A Perfect Fit

Luger didn't have much choice in his departure. Laid off as part of Pfizer's "adapting to scale" initiative announced in April 2005, he was given the option of interviewing at other locations, but used the opportunity to reevaluate instead. For one thing, he unwilling to leave San Diego. Plus, he realized he wasn't tied to big-company culture. "Being in a company that size, you couldn't see the whole picture. I was responsible for $110 million out of a budget of $5 billion to $6 billion. A decision I made barely impacted my division, let alone the company." He was also frustrated by the bureaucracy. "You had to get consensus from 40 other people, so by the time you got a yea or a nay, it was irrelevant."

Relevance has taken on a new meaning for Whitehurst. It wasn't quitting as much as taking a break that has made him realize how disconnected he had become, particularly from his family, after working abroad for nearly 15 years. Being out of work "has allowed me to focus on things I didn't have time to do before," he says, in this case, helping a sister navigate the paperwork for a house she was building, working on race cars, and taking his father to cancer treatments. While Whitehurst has responded to recruiters' advances, taking another opportunity comes with some intangible costs.

Aiming for the Moon
More typically, candidates do focus on financial rewards in their job searches. The best bet? Growing companies or industries, which offer much more compensation upside. But, as Dascoli points out, conditions at a firm "where the margins aren't paper thin and you have a chance to invest back in the business" also make the finance department more important.

Opportunities for development are also crucial, says Steven Ehrenhalt, a principal with Deloitte Consulting's financial-management consulting group. To help clients boost their hiring rates, he is working with them to "target people who will be successful two or three levels above the job they're hired for." That, combined with job-rotation programs (including nonfinance roles), tends to make firms more desirable, he says. Not surprisingly, Spencer wants a company where she will find CPA mentors to help keep her skills sharp, and where she won't get pigeonholed.

The ineffable "culture fit" is also one of the first priorities jobhunters target. While it's hard to pinpoint the clues to a good culture, many point to office design. "I want to work with a senior team that treats people as well as they deserve," says Dascoli, "and you can often see that just by observing a facility." One company he liked, for example, had an open-cubicle environment, where the CEO could often be seen holding meetings amid the other employees. Whitehurst also takes note of how "deferential" lower-level employees are. If they insist on calling him "Sir" or "Mr. Whitehurst," he senses more hierarchy than team.

Other applicants are specifically looking for more responsibility and autonomy. Luger wants to be part of a company "where I can have an impact," and "the more senior level, the better." A newly created position, which his previous two jobs were, would be ideal because "you have the ability to create your own destiny."

Full Speed Ahead
Of course, destiny's path is never the same for everyone. About eight weeks after leaving Pfizer, Luger sends out his résumé to several recruiting firms. "I could pound the pavement all day, but will it really pay off?" he says. The response is fairly quick: recruiters line him up with interviews at about 10 companies within two weeks. Spencer and Whitehurst also go the recruiter route: Spencer lands five job interviews for intermediate accountant positions, also within two weeks, while Whitehurst interviews for, among other things, business-unit CFO roles at Pitney Bowes, Cigna Insurance, and Bausch & Lomb, plus two corporate-level positions at smaller companies.

Dascoli has a different plan, however. Having put himself on the job market for the first time since he was 15, he has been working with an executive coach and mastering the art of networking. Within four weeks of leaving Thomasville, Dascoli had moved into his outside office; met with his coach, Dennis Schroeder, executive director and CEO of The Center for Executive Performance in Chicago; and sent out nearly 1,500 letters and E-mails to retained executive recruiters, private-equity-firm principals, and other contacts.

One of his main projects with Schroeder was to rework his résumé. "Where I had emphasized projects I had completed, Dennis stressed themes, like general-management and team development skills," Dascoli says. "Now, nowhere on the front page of my résumé does it say I'm a finance guy." The two also worked on snappy answers to general questions like, "Tell me about yourself." "Dennis helped me put together a good story behind that question — picking the five or six major points I wanted to make about my career experience without repeating what the interviewer already knows," says Dascoli.

Armed with his enhanced job-seeking skills, Dascoli holds himself to a rigorous schedule. His goal is to make seven to eight networking phone calls a day, keep a written journal of everyone he talks to, and hold face-to-face interviews whenever possible. One day he drove six hours round-trip to meet for one hour with a private-equity partner.

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