A CIO Through and Through

Kerry Holling had not thought it through when he was offered a redundancy from HP. He was CIO of Digital Equipment Corporation, then Compaq, then HP following a series of mergers and acquisitions. After a restructure at HP Holling opted to take a redundancy package. Although he could have taken a different role at the company, he wanted to be a CIO, so he took the package on offer and left in mid 2006.

By February 2007 he'd resurfaced as the CIO at the Department of Community Services (DoCS) in NSW. Having accepted the role in November 2006, Holling negotiated a February start so he could have a two-month break with his family to play house dad.

He admits that having never actually been in the CIO job market there was a point where his confidence suffered a bit. "I'd always been promoted internally. I wasn't brimming with confidence and I'd never really written a resume for a prospective employer."

Having secured the retrenchment package from HP he felt comfortable enough to take a couple of months rest initially, and refused even to consider what he might do next. "I learned I'd handle retirement really well," he says, "but then it's different having a few months off compared to the rest of your life." Two months into the break he decided he was ready to start thinking about the job market. "The concern was that I didn't know whether it would take two months or two years. I'd had no approaches."

"Outplacement services were part of the retrenchment package and I could get advice, get my resume ready and have a base in the city. I'd highly recommend that as a jolt back into an office environment," Holling says. "On advice I'd ramped up a lot of networking and was seeing a lot of friends, acquaintances and colleagues in the industry, people who had been customers or partners of HP. That led me to other people and it became a cascading process."

While Holling never overtly asked for work, he did get two interviews with the managing directors of large companies who were interested in at least an exploratory meeting to see whether his skills would fit their needs. "The other thing was I arranged meetings with the recruitment companies, all the usual suspects, and I was applying directly for specific roles, which I preferred because I felt more in control."

Although Holling had considered executive contracting work as a fall-back position, he never actually needed it. Also he'd never considered a career change or direction shift. "If I didn't want to be a CIO I'd have stayed with HP, there were other opportunities."

It was his application to an advertised position with DoCS NSW that led to his appointment, admittedly for a lower package than he had enjoyed at HP. However, he says, he is not motivated by money. "That's not my primary driver. I wanted an interesting job where I do want to get out of bed. The base salary between the private and public sectors isn't significantly different - it's the other opportunities and bonuses that make the difference." DoCS, with 4000 seats and in the middle of a reform process, pushed all the right buttons for Holling.

He knows he was relatively lucky in landing a job he liked quite quickly. But he thinks that those people who do find it tougher are going have to "have backbone and realize that there will be peaks and troughs. You can't take it personally. It's a serious decision on an organization's part to find a CIO. The fact that they don't think you're the right person doesn't mean you don't need to maintain confidence in yourself. That's where the networking is very important because it keeps you in touch."