Client: Marijo Prodanic was director of supplier cost recovery & quality at a multinational auto manufacturer.
Industry: Automotive
Function: Warranty Costs, Logistics, Analysis, Process Optimization, Management, Leadership
Challenge: Marijo wanted to relocate from Germany to the United States, but the pandemic, immigration hurdles, and job demands posed significant challenges to his efforts.
Process: Marijo took his time to find the right job, leveraging his contacts to get in front of hiring managers, then polishing his interview and negotiation skills to showcase his value proposition.
Landing: Marijo landed as director of warranty operations & technical assistance for a multinational auto manufacturer, a position located in the U.S. that ticked all his boxes.
Study:
Marijo Prodanic was director of supplier cost recovery & quality for a multinational auto manufacturer. In this role, he oversaw all quality-related supplier warranty costs and warranty contracts across the whole company. It was a big role and he enjoyed it.
A 14-year veteran of the company, Marijo had spent nine of them based in Germany. In 2020, however, Marijo began thinking about career change. He had two reasons. First, because Marijo was never one for following a conventional path. Instead, he keenly believed in perpetually learning, growing, and seeking out new opportunities as a means of increasing his market value. Second, because Marijo’s “chosen home” is the United States. He spent the early part of his career in the U.S. and he and his wife, an American, had agreed that, after five years in Germany, he would find a career path that enabled them to return.
So, Marijo began looking in early 2020. To his surprise, he encountered unexpected hurdles, the biggest of which was the pandemic.
“Transitioning wasn’t as easy as we’d hoped. The Coronavirus interrupted my efforts. We thought it would last a few months, but we soon realized it would be a lot longer,” said Marijo.
Marijo wasn’t going it alone, though. Feeling stretched by his day-to-day responsibilities to manage a job search, he decided early on to engage The Barrett Group (TBG). He started with some personality assessments and coaching sessions, which ensured Marijo thought through his goals before making a move.
“The results weren’t a surprise. But I appreciated what I heard and learned. Tests like these get people to think outside the box. They said a lot about me, and when you know more about yourself, you know how to position, organize, and structure yourself,” said Marijo.
After the Clarity Program, Marijo began working with Lori Chevalier, his career consultant.
“It was great! Initially, Lori told me what I needed to do on my resume and LinkedIn profile. It was eye-opening and I really enjoyed that! I changed both my background picture, worked on my profile, and added metrics to my resume. I think it added a lot of value,” said Marijo.
Adding metrics and speaking to his achievements was tricky for Marijo, though. Due to the nature of his work, adding useful details without disclosing sensitive information about his company wasn’t easy. So, TBG consultant Dan Resendes, who has expert knowledge in this area, was invited to work with Marijo, too.
“Dan helped me set up LinkedIn notifications so that job opportunities would pop up,” said Marijo. “Then I’d use filters to check whether I had any contacts associated with that job and approach them. I re-connected with a lot of people that way. I found a lot of people in my network that I’d forgotten about!”
Talented, accomplished, and well-respected, Marijo generated a lot of interest. But it was primarily for roles in Europe, and he wanted to be in the United States.
“Hiring managers in the U.S. loved my resume, but they had so many applicants that it didn’t make sense to fly someone in from Europe. That was frustrating.”
Dan encouraged Marijo to lean into his network to find opportunities. It wasn’t easy, though. Marijo started by targeting five people in his network per week, which proved to be onerous because of the time difference between Germany and the U.S. Meanwhile, Marijo’s availability was stretched thin by work pressures. He found it hard to carve out time for a job search when he wasn’t particularly pressed to leave his current job and at a time when the pandemic had slowed the job market anyway. So, he and Dan agreed that Marijo would relax his pace and simply do what he could when he could.
“I came to really appreciate Dan, both personally and professionally. I very much appreciated his patience with me and his professionalism. They don’t make them like him anymore!”
Marijo’s goal was to be in the U.S. but, as always, he kept an open mind. He entertained industries beyond the automotive industry, and he even considered one job offer from a medical equipment company in Ireland. His efforts yielded increasing interest in him. Marijo continued to take his time, though, waiting until the right job came along.
“The Barrett Group supported my looking outside the box, which I appreciated,” said Marijo.
Coming from Europe, getting a seat at the table remained a challenge for Marijo, but he found that if he succeeded in starting a conversation, he became adept at developing the opportunity.
“The greatest value I got from the program was how it shaped my mindset and prepped me for interviews. Once I was able to engage with someone, no company said “no” to me. TBG was able to put me in a position where, once I was at the table, I could hook people,” said Marijo.
Marijo pursued multiple job leads in the U.S. As Interviews arose, he relied on Dan to prepare for them and any negotiations that ensued. He found Dan to be a wonderful sounding board and purveyor of good guidance. Marijo was an experienced negotiator, thanks to his career experience, but he credits Dan with taking his skills to a new level.
“Dan really helped me understand how best to approach each situation. I’d keep him abreast of all my interviews and exchanges and, he’d tell me what else I ought to keep in mind and, perhaps, offer some additional resources. He was always there for me,” said Marijo. “Where I really came to appreciate him is negotiations. I’m used to negotiating deals as part of my job, but negotiating for yourself is a different challenge. Knowing what to say and what not to say when asked about salary expectations is hard!”
Marijo studied and internalized the numerous examples Dan provided of language one might use in different scenarios he might face so that, regardless of the question, he could finesse an answer to position himself better. Over time, Marijo became comfortable handling every aspect of the hiring process.
Indeed, Marijo’s landing, when it came, was a textbook career change in many respects. He learned of a position for director of warranty operations & technical assistance for an auto manufacturer in California. Through LinkedIn, he discovered that a former colleague worked there. Marijo reached out to his old pal to ask about the job, who encouraged him to submit his resume. The company loved him and, before long, Marijo had an attractive job offer in hand. He even succeeded in boosting the initial offer by double digits.
“We worked together before and now I’m his boss! In hindsight, it worked out exactly how Dan said it would work.”
Because the immigration process in the U.S. is cumbersome and time consuming, the company agreed to pay to expedite the process. Marijo is now happily settling into his new job.
“It may have taken longer than I expected, but The Barrett Group got me where I wanted to be. And I love it! The people are great and I’m so happy to be able to contribute my talents to my new employer.”
“I cannot stress enough how important it was to me that The Barrett Group helped me present myself as an equal partner to employers in this job search. I didn’t leave my former job because I was unhappy; I left because I wanted a new challenge. An executive needs to exude confidence that is commensurate with the leadership position. That is what I learned from Dan, and that helped me in all my interactions. I can’t thank him enough.”
