to promote his broad portfolio of skills during job interviews with a major health-care company. The concern was mulling whether to separate its combined leadership of public affairs and government relations. She alerted him about the possible split. "He positioned himself to be comfortable with either position if bifurcated," she remembers. The 52-year-old contender, a Washington government-affairs executive, has public-affairs experience. Still, he felt uneasy when he delivered his two-pronged pitch. "I said, 'I'm good for both jobs' " because the public-affairs role involved broader responsibilities, he recalls. But he was thinking: "Just give a stronger government-affairs message because that's my strong suit." Late last summer, the company picked a more-qualified prospect to head public affairs, a post that deals with community groups and academics. The Washington executive remains in the running for the government-affairs job. In seeking two spots at once, emphasize your commitment to what's best for the targeted employer. A New York financial-services firm interviewed an unemployed executive for its top sales and marketing jobs about five years ago. She got the sales post, but remained interested in the marketing one. She proposed that senior management save money by merging the positions, says Dee Soder, managing partner of CEO Perspective Group, an executive-advisory service in New York. The woman won a raise and an enlarged title for her double duty. Things didn't work out so well for the leader of a small media concern last winter. A larger industry player was considering him to be chief operating officer when the board chairman unexpectedly asked whether he would like to be its chief executive instead. "Of course," the man replied. However, he didn't bother to probe why the company might need a fresh occupant for the corner office. "It looked like he was more interested in the [CEO] position" than the needs of the organization, says Sheryl Spanier, a New York leadership-development and career-management consultant. At a minimum, she suggests, he should have inquired, "What's going on here?" The company concluded he wasn't interested in the COO job, hired someone else and decided to keep its CEO, according to Ms. Spanier. The rejected applicant "felt like he had been sandbagged by the whole thing," she adds. Sometimes, two divisions of a corporate giant unwittingly woo the same applicant. If you don't come clean with everyone involved, you "are very much walking on eggshells," cautions a human-resources manager at a big beauty-products maker in New York. Such an experience once infuriated her. With her permission, an external recruiter alerted another division last spring about a 33-year-old marketing candidate -- just in case the Harvard M.B.A. didn't impress the HR manager. She and the recruiter were surprised to find the prospect hadn't divulged her interviews with the other division. "Nobody ever told me this was the rule," explained the young woman after first denying the courtship. The second division hired her anyway, though it's never wise for a candidate to hide relevant information. "Luckily for her, they really wanted her," the HR official recollects. But concealing a dual-job search, she warns, "may not always work out." |
