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CHAPTER 4

WRITING YOUR INDIANA JONES BIO

Definition of an IJ Bio and its Purpose

Before you produce a final resume, consider first writing your IJ Bio, especially if you haven’t looked for a job in a while. Making the effort to complete your IJ Bio can help you conduct more effective networking and PEG job interviews. Our PEG clients liked the due diligence aspect of the IJ Bio. Our C-Level candidates grew to appreciate it after completion. I discovered years ago that a significant number of our A player skin in the game C-Level search candidates from the Midwest, Southwest, and from manufacturing industries had unimaginative, job responsibility-dominated resumes. Top level candidates, particularly at the full P&L and operations level, found it difficult to legitimately give themselves credit for their major career employment achievements.

The majority of my PEG clientele for the past twenty-eight years has been the lower middle market, not the billion dollar companies serviced by the big name headhunters. The skin in the game search assignments I fill demand hands-on C-Level candidates able to do more than the job for which they were hired. Their resumes need to demonstrate an ability to wear many hats in small portfolio companies. If you are trying for a job in this market, your resume must show these skills and characteristics. Bringing out such legitimate abilities in your Indiana Jones Bio will provide you with ammunition for a more effective resume that addresses your target audience’s hiring priorities.

I began calling my candidate bio request the Indiana Jones Bio based on the adventurous Indiana Jones movies, and the bio moniker stuck. Afterwards, our senior level candidates began focusing on their value added achievements and began putting numbers, metrics, EBIT/EBITDA figures, results, percentages etc. into their IJs and subsequently into their resumes instead of just bland generalities.

Presently there is a tight market with many A player senior executives actively looking for a job for over eighteen months or longer. Other highly qualified senior executives have actually stopped seeking their ideal job and lowered their career expectations.

When investigating their own possible company acquisitions, private equity firms, including our PEG clients, employ a due diligence screening process before they spend millions in assessing and verifying as much critical, relevant, and confidential information as possible. Some PEGs spend years evaluating a key acquisition. I have always employed that same due diligence approach and investigative detail regarding our executive search candidates. The more the clients know about our finalist referred candidates, the better their hiring decisions. Clients appreciate this opportunity to really know their C-Level candidates and eventual hires. Gilreath Consultancy’s Indiana Jones Bio tool has been well received by our PEG clients right from the beginning.

My pet peeve with the middle market PEGs in general is their insufficient concern with a C-Level candidate’s “soft skills”. These are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people, encompassing leadership, empathy, communication, and sociability. Too many middle market PEGs focus almost solely on hard skills, defined as a person’s technical skills, and ability to perform certain standalone functional tasks.

If you have not looked for a management or executive job in many years, the Indiana Jones exercise will be helpful to you in communicating your life and career accomplishments and setbacks. This presentation should be in a “cut to the chase” manner, especially in face-to-face networking sessions and PEG job interviews. You might consider completing an Indiana Jones Bio to be overkill. Don’t. I have found that it strengthens the SITG C-Level candidate’s resume, networking, and job interviews.

The IJ Bio, done right, is a cathartic, comprehensive review of your career to date. It demonstrates your soft skills and hard skills. The best approach, on a rough draft basis, is to list each employer, company, sales, number of employees, job location(s), parent company, products or services, job title, and key job criteria. Be sure to mention the job challenges you faced. Start getting in the habit of rating your individual job performance (and why) versus the job specs, from one to ten. Concisely explain circumstances, if any, beyond your control for poor performances. Naturally, using the IJ Bio as a helpful tool for a more impactful resume, you should focus on your accomplishments.

The IJ Bio is to be treated confidentially regarding its distribution. If your first interview has gone well with a PEG and resulted in a follow-up interview, use your IJ Bio as a leave behind with the interviewer once the second interview session has ended positively. Remember, you will be competing for that skin in the game job. Odds are, your competition will only have a resume to leave with the hiring authority. You will have an effective resume, a due diligence-focused IJ Bio, and more. Be sure to mark the top “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL” before printing a copy.

The IJ Bio can help you psychologically when fine tuning your resume and for improved interviewing. Most hiring interviewers are not skilled enough to recognize if their interviewee can do the job they seek to fill. They are better at determining whether the interviewee meets all the job specs or not. The IJ Bio can reinforce your SITG C-Level candidacy looking at the entire person, not just what the resume covers. If you have an interview concerning a skin in the game job, give a copy of your Indiana Jones Bio to the PE Partner upon leaving, if he expresses further interest. Use it judiciously, as it’s not for just anybody who gets your resume. The IJ Bio will help you as much as the PEG hiring authorities you interview with.

Indiana Jones Bio Basic Outline Exhibit:

 Avoid duplicating your resume contents.

 Don’t be overly modest.

 Don’t exaggerate.

 Don’t constantly make generalizations.

 Back up your claims with numbers, facts, data, and specifics.

 Avoid using too many adjectives.

 Be factual, clear, concise and enlightening .

 Be careful not to breach any non-disclosure agreements using too much specific detail.

Your Indiana Jones Bio can also help with your LinkedIn bio. Here’s how your Indiana Jones Bio should flow according to the many highlighted checklists:

Early Background

Include a few words about your upbringing location, your parents (professionally speaking), siblings, noteworthy high school era accomplishments or Eagle Scout achievements, and any significant part time jobs. Also include any college scholarships.

College/University Years

This should include your top grades, whether you attended a self-financed college, any noteworthy varsity sports, part time jobs, Co-Op jobs, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), etc.

Early Employment Years

 Mention your initial job / career objectives and why.

 Describe any early mentor(s) and each one’s significance as well as the circumstances of their impact on you.

 If married, mention circumstances of your meeting, any commonalities and what brought you and your spouse to commit your lives together.

 Describe your reasons for doing so, if you left your home area.

 What were the specific motivations, whether for employment opportunities including functional learnings in line with your goals and preferred function exposure to engineering, finance, or sales and marketing?

 Briefly touch on your military background.

 As you explain your employer(s) and various job titles you’ve held, mention significant accomplishments, your collective positive job performances, and results that led to promotions.

 Did you ever pursue a specific career enhancing job opportunity?

 Describe any special training you mastered such as Lean Manufacturing and how you used it to produce targeted company objectives.

Later Employment Years

This should include titles, accomplishments, setbacks, lessons, promotions, awards, special training, challenges, problems solved, examples of leadership traits, and teamwork examples. Connect your career progressions to employer profits, functional developments, and reasons for changing each job. Add a short paragraph about your wife and kids (avoid using their names).

Certifications and Awards

Hobbies

Volunteer Activity

Don’t worry about the length of the first draft. Have a trusted colleague or former mentor look it over and be frank about their critique. Give it an overnight review to settle and make necessary word reductions. Re-read it for action items and insert numbers whenever possible such as sales, growth, EBITDA, cost reductions figures, percentage increases, labor rate reduction, profit margin improvements, and value added. That’s why it’s called the Indiana Jones Bio!

Gilreath Consultancy typically presents PEG clients the fully vetted backgrounds, including exhibits and reference checks on three to four search candidates in separate three ring binders. Many client interviewers take a quick look at the contents of each candidate binder before they interview our candidates, and then close it. In comes the job candidate to the interview with the client representative. This includes Fortune 500 corporate search assignments I used to handle as well as skin in the game searches for PEGs. They say, “Tell me about yourself.” Each candidate’s resume portrays their public profile with lots of adjectives, not too many metrics, dollar signs, EBITDA, and dashboard KPIs.

I wanted my skin in the game candidates to offer the clients more than just their elevator pitch in response to “tell me about yourself”. In manufacturing and chemical processing industries, managers/executives tend to be conservative and do not automatically start bragging about their exploits, skills and achievements. Writing out your life results, warts and all, gives most managers and executives more confidence in themselves. I have each C-Level SITG candidate complete their IJ Bio and become accustomed to communicating their bio highlights naturally, confidentially and succinctly. More than once, if need be. Prepare to be asked, “Tell me about yourself” unless you’re Tom Brady or Jack Welch.