THE PATH TO DIRECTORSHIP

Guidelines for making it onto a board – Ralph Ward and Dr. Muneer Muhamed

Many professional networking sites such as LinkedIn have become popular online job boards for career progress and tomes have been written about making an impactful profile on such platforms.

Indeed, you must have a strong profile to garner board attention – although in Sri Lanka, most family owned companies prefer meek ‘independent directors’ who will nod their approval to whatever the promoter chair wants.

This is set to change sooner rather than later however, and top talent directors will soon be in high demand.

So how can you make use of professional networks to break the ice with potential boards that you’re interested in?

Here’s how you can use them to find, research and target boardroom gatekeepers.

Most board aspirants know how to maintain LinkedIn or other networking site pages with appealing ‘board seeker’ CVs. Here are some highlights… and keep in mind that anyone who responds to you on the sites will surely view your profile first – so make sure that it delivers a ‘board value’ message.

One more tip before you make your first contact with boards is work to expand your connections and networks before launching your candidacy as a ‘board wannabe.’ The more people you know in the network, the better your odds are of making a ‘who knows who’ link when the time comes for requesting a first connect.

Then turn those tools around to dig into boardroom gatekeeper specifics. Assuming a target company’s board chair – or nominating or governance chair – is on the networking site, study his or her details for board clues.

Let’s call this person ‘Director X.’ How long has he or she served on the board of that particular enterprise? What other board engagements does he or she have? What is his or her current job role and track record? Which college or university did he or she attend?

Before making contact, analyse these clues – especially the board and work history – for any shared background. All networking sites help by showing you mutual contacts in the highlights section. Go through these to gauge how strong your shared connections are.

Nevertheless, use judgement before pestering these third parties for an introduction. First, consider how many times you’ve been in touch with most of your connections after the initial contact.

You are now ready to make your network board wannabe contact. The options depend on the level of your networking site account. For instance, LinkedIn Premium adds valuable tools such as allowing you to send direct messages to people before they accept your connection invite and also see their email addresses.

The paid option on most networking sites is probably the number one outreach tool for board contacts. In fact, many recruiting firms are major users of such services. A membership at this level lets you run with the big boys. The cost is a couple of thousand rupees but you’re eligible to get a free trial to see if such paid options work for you.

If you are unable to send a ‘cold call’ message directly, you’ll need to reach out to the target board leader with a connection request.

Most sites provide a boilerplate introduction such as ‘Hi, I’d like to connect with you’ – but don’t use it. Introduce yourself but be short and crisp since connection requests are best limited to less than 250 characters… so make every keystroke count.

Mention something personal about the individual you are trying to approach for the first board connect (shared contacts, career or training, the article or comment you liked) and ask to connect with that person. Since it’s tough to sell your board capabilities and interest effectively in 250 characters, don’t try it at this point.

Concentrate on simply getting the board member to accept your request. Avoid attaching your curriculum vitae, links or other enclosures – because it will look like spam.

Congratulations! The board member at the target company has accepted your request. Now it’s time to mention your interest in governance at the company and offer a brief summary of your specific board skills.

Once you have made a networking site connection, most often you’ll be able to see the contact’s email address on his or her page if they haven’t activated special privacy settings.

So should you make your follow-up pitch through the site’s messaging feature or use the director’s email?

Opinion varies on this; but the consensus of experts is that once you make a connection, quickly move the discussion away from the networking site. Even seasoned networkers aren’t checking the site as often as they check their email. If the board contact’s profile page doesn’t share an email address, use the site’s messenger to request it.

Crafting initial connection messages is an art in itself, and there are a number of good online guides for the relevant wording and templates. By following the guidelines offered there, you will be able to progress towards your goal of becoming a member of a board.