Critical Notes

I got an e-mail from a new friend in South Carolina a few weeks ago which basically said:

I hope that you could possibly offer me some advice. I live in Charleston, SC and I have read your article that was posted on the CharlestonJob Network and I have attempted to follow your advice to the tee, but without success.

I’m leaving out details, of course, but my reply listed the best practices that I could think of… I’d like to present these seven things to you so you can ask where you stand on each of these things:

1. Have you read Never Eat Alone? Simple stuff, common sense, especially for a sales veteran. But there are lots of things in there that might be reminders, or something like that. It might be educational or motivational (for me it was both) ??? but it should be read. (Another great networking book I just finished is Thom Singer’s Some Assemby Required - different than Keith Ferrazzi’s book and style, I consider it very complementary)
2. Do you have a tight relationship with a recruiter? This can be someone local, or someone far away. But you need to be able to get coaching from a professional recruiter before an interview, after the interview, with regard to your resume, etc.
3. Would you consider a career coach? I “work with” or at least network with a few career coaches. I think that when you are in a state of despair its so helpful to have someone that can help you, hold you accountable, and their focus is to help you move on to that next step!
4. How effectively do you network locally? 30 interviews is a ton, and now you know some important people in lots of companies. Do you go to any networking meetings? I’m not talking about the job seeker meetings, but industry or niche associations? These are smaller, tight-nit groups that focus on their specialty, but the relationships there are usually really valuable. I never did this because I was too busy working, but now I’ll never NOT do it.
5. Do you work on personal branding? From what you told me you could be an established authority in the sales space. There are tons of specialties, like you mention (you are B2B software) ??? are any of them underserved, or can you transfer your knowledge from your specialty to help in another specialty? You would do this with a blog (see my Monthly Winners in my blog for excellent examples) or by writing articles. You need to be THE AUTHORITY, someone that is a superstar, and undisputed ??? and you can do this through your personal branding strategy.
6. Do you give service regularly? I had a blog carnival where I basically said “Yikes! You just lost your job and your network has been neglected ??? what do you do now??” Seth Godin replied with “Do service for 6 months!!!” It was an amazing answer, and I think many felt it was unrealistic, but doing service allows you to substantiate yourself, and rub shoulders with other execs, hiring managers and professionals that want to give back ??? these are excellent network contacts!
7. I think you are a prime candidate for a professional resume writer. I would have cringed to think about paying for that because its such a simple document, but you clearly have issues with your moving around (I don’t think they are issues but you have to figure out how to communicate it both on the resume and in an interview!). I could be wrong here because you have already had 30 interviews (which leads me to believe you need to network more ??? apparently getting an interview isn’t a problem), and you need coaching on the interview (and how to answer questions regarding moving/job changes). This is NOT insurmountable, and I wish I could tell you the answer, but it ain’t my thing.

This is stuff I didn’t think about a year ago, but might constitute my response for best practices in a job search. What do you think - are these things you need to reconsider?

In my post yesteday announcing my new relationship with a company that specializes in helping you rollover your retirement accounts into a personal account, here is more information…

Yesterday I had a question/comment to my post from David Grubman:

But Jason???. you can roll over your old retirement savings plans (401k or 457 or 403???.) to any qualified IRA. Not sure I get the unique value proposition of these guys.. you can do the same with Vanguard or Fidelity.

Good question… I’ll let the CEO (Brandon Small) answer it:

Absolutely. You can rollover to anything - from anything. But neither Vanguard or Fidelity do the tracking. And the paperwork leads many to not do their rollover.

I’m not saying we invented the wheel. But we are focusing our efforts on a specific niche. It’s like your site, there are other “similar” sites, but you do it differently - choosing to focus on topics you think are important.

I’ve found Brandon’s service to be exactly what I needed. When I went through this process I had a number of questions to ask, and he had the time and knowledge I was looking for. I didn’t want to be sold a complementary service… it was very straightforward, but he respected my “unique situation.” I like service providers that provide… old fashioned service. I can vouch for Brandon and his company.

Here are a few more “details” that came up:

401k Accounts only??

No, that is my myopic name for “retirement savings account”… it applies to various plans, which you can see on their website. When in doubt just fill out the form and they’ll get back to you to discuss it.

What is the cost to do a rollover?

On the transfer (rollover) we are charging nothing nor does the client incur any cost.

How does Rollover Express make money (I get this question all the time):

The fee is between .5 % and 1.5 %, charged quarterly - so 1/4 of that will be deducted as a fee (from your principle (total assets)) every 3 months.

Most advisors that provide fee-only have a minimum of $150k to $200k. We have no minimum - this is a function of our lower costs and competitive edge. This is the preferred fee structure for investors.

What is your motivation for serving me, as a client?

We charge a flat annual fee for managing assets, .5-1.5%. Commission advisors charge 4-6% upon investment. Because of this compensation structure we are naturally service centered, not sales centered. Fee-only is also the direction most advisors are going.

Discount brokerages, like ETrade and TDAmeritrade and Scott Trade, charge for every transaction - like $10 for a stock trade or other, but you get no investment service/advice.

I asked my LinkedIn network (using the new Answers feature) and got some outstanding replies and information - here’s one that I think it really noteworthy, from Frank Galea, CFA, who is a Mutual Funds Compliance Manager:

The only hitch is that you would not want to commingle rollover funds with additional personal contributions because the latter will not be eligible for rolling into a future employer plan and can lead to accounting headaches to figure out ratio of eligible vs. non-eligible funds.

One of the answers I got on LinkedIn was from David Craker in Australia - it kind of suprised me:

Jason, this is a global forum, please remember this… A 401k is nothing that anyone else is interested in other than the USA… We do not have these issues and constraints by the US Government rulings in Australia unless we are directly US citizens that need comply with this for the USA… Here we are ruled by Australian Taxation Office, possibly the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investment Commission if it involves investments.

Why did this surprise me? The point of this entire topic is managing your own career, which includes planning for and managing retirement. I don’t care where you live, or what great company that you work for that has a great retirement plan (can you say E-N-R-O-N??) - I don’t even pretend to know the options in other countries - but my message is FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. Don’t leave this to an employer, or a government. You can if you want, but I’m a little skeptical after my experience last year of getting booted out the door. I’m all about figuring out what YOUR plan is for YOU.

Is this interesting? Do you have a plan? If you are in the US (thanks for the reminder David) then go fill out the form and get the ball … er, rolling