InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania S.R.L – InterSearch – A worldwide organization of executive search firms

Pivoting industries or roles

Article by InterSearch Romania, (Pendl & Piswanger Romania).

Pivoting industries isn’t a sign of inconsistency, but an indication of adaptability, a trait highly valued in today’s dynamic market. It requires hard work but offers great rewards. Being flexible and open to taking risks can help increase the chances of success in a new industry or role. Make this transition smoother by following these easy steps.

Continuous learning. Consider your pivot an expedition and don’t rush. Take the time to meticulously research and prepare for your new industry/role. You should deeply understand its trends, key players, and expectations. If possible, offer to shadow a professional in the field. Read, attend webinars, network, and soak in as much information as you can.
The power of transferable skills. Your previous experience is not voided by a pivot. On the contrary, it equips you with unique perspectives and skills. Draw parallels between the skills you currently possess and those required in your desired role or industry. Present them strategically in your resume.
Market yourself. Update your LinkedIn profile, CV, and cover letter to reflect your new direction. Showcase not only your transferable skills, but your eagerness to learn.

Finally, have a contingency plan. Pivoting is risky, and it might not always go as expected. A backup plan provides security and reduces anxiety.

When our clients ask the executives must have experience in their own sector, we, as Executive Search Consultants, always ask if they’d consider someone from an ‘adjacent’ sector i.e. one that has a similar theme but is still slightly different.

The arguments for our case are:

Executives who were exposed to multiple industries and type of roles had expanding scopes which will allow them to recognize changes faster and would avoid getting stuck in already known models that might not be the best fit for the actual context. Those who moved between industries and roles are prone to identify patterns, trends faster and understand disruptions and their consequences and develop suitable adjustments.
Especially for Board and Executive roles, it might not be needed the expertise in the sector but rather an ability to recombine knowledge and adapt faster to changing environments. For this type of role the ability to drive either fast growth, a turnaround or repositioning of the business, addressing challenges and spot opportunities are more important than pure expertise in the industry. As we say, they see faster the tree from the forest.
And the last, but not the least argument, is the orientation of executives with diverse backgrounds in driving innovation, being, in most cases, much more adaptable.

After presenting our case most clients always say, ‘sure’ and those non-same sector hires often work out to be a roaring success.

Here’s a worked example of the adjacent sectors open to someone with 25 years in retail banking. What could be the transferable experience? Highly regulated industry, financial products, volume transactions, multi-channel, complex pricing modelling just to name a few. Adjacent sector to pivot to? Insurance, wealth management, financial products, brokers, treasury, payments, telco, pharma, energy sector.

Remember, pivoting is not about discarding your past, but leveraging it to create a prosperous future. It’s a journey of self-discovery, resilience, and growth.

About InterSearch Romania (Pendl & Piswanger Romania)

Pendl & Piswanger (P&P) is a retained executive search firm, one of the leading boutique consultancies in Romania, focusing our service on leadership advisory and recruiting executive and non-executive board members, general management roles and C-suite executives, as well as high-end experts through-out a broad area of industries. With a presence of 40 years in CEE and 25 years in Romania, they are committed to their clients who gain a competitive advantage by hiring great people. To maintain their edge, they operate across all major industry sectors, learn, diversify permanently and avoid specialization by limiting their client portfolio to a particular industry.

Unlock limitless opportunities with a compelling CV

Imagine your CV as the passport to your dream job. It’s a snapshot of your career journey, an emblem of your growth and achievements. When it comes to making the first impression, your CV must stand out within a few seconds.

Article by InterSearch Romania, (Pendl & Piswanger Romania).

Start by creating a powerful first impression. Your name, LinkedIn profile link, and contact information should be crystal clear. Go for a professional email – your name with a standard domain. No funny business! Just the city and country of your residence will do.

The next step? A strong, concise summary of no more than 6 lines or 3 paragraphs. Mention level of experience and scope of responsibilities (individual contributor, manager, director, VP…) + domain (market or field of expertise) and few key job functions, highlight relevant skills.

Structure your CV chronologically, and emphasize your job titles and achievements. Let the recruiter know the industry sector and the size of the companies you’ve worked for (turnover, number of employees). Recruiters don’t just want to know what you did. They want to see the value you added.

Here’s the secret of success – emphasize results over responsibilities. Customize your CV to resonate with the job you desire. Show that you’re not just looking for ‘a’ job, you’re looking for this specific job. Highlight the growth and changes you’ve brought. Define your managerial prowess, if any, by stating to whom you reported, how many people (and their functions) you managed directly and total headcount under subordination.

Sometimes, it is possible to gain an advantage by using the right language. Start sentences about your accomplishments with verbs in the simple past tense (“Achieved”, “Sold”, “Created”, “Solved”, “Designed”…). Be clear and be specific. Avoid using generic phrasing, being another “Results-Oriented Professional with a Proven History of Experience Working in The Industry” who uses meaningless language and jargon. Use numerals, they catch the eye, but context captures the heart. Don’t just throw out numbers. Show how you achieved them.

And finally, remember this: your CV is more about content and less about design. Avoid tables or complicated designs that ATS can’t read. Keep it simple and clean, keep it organized.

To sum up, your CV is the first impression you make. Make it count. Start building your compelling CV today!

This article is part of a series of articles meant to support candidates in their career change process. To view the previous article, click here .

Crafting an engaging LinkedIn profile using Chat GPT

Article by InterSearch Romania, (Pendl & Piswanger Romania)

Why LinkedIn matters?

With 20 years of existence and a continuously growing rate of their potential reach, LinkedIn is now “the world’s largest professional network with more than 950 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide” according to their About section. LinkedIn has around 117 job applications submitted every second, and about 8 people are hired every minute, so if you are not using LinkedIn to your advantage, you’re undeniably missing out!

Understanding how to optimize your profile is the best way to improve hiring performance, while extending your network and being up to date with your industry’s news. Your LinkedIn profile is a powerful representation of your professional identity and accomplishments, so you should take the time to keep it relevant among your peers.

Make your profile stand out in a competitive market using Chat GPT

Chat GPT is a large language model AI chatbot trained to provide a detailed response based on a given prompt in a conversational manner. Therefore, the better quality of the data given, the less you will have to further tailor the response in order to stand out.

Start with your headline and about me section. Briefly define your professional identity and ask chat GPT for examples of attention-grabbing headlines. If you already have a LinkedIn profile, you can copy paste it and even ask for it to mimic your style and suggest improvements.

For example, use the following prompt for your About section“Craft a clear and engaging headline that showcases my current role and key skills based on my Linkedin Profile:*copy paste your profile here” . Example resulted below:

Use AI as a brainstorm partner, find out what phrases best suit you and edit the results to add a final personal touch. Highlight the accomplishments and experiences that are most important to your current career aspirations and the positions you are currently targeting. Chat GPT helps you present your achievements and impactful projects in a concise manner, showcasing growth with quantified results.

Generate top skills in high demand for your previous and current roles using AI to get easily discovered by recruiters and headhunters. Make sure to include 3 to 5 key skills suggestions. For example, the following prompt: “Give specific keywords for Executive Search industry to include in my LinkedIn profile in order to become more searchable” generated 20 terms which can be added to various sections of the profile (headline, summary, skills) in order to increase visibility.

An useful prompt for optimizing your profile is: “I want to land a new job in the same career path OR in a new career path (specifying role and industry). Give me a short summary showing why I am qualified for the role based on my LinkedIn experience: *copy paste your profile here*”. This will showcase a short summary of your experiences, useful for recruiters to understand your career path.

If your goal is to build a strong online presence within your industry’s community, extend your network and get more views, Chat GPT could be the perfect tool to generate impactful post ideas. Always back up your posts with real-world examples and data if possible. Keep the content relevant to the challenges and opportunities that companies are facing in your sector and don’t forget about visuals and infographics.

Additional Readings

If you want to dive deeper, you can check Teal Hq’s article and videos here or go to EnhanCV for various prompts examples. For free AI resume builders, we recommend: https://www.tealhq.com/tools/resume-builder, https://resume.io/; https://www.kickresume.com/ .

Once you’ll better define who you are and your specific areas of expertise, your profile will accurately describe your background and recruiters will start selecting you for appointments, and, don’t forget you can even use Chat GPT to help you prepare for interview preparation!

As technology continues to revolutionize our world and organizations, AI-driven tools gain more and more popularity. Learning how to master the prompts you are introducing chat GPT for leveraging your profile, might be beneficial for your future work as well. Staying agile and adaptive is the way to survive in a very competitive market.

Good luck!

This article is part of a series of articles by meant to support candidates in their career change process. Stay tuned for the next one that will be published the upcoming week.

About InterSearch Romania (Pendl & Piswanger Romania)

InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania is proud to announce that Andrei Razvan NACEA joined the team in Bucharest as Partner

Andrei Razvan Nacea, Partner at Pendl & Piswanger InterSearch Romania is also an Associate Professor and Lecturer at top universities in Romania, Switzerland, Luxembourg and in his capacity as a Vision Partner at Forbes Ignite New York he is involved in international research projects in the field of human resources in collaboration with leading organizations and universities including a cutting edge research project driving real change in the realm of cognitive and cultural diversity in US corporations. Among his achievements are nominations in Forbes 30 under 30, America’s Best Business Coaches and Top Speaker at Forbes Summer School.

His areas of focus will consist of executive search, training, consulting companies from different industries in attracting human capital and strengthen their leadership teams and will be actively involved in business development activities. Razvan cumulates 17 years of entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial working experience in Romania, Switzerland, UAE and USA with a top-tier education and certification in management and business received from leading educational institutions such as: Queen Margaret University UK, Hotel and Tourism Management Institute Switzerland, IMC Fachhochschule Austria, Cambridge University, University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany.

“I am thrilled to join Pendl & Piswanger and, through InterSearch network, the entire global team. I look forward to add to the global footprint my multicultural and multiple industries experience, bringing added value to our clients across the geographies and sectors. Partnering with InterSearch gives me the opportunity to work with companies and candidates and contribute to their growth while using my expertise in executive search, business coaching, organizational change and cultural diversity”, declared Andrei Razvan Nacea.

Leading the way: Romanians are early adopters

Searching for the perfect candidate is Ana Ber’s passion. The Managing Partner at InterSearch Romania often takes creative and innovative approaches in the process.

Just how unconventional these approaches can be is showcased by a project she successfully completed last year together with Alexander Wilhelm, Managing Partner at InterSearch Executive Consultants in Frankfurt. A long-standing client had been looking to fill a vacant SAP development position for a special module for about a year. “The candidate market for this very rare search profile is practically depleted in Germany, and we don’t actually handle these types of search profiles anymore,” Alexander Wilhelm says. But the client was open to the idea of having the person work remotely, even though it was “uncharted territory” for the company to fill such a position from abroad. Ana Ber came up with the brilliant idea, searched in Central and Eastern Europe, and actually found the perfect candidate in Romania. The developer now travels to Frankfurt once a month, but otherwise works from Romania.

Global network an asset

“This example shows how companies and candidates are changing and evolving,” Ana says. Those in charge were trying to unite different ways of working and living, as well as new business models. All of this, she says, needs to be balanced, taking into account the expectations of the younger generation for corporate sustainability. “Companies need to focus more on their employees, otherwise they will lose them or not find new ones,” explains Ana. She elaborates: the COVID pandemic forced many companies – including in Romania – to expedite their digital advancement. One advantage of this is that Romanians were early adopters, which is why many European companies launched pilot projects there, for instance, to test new applications and products.

The example of German-Romanian cooperation also underscores how advantageous it is for an executive search consultancy to be networked in a globalized world. “If I don’t know what’s happening in Germany or Singapore, I can’t offer my clients the perfect solution,” Ana explains. After all, she says, it’s about finding the best staffing for them for today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.

Emancipation more advanced than in Germany

At InterSearch Worldwide, Ana Ber is a Regional Leader for Energy and Diversity & Inclusion. She ensures that diversity and inclusion are lived and implemented within the network. “Only then can we make it clear to our clients, based on our own experience, how important these points are,” says Ana.

This leads to remarkable accomplishments. A case in point: the executive search consultant was able to place a woman as general manager in a Japanese automotive company for the first time. This example set a precedent there so that even more women have since taken over management positions. “They were simply the best, regardless of their gender,” Ana explains.

Preconceptions about older people

In former communist countries like Romania, emancipation is further along than, for example, in Germany, she says. This is because women there have always worked in male-dominated professions, Ana explains. With a 35.8 percent share of women in management positions, Romania ranked 13th in the EU in 2021, while Germany was in the bottom third in 20th place. Only the public sector and politics lag behind in Romania when it comes to equality.

“Romania is actually very tolerant,” Ana says. “But there is bias against older people, from the age of 55 you are considered old in our country.” Employees of this age are seen as slow and lacking energy. It is assumed that they do not give their all to the company. But that’s not true, assures Ana. She is not only concerned with gender justice. She wants to prevent discrimination against older and younger people alike, as well as discrimination based on ethnicity. And she’s always finding ways to do that, too – creatively and unconventionally.

About InterSearch Executive Consultants

InterSearch Executive Consultants is one of the leading personnel consultancies and specializes in the recruitment of executives (Executive Search) and systematic analyses of executive potential (Management Audit / Executive Diagnostic). Founded in 1985 under the name “MR Personalberatung”, the company is now represented in Germany with three offices in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Cologne and was a founding partner of InterSearch Worldwide in 1989. Today, InterSearch operates worldwide in the field of executive search with more than 600 consultants in over 50 countries with more than 90 locations.

About InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania S.R.L

P&P Romania is a leading company in executive search, management consulting, and interim placement, positioned among the leading 5 local consultancies in Romania.

In search, we identify the potential candidates active and passive on the market and, through an extensive contact and assessment program we produce a shortlist of relevant and properly motivated candidates from among the top performers. We don’t give up the assignment until you have hired the right person. We excel at the more challenging assignments. Whether clients need a rare combination of skills or a new team to achieve a turnaround, or an individual making a difficult relocation, we do what it takes to achieve results. Thanks to our reputation and the strength of our network, we are in a position to enable our clients to access and appoint the most talented business leaders worldwide.

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Category: InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania S.R.L

Pivoting industries or roles

About InterSearch Romania (Pendl & Piswanger Romania)

Unlock limitless opportunities with a compelling CV

Imagine your CV as the passport to your dream job. It’s a snapshot of your career journey, an emblem of your growth and achievements. When it comes to making the first impression, your CV must stand out within a few seconds.

Crafting an engaging LinkedIn profile using Chat GPT

Why LinkedIn matters?

About InterSearch Romania (Pendl & Piswanger Romania)

InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania is proud to announce that Andrei Razvan NACEA joined the team in Bucharest as Partner

Leading the way: Romanians are early adopters

Global network an asset

Emancipation more advanced than in Germany

Preconceptions about older people

About InterSearch Executive Consultants

About InterSearch Romania – Pendl & Piswanger Romania S.R.L