Archived Newsletter
Winning in the 4th Quarter
Author(s): Barry Lacey is the President of Lacey & Associates in San Antonio, TX
As a big high school football fan, I find this time of year very exciting. For some teams, the end of the season is in sight and for others "the second season," the playoffs, looms large on the horizon. Most of the winning teams I watch have a tradition where every team member raises his right hand and holds up four fingers at the start of the fourth quarter. This serves as a reminder that football, like life, requires full commitment on every play for four quarters. Those that start well AND finish well often advance to the playoffs and to championships.
From time to time, I am pleased to counsel with people, referred by friends or colleagues, who are engaged in a job search or considering a career change. One thing that amazes me every year about this time is the number of well-intended people who slow their search efforts down because "it's approaching the end of the year and companies slow down their hiring in the fourth quarter." There is a very technical and scientific name for such thinking-HOGWASH!
While it is true that turnover in companies often hits the lowest point in the fourth quarter, it is often one of the busiest times for professionals in the executive search business. Company executives understand October as the beginning of final lap in the race for producing the winning numbers (profitability) that please or disappoint their shareholders or investors. But company leaders also see it as a time to start sharpening the ax for a good, quick start for next year, and that often involves recruiting key new players to lead new initiatives in the years to come. For example, one year on the Monday after Thanksgiving, I was engaged by one of the nation's mega-banking organizations. The goal: to find the company five seasoned upper-middle managers with extensive loan operations experience so that the bank could consolidate 45,000 loan files from three different states into a centralized operations center. The search had to be completed and the new managers in place in only five weeks! The mission was successfully accomplished, but my personal holiday planning and shopping that year was very limited!
Another interesting fourth quarter "sprint" occurred one November when our firm was awarded a very important search for a new client that was contracted to do construction management for a major portion of the trans-Alaska pipeline project. The company needed a Senior Project Manager to head a team that was scheduled to begin work the following January. My call log for the search from the period of November 20 to December 18 documented over 250 telephone conversations I had with sources and potential candidates in 19 states across the country. These calls resulted in three candidates who were interviewed by the client on December 22, and two of the three candidates were hired. The client wanted to see how we would perform before engaging us in a second retainer for the other position. The result: a nice Christmas bonus, and a long-term relationship with that fourth quarter client!
These are only a couple of examples of how the last quarter of the year can be positively busy and productive for search firms and for individuals engaged in their own searches for meaningful employment. In both the search business and in corporate human resource settings, employment activities during the fourth quarter have always been as steady as the rest of the year.
November and December are also two months that often create some of the best opportunities for meeting influential business leaders and other centers of influence in the community -- at holiday parties or open houses. I'm not suggesting going to parties with resume and business card in hand ready to pass out at an opportune time: that is not networking and there is no bigger turn off than that kind of bold move. But parties are excellent ways to get introductions to important people in a casual, fun atmosphere. Then, a few days later, a follow-up phone call to the person's office with and intro such as: "Mr. Jones, this is Barry Smith. We met last Tuesday at the Brown's Christmas party, and I enjoyed meeting you very much. I would like to have fifteen minutes of your time one day next week to stop by your office and ask you some questions about your company. Do you have an opening on Tuesday, or does Wednesday work better for you?" Obviously, expanding one's network of contacts is not just limited to the holidays. It's a full time job for the committed careerist. "Top people also know other top people. If you can get an audience with ANY influential person, even if such a person has nothing to do with your targeted job function, the meeting is time well spent. Too many job seekers limit their focus to visiting with people in their chosen path of work. It is surprising the wonderful doors that can be opened by top level people."*
*Bob Rule, "The Hunt for Green Octobers, A Practical Guide for the Job Seeker and the Committed Careerist" (Luminary Media Group, 2002), 41.
Barry Lacey works closely with OI Partners-Venturion and is the President of Lacey & Associates, an executive search firm based in San Antonio, Texas. He has over 20 years of human resource expertise in diverse industries. Barry can be reached at barrysatx@yahoo.com.
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