Unit One

TRAITS OF THE KEY PLAYERS

David G. Jensen 1 What exactly is a key player? A "Key Player" is a phrase that I've heard about from employers during just about every search I've conducted. I asked a client - a hiring manager involved in a recent search - to define it for me. "Every company has a handful of staff in a given area of expertise that you can count on to get the job done. On my team of seven process engineer and biologists, I've got two or three whom I just couldn't live without," he said. "Key players are essential to my organization. And when we hire your company to recruit for us, we expect that you'll be going into other companies and finding just that: the staff that another manager will not want to see leave. We recruit only key players."

2 This is part of a pep talk intended to send headhunters into competitor's companies to talk to the most experienced staff about making a change. They want to hire a "key player" from another company. Every company also hires from the ranks of newbies, and what they're looking for is exactly the same. "We hold them up to the standards we see in our top people. If it looks like they have these same traits, we'll place a bet on them." It's just a bit riskier.

3 "It's an educated guess," says my hiring manager client. Your job as a future employee is to help the hiring manager mitigate that risk. You need to help them identify you as a prospective "key player".

4 Trait 1: The selfless collaborator

John Fetzer, career consultant and chemist, first suggested this trait, which has already been written about a great deal. It deserves repeating because it is the single most public difference between academia and industry. "It's teamwork," says Fetzer" The business environment is less lone-wolf and competitive, so signs of being collaborative and selfless stand out. You just can't succeed in an industry environment without this mindset"

5 Many peptides and grad students have a tough time showing that they can make this transition because so much of their life has involved playing the independent- researcher role and outshining other young stars. You can make yourself more attractive to companies by working together with scientists from other laboratories and disciplines in pursuit of a common goal—and documenting the results on your resume. This approach, combined with a liberal use of the pronoun "we" and not just "I" when describing your accomplishments, can change the company's perception of you from a lone wolf to a selfless collaborator. Better still, develop a reputation inside your lab and with people your lab collaborates with as a person who fosters and initiates collaborations—and make sure this quality gets mentioned by those who will take those reference phone calls.

6 Trait 2: A sense of urgency

Don Haut is a frequent contributor to the aas.sciencecareers. org discussion forum. He is a former scientist who transitioned to industry many years ago and then on to a senior management position. Haut heads strategy and business development for a division of 3M with more than $2.4 billion in annual revenues. He is among those who value a sense of urgency.

7 "Business happens 24/7/365 which means that competition happens 24/7/365, as well," says Haut. "One way that companies win is by getting 'there' faster, which means that you not only have to mobilize all of the functions that support a business to move quickly, but you have to know how to decide where 'there' is! This creates a requirement not only for people who can act