Eelco van Eijck is Managing Partner of Amrop Netherlands and runs a coaching program for senior executives called Executive 2.0. He started it in response to a need he saw in the business community.

“I run searches for hiring organizations who are looking for top executives. We find really capable people with lots of high level experience. Sometimes when I present them to my clients, they meet and something happens - they don’t match at all! The candidate cannot convince the client.”

The problem is twofold. Potential employers are less than expert in the techniques of interviewing at this level; and candidates are not used to presenting themselves properly, finding it difficult to explain in a few words what they do and want. Too often resumés are Word documents started when the candidate was a graduate, with a line added annually since. The solution, says Eelco, is to see yourself as a brand.

Going for the Grand Slam

We meet Eelco at his well appointed corner office in Amstelveen, just south of Amsterdam. Having presented me with an outline of his executive search business, he turns to the fifty-inch plasma TV screen mounted on the wall, upon which serenely appears the tennis star Roger Federer. For those readers not among the millions of YouTube viewers of this well-known ad for Barila, we see the Swiss tennis star learning the art of cooking pasta. Barilla very carefully chose the personal brand of the tennis champion to support their message. He fits the core values that Barilla stands for and is known for globally: sincerity, simple excellence, quality and high nutritional value. For Eelco the film illustrates the importance of personal branding in relation to the company he fronts; as a global icon trusted across cultures, he is able to communicate the product’s unique value with credibility and authenticity.

The same branding principles apply to CEOs and board members. Their personal values need to fit with their company’s values, and this is why it is so important for them to understand the building blocks of personal and executive branding.

As Eelco says, “If you are a company looking for a new CEO this is what you have to think about. Does this person match our strategy and values? This is not often being done.”

Hold on to Your Briefs

Presenting yourself succinctly and powerfully to a board is what Eelco van Eijck’s approach claims to prepare you to do. But isn’t this a skill at which experienced leaders are already adept?

“I had a candidate here recently who was head of a famous organization. He was very good at strategy and had recently integrated a company worth a billion dollars. I asked him to describe in two sentences, who he is and what he stands for. He said yes of course, and he proceeded to talk for 25 minutes.”

There’s a phrase that translates as: “I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t have the time to write you a short one”. Power really does lie in short messaging, says Eelco.

Meltdown

Hardhitting oratory is one thing. The deeper facet of the personal brand Eelco tackles is motivation, both in a person’s career and wider life. Get one of your key drivers wrong and the results can be catastrophic, he says.

“I had another candidate who was one of the most successful executives with one of the world’s leading consumer goods companies. She built a famous global food brand and was set to become a board member. She lived abroad at that time because of the company’s large factory there. Then the family wanted to return home, and so she took a job running a retail chain, which was a big change from her consumer goods background.

Within five months she got into huge clashes with the non-executive board, it was in all the national newspapers, and she failed. It broke her and she left. She told me that if she had met me earlier she would never have taken this job because she would have realized it had very different demands to where her experience lay.“

Maps and Drivers

Eelco’s method makes you analyze yourself using a career map in which you describe in single keywords the good and bad aspects of your last six jobs. This exercise, he argues, will lead you to a job that both matches your skill set and satisfies you, rather than working you to death through a series of ulcers and broken relationships.

Executives make notes of previous jobs, things they liked and didn’t like, using just single-word descriptions. They describe their favorite challenges, perhaps earning more money, or living in a great location. But critically, they must also list the negatives in those jobs.

After three weeks, the candidate shares the document with a close partner over dinner and gets their input, bringing another layer of insight and focus. Patterns now emerge. The same likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, pop up across a career.

The document helps the individual find her personal drivers, and crucially, ensures against revisiting familiar negatives in her next job.