Greetings, one and all! We hope that you have gotten March 2012 off to a truly great start.

Indeed, we have: the executive job market has picked up considerably, and, we are busier than we’ve been in a very long time. At The Green Suits, all this new activity has us reconnecting with many people who have been off our radar screens for a few months or for several years. And we are meeting lots of great talent who we have never engaged before.

Whether we know the person on the other end of the line or not, our phone conversations with business executive talent are usually the best part of the

During phone calls, some candidates request feedback on their résumés.  While we are not a  résumé-writing service, we do look to offer whatever meaningful insight—from on our many years in the business of hunting heads—that we can. Often, the conversations on résumés turns to metrics—the numeric and monetary measures of an executive’s career success. Generally speaking, we can count on our friends in the direct/interactive marketing or marketing analytics spaces to provide great metrics in their  résumés (CVs). For instance, we learn from sales pros how much new business—percentage and dollar-wise—they sold beyond their 2011 revenue goals. And, we discover from our marketing and web analytics executives just how much their insight gathering and exploitation have improved recency, frequency, and monetary results for their or their clients’ integrated marketing campaigns.

One would expect that sustainability and CSR-focused talent would similarly provide lots of juicy metrics in their résumés. But, more often than not, we find that these Green Suits skip the numbers—serving up instead long, detailed descriptions of their work assignments, which a bleary-eyed and easily distracted hiring manager may read as: BLAH BLAH BLAH.

So let this be a clarion call to anyone looking to further their career in the sustainability, CSR, greentech/cleantech, or related “green” industries: THERE IS NO WAY AROUND IT; YOU MUST INCLUDE CRITICAL METRICS IN YOUR CV!

Our economy in finally emerging from four years of desert-like conditions. It is not just a gut feeling; the executive employment market isimproving. So use the upswing as a reason to re-work your résumé for optimal effect.

In particular, employ lots of #s, %s, $s, ₤s,¥s, €s, and Δs in your CV to demonstrate the positive impact your efforts have had on your company’s or organization’s Triple Bottom Line (profits + people + planet).

If you struggle writing about you and your career accomplishments then you may seek out a professional  résumé service. But know the such a service will set you back at least a few hundred dollars. Or, you can pick up any one of several self-help books that are available, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Resume by Susan Ireland.

Whether you do the “re-do” yourself or hire a writer for a three-figure-sum, d0 tell your “metric” story well. It could mean the difference between getting hired and not getting hired.

It’s been a very busy week at The Green Suits as we’ve added THREE great new executive assignments to our JOBS page.

Our client is a phenomenal emarketing services company in mega scale-up mode. So, if you believe you are the right person for any of these new assignments, then we need to hear from you, right away!

Regional Vice President of Sales - We are looking for a supremely confident and successful new business sales manager to inspire and motivate a team of new business sales “hunters” to beat their revenue targets. Ideally, this person is based near NYC; but if not…NO WORRIES. Our client fully supports a virtual office set up anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard (Maine to Florida).  MUST HAVE 7+ years of sales and sales management experience, preferably in the email/emarketing or database marketing spaces. Check out the job posting HERE, and forward your résumé (CV) and salary history to dan@thegreensuits.com

Solutions Consultant - This “go to” resource is responsible for articulating our client’s email marketing differentiators and the technical benefits related to their excellent products and services. The Solutions Consultant functions as the technical point of contact for our client’s sales organization. Are you this person? Whatyawaitinfor? Check out the job posting HERE, and forward your résumé (CV) and salary history to randall@thegreensuits.com.

Solutions Engineer - is responsible for articulating our client’s technical benefits and market differentiators to new prospects and existing customers.  The Solutions Engineer will serve as a technical point of contact for the company’s Account Executives and Account Managers from the field sales and client services organizations. Are you this person? Randall cannot wait to hear from you! Check out the job posting HERE, and forward your résumé (CV) and salary history to randall@thegreensuits.com

We are very pleased to announce to the world that Randall Byrn has joined The Green Suits as Executive Recruiter. Over the weekend, we got to interview our newest talent hunter.

TGS: Welcome to The Green Suits. Please tell everyone about you: Where are you from? Where did you attend college?

Randall Byrn: I grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee and at first studied English at Southwestern at Memphis (now called Rhodes College). Then, I transferred to USC in Los Angeles to study film making; I have a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema from USC. Movies didn’t turn into a career for me, but they are my lifelong passion.

TGS: Tell us please about your pre-recruiting career.

Randall Byrn: The first part of my career was in book publishing: as a catalog copywriter for Ingram; a sales executive for Berkley Books, and after moving to New York; a direct mail manager for John Wiley & Sons. I left publishing for direct marketing assignments in the conferences space, first at IQPC and then at CFO Magazine.

TGS: Where have you lived?

Randall Byrn: A few places such as the west side of Manhattan and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Last summer, I moved back to my native Tennessee.

TGS: What do you like about being an executive recruiter?

Randall Byrn: I compare recruiting to being a detective, hunting down the right candidates for the assignment. Getting to know candidates is quite enjoyable. Also, it is very fulfilling to communicate to the hiring manager the candidate’s strengths and appropriateness for the position. But of course placing a great candidate in a new role is the biggest thrill of all; sure, it is a personal success for me, but I especially enjoy the happy outcome for the both candidate and the hiring manager.

TGS: The Green Suits, LLC represents clients in the marketing analytics space. As a result, you have connected to—and gotten to work with—hundreds of talented marketing analysts and other insights professionals. What is it like to work with people who analyze marketing metrics for a living?

Randall Byrn: Well, it is a good time to be in analytics! It is the “need” in most companies, and it is likely to remain that way for a while. Many of our analytics candidates—especially the more experienced ones—are learning just how valuable they are to hiring companies.

TGS: You are also working with companies which are committed to environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Randall Byrn: Most large companies have incorporated sustainability and corporate social responsibility into their strategies and identities, and this will expand to mid-tier and small companies—especially ones which do business on a global scale. Being perceived as responsible corporate citizens just makes good business sense. And it is certainly a draw—or a selling point—in attracting great talent, whether or not a particular job has “sustainability” or “corporate social responsibility” in the title.

TGS: The Green Suits promotes remote office work. And you too work from a remote office. What do you think are the most important steps one can take to be truly effective in a remote office environment?

Randall Bryn: It does take discipline to work effectively from a remote office. Everyone must find what works best for her or him. I find that starting early and finishing late—with several breaks lasting a few minutes to an hour or more—provides me with the flexibility I need. Plus, I go to the gym. Of course, recruiters need to accommodate the needs of candidates and clients, which means making and taking calls during evenings and on weekends. Sometimes, weekends are good for catching up on what used to be called “paperwork.”

TGS: Great to have you on the team.

Randall Byrn: Thank you. I am thrilled to be a part of The Green Suits!

Are you a marketing insights expert? Now is the time to get on Randall’s radar screen. Ring him up at 931-538-4433 or email him your résumé (CV) at: randall@thegreensuits.com.

Fans of The Green Suits know that I am a big fan of Monty Python. And from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the “Bridge of Death” scene may be one of the funniest ever filmed. Remember the three questions the Bridgekeeper asks all who approach the Bridge of Death?

Bridgekeeper: “What is your name?” First man: “Sir Lancelot.” Bridgekeeper: “What is your quest?” First man: “I seek the Holy Grail.” Bridgekeeper: “And what is your favorite color?” First man: “Red!” Bridgekeeper: “Well…off you go then.”

Sir Lancelot answers wisely and safely gains passage across The Bridge of Death. To some, Lancelot’s experience seems much like an interview in the current job market. So, what three questions might you expect to hear from a hiring manager? Last year, Fortune interviewed Heidrick & Struggles CEO Kevin Kelly who provided this boiled down but spot-on answer:

“Can you do the job? Will you love the job? Can we tolerate working with you?”

Hopefully, you won’t hear a hiring manager posing questions to you in such a brusque manner. But with these three questions, Kelly identifies the essential need. Let’s break it down:

CAN YOU DO THE JOB? How well suited are you for the assignment? Do you have the requisite knowledge, training, and experience? Can you back up your claims with positive metrics? Can you hit the ground running with minimal or no training? Seriously, if you couldn’t do the job you wouldn’t have made it past the phone interview stage.

WILL YOU LOVE THE JOB? This question speaks directly to motivation: What sets the fire burning in your belly each morning as you leave for work? Are you passionate? Will you enjoy a place where missions and strategies seem to turn on a dime? Can you visualize yourself being successful on the job and at the company? Can you see yourself rising through the ranks at the company? Will there be enough challenges and reward-opportunities three, four, five or more years from now to keep you jazzed about the company? And for The Green Suits: Is this company as committed to environmental sustainability and social responsibility as am I? Actually, it is most-likely during the face-to-face interview round that the hiring manager will pick up on your body-language and soft-skills to determine whether or not you will be happy and thrive at the company.

CAN WE TOLERATE WORKING WITH YOU? This is the “fit-check.” Regardless of great answers to the previous two questions, a hiring manager and his or her team may not see you being successful—or worse—compatible with company culture. Or the consensus may be that you are too much like the company culture and the need is for an iconoclast, someone who is a shaker-upper who will rattle a struggling company out of malaise. With this question, you hope for the best outcome. But really it is for others to decide.

For The Green Suit presenting him or herself for a sustainability or social responsibility management role in a not-already-committed-company, determining whether or not the team members can work with you may have a lot to do with how you frame language and answer [their] questions about difficult situational dynamics or company politics.

Still, knowing that it basically comes down to these Three Questions can be empowering. It need not be disabling. Understanding the mechanics of the candidate-selection process will help you be better prepared for interviews, and may increase your chances of landing a truly great job. Now, I must ask: what is YOUR favorite color?

Our thanks to Marian Brown, head of sustainability at Ithaca College, for highlighting our recent on-campus visit in the latest issue of Collective Impacts (the college’s sustainability newsletter). Read more about our visit, and other sustainability stories, HERE.

Well, at least my mother will be very proud of me for this.

PM Network is the official magazine of the Project Management Institute, the world’s largest association for project management professionals. PM Network is read by over a half million PMI members, worldwide.

The December 2011 issue features an article by writer Matt Alderton entitled Green Growth: Organizations worldwide need help managing and measuring their environmental impact—and project professionals are the first in line to benefit. And I am quoted in that article:

“Usually, people who don’t have green experience become sustainability experts by proxy and by practice, Mr. Smolen says. “It may start with recognizing that your company isn’t addressing its carbon footprint or that it’s very resource-heavy, then putting together a brief business plan to tackle the problem by coming up with solutions the company can act on. All of a sudden, you’ve got sustainability-related project management experience. It’s fabulous. And with a year or two, that could easily become a recognized green job.”

Read the entire story, HERE.

This morning, I was jolted awake, not by a strong cup of coffee, but by the arrival of an editorial in The Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition. The editorial, The Non-Green Jobs Boom: Forget ‘clean energy.’ Oil and gas are boosting U.S. employment. started this way:

“So President Obama was right all along. Domestic energy production really is a path to prosperity and new job creation. His mistake was predicting that those new jobs would be “green,” when the real employment boom is taking place in oil and gas.

And here I thought this beautiful weekend day was going to be easy and breezy… We counsel The Green Suits to “be above politics,” to expertly frame their value propositions in a way which appeals to people who are not natural constituents to The Triple Bottom Line—to benefit people and planet…and maximize profits.

When their framing is right, The Green Suits land jobs and quickly establish their value as successful, positive metric-minded executives. And within months of arriving on the job, they prove to management that resource sustainability, renewable energy, green/clean tech, and corporate social responsibility are indeed good for (their) business.

But today’s editorial may make The Green Suits—striving to start and establish successful green business executive careers—feel personally attacked, their credibility and integrity questioned. Read the editorial, and one can definitely understand why that may happen.

The editorial—which restates American Petroleum Institute talking-points verbatim—espouses the “non-green job boom” happening in places like the Marcellus Shale, the vast deposit of natural gas that lies beneath much of Central Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier of New York State. The WSJ and the API believe great fortunes will be made—and thousands of jobs created—fracking for gas in this vast deposit.

If it were only that simple…

Thousands of landowners, who have never enjoyed wealth, are excited about the prospects of getting rich from the gas fields beneath them. While thousands of other landowners—many with property lines abutting their pro-fracking neighbors—fear that the air, soil, and well water on their property will be permanently tainted by the fracking process, which uses water, sand, benzene and other poisonous chemicals forced under high pressure to literally fracture the shale layer miles below, to release the gas.

Who is right? And would you drink from that well?

So, do The Wall Street Journal and the American Petroleum Institute “have it in” for The Green Suits? 

It does seem like The Green Suits, the ambitious business executives in or entering the renewable energy and sustainability sectors—who seek to turn conventional companies and market verticals green…and are hell-bent on changing the world—are suddenly in the crosshairs of some very powerful and well-funded old economy interests.  And some might feel as if they may be left to justify their personal and professional missions.

Are The Green Suits going to sit back and take it? No.

Are The Green Suits going to get mad and toss verbal grenades? No. (I hope not.)

Instead, what The Green Suits must do is remain calm, poised, and very well-informed about the green jobs versus non-green jobs debate. Sure, there are Wall Street Journal editorial page reading constituents—hiring managers for sure—who have made up their minds that green jobs are folly.

I believe that they are in the minority of public opinion.

Instead, most hiring managers remain open-minded, and it is with reasonable, open-minded people who The Green Suits can ably support a solid case for green business.

Truth be told, the future belongs to The New Green Economy. And the 90-million strong Millennial Generation—our nation’s largest demographic cohort—want green jobs.

That is why here in the U.S., we must and will continue developing our own renewable energy and green/clean technologies. We must regain our global leadership in them all, or China will, as New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has written, “clean our clock.”

The jobs—the green jobs—created by our renewable energy and green/clean tech “eco-entrepreneurs” will be in the millions, but they will take time to create (that we know).

We must commit our time, energy, and talents NOW to rapidly building the New Green Economy.

Keep your chin up. Don’t let anyone steal your thunder. The future is the New Green Economy. The future will be led by you, The Green Suits.

Wow…that was fun!

This morning, I was Chrissy Coughlin’s guest on her radio show, Nature of Business. Chrissy broadcasts weekly from WSMN Radio in Nashua, New Hampshire; her show is also podcast on GreenBiz.com. Chrissy is a great host and well-informed green business expert.

In the interview, we covered a lot of interesting topics related to green executive employment. In case you weren’t able to listen live, then please check out the podcast, available 24/7: HERE.