He has more than 790 connections (and counting) at business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn, where he is an active member of the 9,308-strong SuperCFO discussion group. He is the creator of the Candidates Chair website, a practical guide to job search and networking based on his own experiences and those of the site’s readers. Richards is also a member of the Financial Executives Networking Group and is a moderator of ExecuNet’s Finance Roundtable.

 

Formerly senior vice president at wealth management company RBC Dain Rauscher in Minneapolis and senior director for international finance at Carson Wagonlit Travel, Richards is now CFO of Maximum Communications, a telecoms start-up that aims to serve rural areas in Minnesota.

 

“The reason I got connected to my job at Maximum was because of the Candidates Chair,” he says. “Somebody had shared the site with someone else and he sent me a note and I just happened to be looking for a new CFO job. He emailed me back and said hey, we need a CFO, you want to meet tomorrow? And sure enough, two weeks later . . .”

 

He continues to network. “People think about networking when they’re out looking for a job, but the reality is, you ought to network before you need to,” he says. Richards spoke to CFO Innovation’s Cesar Bacani about networking and job-hunting in the U.S. and the lessons learned that could apply as well to finance professionals in Asia.

 

Networking in the U.S. is like networking anywhere else. I used to work for Carlson Wagonlit Travel where I had an international finance role. I spent eight years working with my international colleagues and so a lot of my networking skills were developed there.

 

The first thing you [learn] in an executive role is that you can’t accomplish all the tasks on your own. You have to network with your peers, in particular, to make it happen. At Carlson, I wasn’t living in France or living in Germany or Brazil, so I needed the help of the local teams [in those countries], but to get them to help you, you've really got to know them. Whether you’re networking to do your job or networking to find a job, it’s really all the same. It’s all about getting connected and finding the way that you can help people and they can help you.

LinkedIn helps you find people you want to connect to, but then you have to go and actually do the connection. You need to meet somebody face-to-face, have coffee or cocktails or whatever. Until you get to know them a little bit better, it’s hard to really understand 1) how you can help them and 2) how they can help you.

 

When you build your network, you want to make sure that there is some mutual benefit. There are people I have met that, in the end, I realise I can’t really help them very much, nor can they help me. You want to make sure that you’re in sync with your networkee. Otherwise you just pass them on to somebody else and it doesn’t really help you build your network at all. And you also want to make sure you pass on good referrals as well.

 

THE 80% RULE

What I adopted several years ago is what I call the ‘80% rule’ – that is, 80% of networking should be focused on the other person. That’s not to say you shouldn’t tell them what you’d like to get out of a networking meeting. But I think if you are the one that takes the lead, make sure that you’re focused on the other person.