Coffee for Closers: Interviews with Influencers in Japan
Coffee for Closers: Interviews with Influencers in Japan
The Importance of a Well-Crafted Resume for Executive Level Positions
In this episode of "Coffee for Closers," Brad interviews Axel Lieber, founder of Career Zeus, who shares his insights into helping executives strategically manage their careers, particularly focusing on LinkedIn optimization and resume writing. Axel highlights his 20+ years of experience in recruitment and how his services help seasoned professionals position themselves better in the job market, especially at the executive level.
https://career-zeus.com/
The conversation centers around the nuances of executive-level job transitions, emphasizing the importance of a well-crafted resume, strategic LinkedIn presence, and career advisory tailored to executives looking for a job change. Axel's services include comprehensive resume creation and job change advisory, helping clients navigate complex compensation packages, negotiations, and job offers.
Axel shares common struggles executives face, such as not knowing what a good resume looks like or understanding how to position themselves on LinkedIn. He stresses the importance of LinkedIn recommendations, active engagement, and taking a professional yet strong stance in posts. He advises senior professionals to start a side hustle, even if it's small, to stay mentally engaged and enhance their resumes.
Key takeaways for executives include the need for a polished, impactful resume that opens conversations rather than closes them, leveraging LinkedIn as a branding tool, and understanding the value of advisory services during career transitions. Axel also advises against relying too heavily on AI filtering systems for job applications, as they are not fully reliable, particularly at the senior executive level.
For professionals looking to make a career shift, Axel's practical advice underscores the importance of standing out in a competitive job market and using every tool—like LinkedIn and networking—to one's advantage.
For more insight into recruiting, the Japan job market and more, access the following websites:
www.motionworks.co.jp
www.motionworks-careers.com
www.coffee-for-closers.com
So in this episode I had the pleasure to meet with Axel Lieber from Career Zeus, who really just gives a lot of good insight into, helping executives kind of become more strategic in the job market, particularly with their online presence on LinkedIn as well as their, you know, creating or using his services to kind of create a strategic resume or CV to really compete at the executive level. So, yeah, have a listen through. Um, it's one of the longer interviews, but it's definitely a really good insight if you're at the executive level and looking to either market yourself or brand yourself better, on LinkedIn and other platforms, as well as just, uh, position yourself as a better candidate if you're looking for a job change. So yeah, watch all the way through and hope you can find some good insight into just general job changes at the executive level, as well as what it takes to position yourself in the market here. So watch all the way through and see you at the end. Hi, I'm Brad and welcome to another episode of coffee for closers. Uh, today my guest is Axel Lieber, a veteran recruiter here in Tokyo and founder of Career Zeus. Uh, Axel, thanks for joining us today. Thank you. And, yeah, for starters, can you just tell us a little about your background and how you got started in recruiting here? Yeah, uh, I moved to Japan in 1999. Uh, I had a job offer back then as a junior recruiter, uh, with a local boutique recruiting firm. And since then, I've been in Japan uninterruptedly. Um. I started my own business in 2002. I think it was, uh, that was a recruitment firm called progress. And then that was the bulk of my experience. We did a lot of, uh, senior level searches in financial services, professional services, um, pharmaceutical life science and so on. Um, and that went on until 2000, 17, maybe 18, I guess. Um, and yeah. And then a winded down. Okay. Nice. And where did you get the idea of, uh, career Zeus and what is career Zeus? Yeah. So I was, uh, pretty tired of executive search. Um, and that was a process that unfolded over a number of years. Um, my wife, who has a rather nice corporate career, um, frequently, uh, asked me to help her with with her job changes. Um, basically just hand holding, um, you know, um, telling her, okay, this thing that happened was normal or it was not normal. It was unreasonable, you know, or, you know, just rewriting her resume for her. Um, and, um, you know, even last year when she made her last career move, which, um, led her to the C level, she still, um, needed my help a lot during the the whole process of changing her job. And she told me that, you know, you should charge for this. You know, you can charge for this because most people don't know this stuff. Just like I don't know it. And, um, it's it's real value. You know, my career wouldn't necessarily have gone as well as it has without your help. Right? So I was looking for something else to do, and this resonated. This is something that I know very well. Um, so it gives me a natural advantage over other fields and over other people in the same field. So that's how the career was born. And the career is basically two things. It's one thing is resume writing and online presence reviews. So that's mostly LinkedIn. And then the other part is career. I should not say career. I have to stop myself there. Job change advisory. So I'm not a career advisor. I'm not trained, I'm not qualified to advise people on the big picture of their career, what their psychometric tests tell us about what their, you know, best suited to or anything like that. But I am an expert on the mechanics of changing your job. So that's the advisory service that I offer as the career Zeus. Okay, nice. Good stuff. And I mean, what do you find that, um, some of your clients kind of struggle with initially when when when approaching a job change? Yeah. So, um, my clients are mostly executives, um, in all sorts of industries. It doesn't really matter. And around the world. So I have clients from the US, from Europe, Japan, other parts of Asia, India, um, and so on. So and they're all very experienced. Um, so at minimum ten years of experience in a, in a good corporate career, um, but usually more than 20 years experience and. Well, what they're What. They're. Struggling with is things that to me seem like common sense because I've worked as an executive recruiter for 20 years. So there's a lot of stuff that to me seems just like, you know, normal stuff, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. It's just common knowledge. But it's not common knowledge to a lot of my clients, which is understandable because they've never worked in HR, they've never worked as a recruiter. They've never been in this position. Right. And so then that involves that that covers what a good resume should look like. That's the first thing, right? And a lot of people surprisingly don't know this. To me it's total common sense, but it's not common sense to them. Right. And that's one of the, the one of that's a part of the value package that I have to to offer. Right. And then it's all this other stuff, like I said, you know, with my wife, the recruiter said this and this. Is that for real? Is that or is that weird? You know. And then, you know, well, that's. You're right. That's actually really weird. You should push back on that. Right. Or this offer. Oh, my God, this is like a, like a Christmas tree of components. You know, the more senior you get, the more components are added into the offer. You know, restricted stock units this and then another type of restricted stock units, you know and maybe even stock options. Right. And all sorts of other things. Right. And also what can I reasonably ask for and what would be seen as, you know, unreasonable or greedy, that sort of thing, you know, um, or, you know, they're telling me I got to join next week, but I just possibly cannot do that. That's just not how do I deal with this, right? All these sort of things. Right. And I think the more senior you become, the more, um, value there is in this sort of advice relative to the money that you have to spend on it, right? When you're young and you're making, I don't know what it is, 50,000 bucks a year or something. Paying for this kind of service is painful because it's expensive, right? But when you're a senior executive, the money that you have to spend on this stuff, making sure that your next career transition goes as smoothly and as well as it can. It's a minor expense, you know, and and the upside is enormous. You know, like one wrong move and you messed up your next career step, right. And I can help people prevent that from happening. And in light of that, the money you pay me is, you know, pocket change. Right? Okay. So this is like, way beyond just tweaking a resume to get an interview. I mean, you you offer the full package of, like you said, kind of job, uh, coaching or what was your you said what what was the term job. So job change advisory. Okay. So yeah. Advisory which which is huge. Right. So, um, I mean, how much of that do you think, uh, recruiters should be doing and how much can you step in and help? And I guess my other question is like, how are all of your clients using agencies or recruiters? No, no, no. So so, um, I mean, yes, I mean, they are of course in touch with usually they are in touch with all sorts of recruiters. Right? But I mean, recruiters also have their own incentives, um, one way or another. Right. And so they're also just human beings, right? Even if they are very sort of forthright, sincere persons, they still are guided to some extent by their incentives, which may not always be aligned with the incentives of the job seeker. Right. So to answer your first question, I think a good recruiter would and should do a lot of what I, um, what I do, but they will do it with their own interests in mind, right? And if those interests are not fully aligned with your interests as a job seeker, then there may be some, let's say, suboptimal advice from the recruiter. Right. But that's only one aspect. The other aspect is that a lot of job changes don't happen through executive recruiters. They happen through your own personal network. They happen through, um, you know, uh, job applications via LinkedIn or, you know, job portals or whatever. Right. And then there is nobody there who can help you at all. And so, you know, a lot of my clients ask me for advice on those type of situations, too. And by the way, the clients have the option to choose, you know, if somebody just wants a resume, that's it. You know, they can just get their resume and be done with it. But others who want a career change or the job change advice, they can opt for that as well. So these are two separate things paid for separately, you know, at the discretion of of the client. Okay. Nice. And I guess the other question is like what is it that you, you don't do or industries that you don't support? Okay. Yeah. So, um, so far I have not accepted clients in academia and clients who are in very technical jobs. So very technical means you're actually doing technical, technological work, like you're a programmer or a, um, an engineer, you know, because, uh, for jobs, for those type of people, often resumes are required that list a great amount of technical detail. And I cannot help with that because I don't understand it. Right. And in academia, you're supposed to demonstrate your publishing track record. And, you know, the conferences you've spoken at and so on. Right. And again, I don't really understand that world. So I find it really difficult to help people who come from that sort of background. And also I don't work with junior, uh, white colour, uh, people, uh, simply because I couldn't make it work from a money perspective. It has to be profitable and attractive to me, and I, I don't think I can charge what's required here, uh, to somebody who's making, I don't know, 30,000 or 50,000 bucks a year. You know, it'd be completely disproportionate. And, um, uh, you know, I wouldn't recommend it. So that's. I don't do that. I just work with executives or very experienced professionals. Okay, nice. And in general, like, how long does it take to actually, um, provide your service? Like, for example, if it's just a one off resume or if it's the, um, the full package that you offer, what's the what's the timeline involved? So the way it. Works is I don't edit existing resumes. I do reference them. I do look at them. That's a, you know, efficient way of getting very basic information like the the dates, the locations, the job titles and that sort of thing. But in order to create real value for the client, I need to focus on the things that I know from my experience are most important, and that usually requires creating a new resume. And so what I do is I interview the client for 90 to 120 minutes in the beginning, um, very often it's two hours. We take a break in the middle, um, and then uh, and then based on that, and in combination with what I learned from their existing resumes and in combination with what I see on their LinkedIn profile, um, I, I create a sort of a synthesis that is designed for maximum impact. And that takes me usually to business days. So you have the interview and then you have two business days minimum, um, until the next video conference with the client, which is then to review the draft resume. That usually takes around 30 minutes. Then, uh, normally within 24 hours, they turn around the, the revised draft. And then at that point, often it's already like, okay, we're ready to sign off here. This is this is good. Uh, or there might be another round of revisions where the client feels it's still not really quite there. And so we have another call. And then 99% of the time that's it. So it really depends on the client how quickly they can make themselves available. From my perspective, if somebody is in an enormous rush, I can do it in 3 to 4 days. And can you explain a little more about like the importance of a really good LinkedIn profile versus the resume and how maybe you balance that. Yeah. So I think a LinkedIn profile can either just reflect your resume in full or it can be an abbreviated version of that generally probably more common. And also from my perspective, probably more advisable to have a sort of a minimized version of the resume on LinkedIn. Um, but then what's, uh, valuable about LinkedIn is that you can have recommendations on your page. And this is one of the things that amazes me that a lot of my clients don't have any recommendations. And the recommendations section is the one thing that makes LinkedIn sort of unique compared to a resume. Right. And, uh, it's really, um, you're leaving a lot of money on the table, so to speak, if you don't have recommendations. Right. So Recommendations give credence to the claims that you make about yourself. Um, they they, you know, they show how well you're liked. Um, they're just an opportunity to, you know, to to give social proof. Right. And it's really surprising to me that not more people make use of this. And so that's one thing. And then the other thing is the, the, the quality of your engagement on LinkedIn. So like how you interact with other people, the posts you make, um, and, and the comments you make. Right. And again, to me, it's amazing that a lot of people don't seem to understand the damage that they can do to themselves on LinkedIn, right? I mean, it's already it's I think it's on one hand, it's damaging to be silent. If you're completely silent. I think that's potentially damaging because, um, it's, you know, people will just, uh, not be able to develop a feeling for you as a person, right? Um, And it makes you almost look like you have something to you're you're intentionally tactically, deliberately not engaging. Yeah. Because you maybe you're afraid that you might come across the wrong way or something like that. That's not a sign of confidence. Now, the truth is, of course, that many executives are just way too busy, right? They just really don't have time for it. And that's fine if that's the case, right? But when you're in that situation where you you need to change your job, maybe you should think about utilizing this opportunity to show a little bit of yourself, um, in a sort of an open environment. Right. And so, so, so not saying anything could potentially be damaging. But then, on the other hand, what's even more damaging is saying the wrong things, right? Like people getting into political spats with with random strangers on on LinkedIn. Right. That's just so, so unconstructive. Right. Or making aggressive comments on on stuff that they dislike. Right. So it's it's partially the category of content that you engage in. Um, and then it's also partially the style in which you engage in. So for example, I think that people should definitely take a position when they when they post on LinkedIn, it's super boring and nobody cares about your like your congrats, you know, uh, congrats. This you to somebody who's promoted I mean, okay, if you want to do that because you're friendly with that person, that's fine. Right. But that's not that really is of no interest to anyone, right? Uh, or if you make sort of, sort of lukewarm posts with nothing offensive that nobody ever is going to get riled up about. I question that there is a lot of value in that. In business, controversial opinions have often moved the needle for businesses, right? They controversial Versial stances. Breaking the rules. Being a swimming against the stream has often created massive riches and and so I think it is welcome and desirable to take a strong position on things, but do it in a style that marks you as a professional, right? Don't get personal. Don't get aggressive right or passive aggressive. Right? Um, you know, this is an opportunity to show what a strong communicator you are, right? Um, and again, I think a lot of people just completely miss that opportunity. And, you know, I think it's unfortunate. Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, I think that's a really valid point. I mean, even from a branding perspective, right? I mean, companies don't do that, but individuals I see as well, like you said, um, they're not having a stance or an opinion on anything which is rare or very, you know, trivial posts that don't. Yeah. And, you know. Especially at the sea level. Right? I mean. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what you know what? There is this buzzword of personal branding, right? I have not so far used that buzzword in any of my posts, any of my, you know, on my website. I don't use it. But that is what personal branding is. Right. You know, if you are an individual that doesn't have a business that you represent, like for example, if you have your own little company and you're trying to promote something, that's one thing, right? But for my clients, that's not normally the case. My clients are executives in in corporate careers. Right. So the banner on their LinkedIn profile is, you know, it's not very relevant that to their personal branding, but what they communicate through their engagements and through their recommendations. That is personal branding, right? Yeah. And if you don't. Have. It, you. Have no. Personal branding, right? So yeah. So definitely. Good good. Good points. Valid points there. Yeah. So you know, segwaying into the actual resume or CV like obviously LinkedIn, you can leverage a lot of your position or opinions on LinkedIn which is good. How do you do that in a resume or CV? Well. You know, I think this goes back to what I said initially. Common sense. Right. Um, there is a competitor of mine who's a byline or sort of advertising slogan on their website is we help global executives, um, gain six figure, uh, increases in their salary, in their income or something like that. And I think it's completely ridiculous. I mean, you can't a resume writer can't do that. Yeah. I mean they, they I don't know why they put that stuff on the website because nobody will believe them. Right. And, and I certainly don't believe I can do that. I can't help somebody get a six figure increase on their on their salary simply by writing a better resume. Right. Right. It's not that, but it is. The fact is, the higher you go in your career, the fiercer the competition is. Right. The number of people who compete with you is smaller, but the quality of the people who compete with you is greater than ever. Right. The the the chaff. The chaff has been sort of sorted out by then. Right now you're really competing against the wheat. Right. And why would you give yourself such a weakness by having a shitty resume? Right. I just don't understand how people think that works. Right. That that you're opening. You're giving yourself a vulnerability with that, right? I'm not saying that a good resume is is make or break, right? But it's just an if it's a weak resume, it's a needless weakness, right? And I help people iron out, remove that needless weakness. Right. And a good resume is is a is a conversation starter. Right. It's not a conversation ender. Right. That's one of the big mistakes that a lot of people make. They think they have to pack every last little detail about their resume, about their background into the resume. It becomes like four pages long. Nobody wants to read that, right. You're not supposed to preempt the interview with a resume. You're supposed to get it started. You're supposed to create a basis for an interesting conversation. It's a hook for a conversation, right? And it doesn't take a genius. Years. To. To. Accomplish that. Right. But apparently it often requires somebody who's done this for a living, because a lot of resumes I see don't do that right. So so it's not so much that you create much of an edge or sort of that like a what is it like a silver bullet or something like that? It's just more that think of the competition you have and don't, you know, create this needless vulnerability for yourself. And, you know, again, on that topic, um, what's your opinion or kind of take on, um, when, when people apply directly and a lot of companies now are using like AI to filter resumes. Um, and what's your kind of take on that and what do you have a strategy for that? If people if companies are using a lot of AI to filter resumes. So first of all, the good news is not that many companies do it. I mean. It's. It's talked about a lot, but the hiring managers, let's say let me rephrase that. The HR hiring people that I've spoken to, unless they are in very big companies, don't rely on it very much. And the reason is that they know that AI is not mature enough. You cannot rely on a machine to make the decisions of this level of importance. People are what drive every business right? And quality in the people is everything. And HR know this and everybody in the company knows this. You do not delegate such an important decision to a machine that has not been tested. You know, ten different ways and angles. And when you do put these machines to the test, they don't perform that well. Right? They are great, I think. For. Uh, let's say, removing the chaff. So if you, if you get 10,000 resumes and I can quickly remove, I don't know, 80%. Right. And if you use it for that, and if you keep it pretty loose in your, in your criteria that you submit to the AI, it's good. Right? Because it's true. I mean, a lot of resumes that come into HR departments via job portals are completely useless. They're completely inappropriate for the positions that they apply to. And using an AI to filter that out, I think is good. But what is really a tragic mistake that is also being made by, I say, a small number of companies is to make it much tighter, right? So to the extent that the HR person can basically lean back and just, you know, at the end of the day they get five perfect resumes, right? I would not recommend that to any hiring manager or HR person. Ai is not at the point where you can rely on it to do that. So but you know, the good news again is that doesn't happen very much. And so I'm not really so concerned with I and applicant tracking systems. And another reason for that is that typically senior executives that I deal with don't really face that anyway. They go either through executive recruiters or they go through, um, they go through their own network or if they apply via a job portal, of course, they apply for senior roles. Right. And at that level, um, the number of applicants that come in is much smaller than for mid-career or, you know, early career type of jobs where I probably makes a lot more sense. So at the very senior levels, I don't think AI plays much of a role anyway. Right. Which is a good thing. So. Yeah. So yeah. What advice can you give to senior level executives that are looking for a career change or new opportunities? Okay, so I. Have I have a number of of points about that. But I'm going to limit myself to one. And this is address that the people who, um, who are in a situation where they're no longer working. So, so so they're either coasting along in their, in their current job and it's understood mutually between them and the company that they're basically preparing for a move out. Right. Or they've already moved out and they're on garden leave or or maybe they've been fired. I mean, it does happen, right? Um, so I'm talking now purely to those people. I'm not talking to people who are still fully engaged in their jobs. Right. This piece of advice may may apply to them or may not apply to them, but it certainly applies to people who are no longer really working hard. Right? And my number one recommendation is start a side hustle. It has only upside and zero downside. Think about this. First of all, one problem that I think some executives go through when they are out on the street is that they get mental problems. Mental health problems. Right. They get a little anxious. They get a little depressed. It's understandable, especially if that period keeps dragging on. Right. Like some people, they think, okay, I'm out now, probably have a new job in in a couple of months and then they don't. Right. And then the months just keep going on. The number of months just keeps keeps proliferating. Right. And that can really take a toll on somebody's mental health. Right. If they have a side hustle, if they have a business that they started, no matter how small it is, it keeps them engaged, right? It's mentally stimulating. Um, it's it's it's interesting. Right. You learn something, right? And you're doing something that's valuable. Something of use. Right? So just the mental health boost and keeping busy in itself is valuable. Right. And then it looks better on your resume than saying I did nothing, right? I mean, it's just a no brainer to say I started a small business. See what comes of it. Right? Which is literally the truth of that's what you're doing, right? You're starting a new business. You're seeing where it goes. Right? And that's how like, almost all businesses get started, right? And if it doesn't work out, there's absolutely no harm in that, right? Like people understand not every business idea ever works out. Right. So but the thing is, you've demonstrated now that you have an entrepreneurial instinct or an interest, at least you're trying, right? Which is something that hiring managers will certainly appreciate. Yeah. And and it's not just that you do that for the resume, but you're also. Doing it. Because it's true, right? By by starting up a small business, you are exposing yourself to the life of an entrepreneur. And that is something that is increasingly valued in corporate jobs, that perspective. Right. A lot of white collar corporate warriors don't have that perspective, but that perspective is enormously valuable. The 360 degree view of a business that you may not have if you're just focused on, you know, financial management or on marketing or on, uh, you know, whatever it may be. Sales. Right? Um, you don't get that 360 degree view, but you do get it as an entrepreneur, right? And then, of course, finally, there is that possibility that it may work out. And suddenly you're no longer looking for a job because you've got a business, right? And that business is growing rapidly. And then, you know, maybe in extreme cases you get rich with it too, right? So there is no downside to starting a side hustle, only upside. Upset. And I don't understand why not far more people do this. So highly recommended. Well, on that note, right? I mean, like, for example, how about people that maybe are in an industry where maybe they don't have the the business idea to do that, right? I mean, looking at LinkedIn, is it possible to just kind of they're not attached to any company. Um, you know, what would they put as their title? Should they leave their remaining company on there? Or should they say, like freelance consultant in this industry or something like that and start using LinkedIn to to post or what would be your recommendation? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I would go for all in, you know, I would make that a, an item on my, on my resume and I would, you know, you don't necessarily have to have a company, although, I mean, setting up a company in many places in the Western world and in Japan is trivial. You know, it doesn't take a lot of time or money or effort, right? It's very easy to. Do these. Days. Right. But, I mean, you don't necessarily have to even do that. You can just start as a sole proprietor. Um, and but you can give yourself a brand name, your business, a brand name, and then just your title is founder, you know, uh, and, uh, or whatever, you know, whatever sounds good to you, right? And then, um, and then. Yeah, I mean, if LinkedIn is the appropriate platform to advertise it, then do that, right? I mean, it depends. Not every business is appropriately promoted on LinkedIn. Linkedin is a is a is a professional platform. Um, if you're targeting consumers who are not, you know, at least not as potential customers are not white collar professionals, but are just, you know, general, just common people who might buy this gadget that you have or this service that you offer or this, uh, content that you, that they can download from you, you know, then, you know, maybe LinkedIn is not the appropriate place. Maybe it's TikTok, you know, or Facebook, you know, whatever, right? Um, but yeah. Yeah, I would definitely I would, I would make that very visible. It's a positive thing. It's a good thing. Yeah, right. So Axel, thanks again for for joining us and sharing your insights. Um, and yeah, for anyone out there that is interested in speaking with Axel or using his services, definitely reach out to him via LinkedIn, uh, or email or on his career website directly. So, Axel, thanks again. Thank you. All right. It was fun. All right. So anyway, thanks for watching and stay tuned for more great content from coffee for closers. Thanks again. Axel.