Top Notch Executive Interviews

How to Strategically Deal With Recruiters, Search Firms, Boards of Directors, Panels, Presentations, Pre-interviews, and Other High-Stress Situations

Katharine Hansen

• Publisher: Career Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781601637710
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Karriere

In these turbulent times, the job-interview game is more different than ever for executives. They face a longer interview process, must demonstrate a vision to meet the prospective employer's challenges, and will undergo intense vetting before receiving a job offer. Top Notch Executive Interviews reveals what employers really want and expect to see in executive candidate interview behavior and content. The book's coverage of the executive interview difference, its case studies of senior-level managers in sticky interview situations, and its broad collection of hiring decision-maker interview peeves and preferences make it the must-have companion volume to Top Notch Executive Resumes. This vital book includes an insightful examination of critical differences that distinguish executive-level interviews from all others, along with extensive information on leveraging relationships with recruiters, plentiful sample interview questions and suggested responses, and a comprehensive list of sample questions to ask the interviewer. Special additional features include:

• — Detailed tips on how to land an interview and conduct pre-interview research.
• — The importance of nonverbal behavior and attire.
• — A thorough guide to interview formats.
• — An interviewing checklist.
• — A chapter on tricky interview situations.
• — A directory of executive-interview coaches.
• — And post-interview chapters covering thank-yous, follow-ups, references, vetting, background checks, plus negotiating and weighing job offers.

1

A Crash Course in Landing the Interview

Before you can succeed in an interview, you must land the interview. Many books (including this book’s companion volume, Top Notch Executive Resumes ) and resources cover the steps to landing an interview in great detail. (See Appendix B for resources in areas in which you need to freshen your knowledge.) This chapter provides an overview of the seven most important aspects of each of these key elements that lead to obtaining interviews:

1. Building a personal brand

2. Targeting employers

3. Networking

4. Working with recruiters

5. Preparing an effective resume

6. Writing a stellar cover letter

7. Following up on your initial application

Building a personal brand

1. The starting point in your job search should be defining your personal brand—who you are, your promise of value, and why you should be sought out. It should encapsulate your reputation and describe the added value you bring to the employment situation in which you want to see yourself.

2. Your brand should convey your distinctiveness, passion, and unique understanding of the business environment. It must answer the employer’s question: Why you over any other candidate? What sets you apart from others?

3. Create a distinctive appearance for all your career-marketing communications that conveys your brand (or enlist a professional to help you create this look). Your resume, cover letter, business cards, thank-you letters, portfolio, personal Website, and more, should package you with a consistent, branded look. Every time an employer sees this look, he or she will instantly associate it with you.

4. Your branding effort should include your online presence. Google yourself to see that plenty of positive information pops up about you (because employers will do the same). If you don’t have a strong online presence, create one with a compelling profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn. Consider establishing your own Website with your name as its domain name (such as mine, katharinehansenphd.com). You could include a portfolio of your best work or a blog—or both—on the site. Also consider writing articles for other sites and online media outlets showcasing your expertise.

5. Strive to eliminate any negative information online that damages your brand. Remove any controversial material (such as information that reveals religious or political affiliation) or photos you can control. Politely ask site owners to remove negative material on sites you can’t control. Counteract negative information you can’t eliminate by ensuring plenty of recent positive information.

Targeting employers

1. Your job search will be much more effective if you target the specific employers you want to work for. Marketers, as you know, have increasingly moved away from disseminating advertising messages to mass audiences. So must you avoid sending out hundreds of resumes or posting your resume on dozens of job boards. Only about 1 percent of executives surveyed found career options by widely broadcasting their resumes, as reported in ExecuNet’s 2009 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report. [downloadable from http://www.execunet.com/executive-jobs-report.cfm] “The overwhelming majority of positions with an annual salary of $200,000+ are not posted on the wide open web,” reported Robyn Greenspan, editor of ExecuNet’s newsletter, Executive Insider. Focus your efforts on the employers who are the best fit for your talents and who you will most enjoy working for.

2. Identify a list of about 20 employers to target and, using the resources in Chapter 2, conduct extensive research so you know the best ways to target these organizations. Your research should also help you identify hiring managers for the types of positions that interest you.

3. Use your research and your network (see next section) to identify company insiders who can share information and refer you to hiring managers.

4. Consider conducting informational interviews with insiders to learn information you can’t find with your other research—about needs, problems, issues, and upcoming initiatives that will enable you to present yourself as the solution to the organization’s challenges and leader of its innovations. See the Informational Interviewing Tutorial at www.quintcareers.cominformational_ interviewing.html to learn more about informational interviews.

5. Integrate your findings on targeted employers into a multifaceted campaign that includes direct mail, networking, responding to job postings from the targeted employers, and when possible, seeking out recruiters who represent any of the targeted organizations.

Networking

1. Especially at the executive level, far more professionals—73 percent according to ExecuNet’s 2009 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report—obtain jobs through networking than any other way. [downloadable from http://www.execunet.com/executive-jobs-report.cfm] Thus, networking should be a major component of your job search.

2. One of the best networking venues for executives is professional organizations and associations. Join organizations in your field, attend meetings and events, and network with members.

3. As the linchpin of your networking efforts, ask for advice and referrals; don’t ask network contacts for a job. Always thank your contacts for even the smallest effort on your behalf.

4. Don’t wait until you need a job to build and connect with your network. Contact members of your network regularly. Offer your help to those who are struggling with economy-provoked job displacement. Be a mentor to those who can learn from you.

5. Online professional networking and social-media sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are increasingly seen as crucial networking tools. Enhance your networking efforts with these tools, but don’t wile away hours online at the expense of far more effective face-to-face networking.

Working with recruiters

1. At the senior and executive levels, recruiters and executive-search firms will be more important to you than they are to job-seekers at lower levels.You may find yourself sought out or “headhunted.” Recruiters and search consultants will always be more interested in you if you are employed. As unfair as it may seem, unemployed candidates carry a slight taint of “damaged goods.”

2. The recruiter represents the client employer, not the candidate. Thus, he or she does not work for you and is not in business to find you a job. Some recruiters prefer to keep a “supply” of appropriate candidates in their database to draw from when a matching search assignment comes up. Others will be receptive to contact from you only when they are working on a matching search. Learn the preferred operational style of any recruiter you are considering approaching.

3. Identify the recruiters that specialize in your criteria, such as your field, job function, geographic region, and targeted employers (although you may have difficulty identifying client employers as this information is often confidential).

4. Send your resume and cover letter to a handful of the recruiters you’ve identified and ask to be considered for appropriate search assignments. Be sure to follow any instructions on resume submission you find on the recruiters’Websites or through calling the support staff. Follow up with a phone call or two (or perhaps a phone call and an e-mail) to request a meeting with the recruiter, but don’t make a pest of yourself. The recruiter may meet with you with the idea of keeping you in mind for future searches or may do so only if you fit an active search. Once you begin working with a recruiter, expect coaching for your interview process with the client employer, debriefing after the interview, and guidance in negotiating your compensation package should you get the offer.

5. A terrific way to endear yourself to a recruiter who does not currently have a search assignment that fits your credentials is to refer matching candidates to the recruiter. The recruiter will likely be grateful and remember you when an appropriate assignment comes up.

Preparing an effective resume

1. Your resume must target your desired career goal with precision. An employer taking a quick glance should be able to immediately grasp the job you’re targeting, the need you will fill, and the value you can contribute. The executive resume must focus on key strengths that position you to meet a specific need and target specific jobs/employers. A one-size-fits-all resume is especially ineffective at the executive level. Hiring decision-makers expect your resume to be precisely tailored to the position you’re applying for. The reader should never have to guess or wade through copious text to determine what job you want and what you’d be good at.

2. The executive resume must—with a future-oriented flavor—emphasize results, outcomes, and career-defining performance indicators. Using numbers, context, and meaningful metrics, the resume must paint a picture of the executive in action—meeting needs/challenges, solving problems, impacting the company’s big picture, growing the business, enhancing revenue, and driving profits. Concrete, measurable accomplishments are the points that sell you.

3. Today’s executive resume builds on the executive brand you’ve developed and communicates the brand’s relevance to targeted employers. The branding expressed in your resume captures your career identity, authenticity, passion, essence, and image. Weave your branded message throughout your resume; ensure your branding remains consistent and does not contradict the image you want to project. Branding in the executive resume must include a uniqueness factor that takes your resume to the next level by portraying you as not only in the position, but the best person for the position, even the only logical choice for the position. When you imbue your resume with your uniqueness, you show that you completely comprehend the challenges the organization faces and that you are overwhelmingly qualified to meet those challenges. If you have adequately sold your uniqueness, the reader reviewing your resume should say, “This candidate gets it.”

4. Ensure that your resume contains relevant keywords. The vast majority of resumes submitted to employers today are handled by applicant tracking systems. Because applicant tracking software and keyword-searchable databases dominate today’s hiring process, successful executive resumes must feature keywords based on cutting-edge industry jargon.

5. Consider having your resume professionally written and designed. At the executive level, a resume crafted by a trained professional is a wise investment. Many of the executive interview coaches listed in Appendix B also write resumes.

Writing a stellar cover letter

1. Don’t send your resume without a cover letter. Not all hiring decision-makers read them, but because you don’t know which ones don’t, it’s best to err on the side of including a cover letter rather than omitting it. Your sharply focused resume will instantly tell the reader your job target, but with a cover letter, you can expand on the type of position you seek and describe in detail exactly how you qualify for that position. A cover letter can also highlight aspects of your background that are most useful to the prospective employer. Your letter can explain in a positive way circumstances that your resume probably doesn’t—such as gaps in your employment history, relocation, and reentry into the job market after a period of entrepreneur-ship, or a career change. You can emphasize in a cover letter your willingness to travel or relocate. A cover letter is also a window into your personality. A good cover letter can suggest to an employer, “I’d like to interview this person; she sounds like someone I’d like to get to know better. This go-getter seems like just the kind of dynamic executive this organization needs.”

2. Send an original letter to each employer. Given that a major function of the cover letter is to go beyond the resume in tailoring your qualifications to specific jobs, a boilerplate cover letter sent to multiple employers is pointless. That’s not to say your letter can’t have some boilerplate elements; just be sure to customize the bulk of the letter to each recipient.

3. Address the letter to a named individual, ideally the hiring manager. The research resources in Chapter 2 can help you find this person’s name if it’s not included in the job posting. Avoid writing to the human resources department if possible—or write to both the HR department and the hiring manager. Avoid such salutations as “Dear Sir or Madam,” “Dear Human Resources Director,” or “To Whom it May Concern.”

4. Steer clear of simply rehashing/highlighting your resume. Draw the reader in with a compelling, interesting letter. Eschew long, boring sentences and paragraphs. Use simple language and uncomplicated sentence structure. Ruthlessly eliminate all unnecessary words. Banish typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors. Stick to one page. Remember that your cover letter as serves as a sample of your communication skills.

5. Take a proactive approach with your last paragraph. State how you plan to follow up the letter (usually with a phone call). Be sure to give a time frame—and then be sure to do what you said you would do.

Following up on your initial application

1. Any time you send out your resume and cover letter—whether in response to an ad or job posting, as part of a direct-mail campaign, or as part of an effort to reach recruiters—follow up shortly afterwards—a week to 10 days.

2. You will often read the phrase “No phone calls” in job postings, but that phrase does not necessarily preclude follow-up calls after you’ve applied; the phrase is generally intended to discourage those who want to apply or ask questions over the phone during the initial resume-gathering process. Some exceptions exist, but most employers will accept follow-up phone calls in which, at the very least, you ask if the hiring manager has received your materials and inquire as to whether he or she has questions about your qualifications. Some employers, especially for sales-related positions, see your follow-up as a test of your persistence and interest in the job.

3. Parlay your inquiry into an opportunity to sell yourself and request an interview. Have a short sound bite prepared that relates your top selling points to the employer’s needs. Be prepared for the possibility that this phone call could turn into a short screening interview; read guidelines for screening and phone interviews in Chapter 4.

4. If you are uncomfortable with calling, e-mail is possible, though you will never know the e-mail’s impact (or even if the addressee received it) unless the employer responds to it. Another trick is to call after hours and leave a message on the hiring manager’s voicemail. That way your follow-up is nonintrusive and gives the decision-maker a choice about calling you back.

5. Don’t make a pest of yourself, but don’t just sit by the phone waiting for employers to call, either.You can enlist your network in your follow-up efforts. You could request that a contact who is an insider at your targeted organization query the hiring manager along these lines: “My friend Gloria, who turned around a real marketing fiasco at ZYX Corporation, applied for our senior marketing VP vacancy. I just wanted to make sure you got her application materials. I recommend you bring her in for an interview; she’s super sharp.”

2

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