Even if you have read this book several times, when there is a message from a search firm, grab this book and read this section before you call back, and don't:
- be too busy to take the call. This may make you feel good. You think that by creating a sense of scarcity or high value to your time, you are enhancing your profile. But you want a long-term relationship and that starts with courtesy. The search person is always working to a deadline, and the sooner you get back, the easier it is for him to move to the next step. He may need your help to get to sources that you might identify, to reach people who you might know, or to understand your own circumstances. Someone who waits a week to call them back emits two bad impressions: either you are so disorganized that you can't prioritize, or you're so arrogant you don't care.
- be presumptuous that you are being offered the job. Good executives by nature are self-confident, have high self-esteem, and strong egos. Therefore when the phone rings and someone says, "I want to talk about the XYZ position," it's easy for you to assume you're the most qualified person they are ever likely to find. Unfortunately the person on the other end of the phone has a very different agenda. His thinking may be, "I have never heard of this person; I got her name from somebody else whose name I got from somebody else. All I know is that a couple of people who have some relevant perspective said you ought to talk to old Sarah X. I have about 20 minutes to figure out whether this woman is a source, a reference or even a potential candidate." They don't know whether you are going to make it easy or hard for them, or know how much time and effort to put into the conversation. So the best candidates put themselves in the search consultant's shoes and deal with it straight on. They say, "How can I help you? Tell me about the circumstances." They are honest as to whether they are a likely candidate, a source or a source of perspective. They give the consultant enough to know how to calibrate them along these dimensions. They hold the posturing until much later in the process.
- Mislead by omission or misdirection. The first five or ten minutes of the conversation went great. It is clear that the search consultant sees you as someone who has many of the desirable profile factors and wants you to start doing a little bit of a chronology of your career. And this is when the issue of having taken off to go to Europe three weeks before the end of your MBA and flunking Statistics III and never really going back to get your degree comes up. Or the question of whether to mention that six-month period where you quit in a huff, took a disastrous job with a dinky little company, came to your senses and got back on a career track. The temptations set in. You think you can just skip over it since they may never know or care. You rationalize it wasn't that important.
The reality is you get only one chance to present the accurate record and this is it. If you are asked for highlights, you can talk highlights. But sooner or later you will be asked for a full chronology. If it is not on the first phone call, if you are in the game, it will be the second. Let the search partner decide whether an embarrassing detail is important and worth mentioning to the client. But never put him in a position where something comes up later that he didn't know. From a client's point of view, either you lied or the search consultant didn't do his job. Neither is good for your candidacy.
- Run your own agenda. There is a great temptation when someone calls to give them the name of someone at the competition that is taking business away from you and making your life more difficult than it needs to be. Or to suggest someone within the company who is a rival, or someone who is a problem. Or someone about to be fired but who would be eternally grateful if you put his name in the game. But you must resist. These schemes always boomerang. No one is going to hire someone who is not qualified, competent or interested. It just won't get through the screens. None of your agendas will work. But what will happen is the best people will question your judgment. Or even worse, they will figure out your agenda and your credibility will be gone forever. And don't suggest names just because you think it is better to be helpful. If once you have gotten an understanding of the circumstance and nothing comes to you, don't be afraid to say so. Search partners evaluate sources by the percentage of good accurate leads that you give, not by the number of names you throw at them.
- Forget you are being evaluated in every conversation. There is really no "off the record" when dealing with a search consultant. Never bad-mouth your employer or colleague, never tell tales out of school, never use inappropriate language or communicate disrespect for people who work for you. If you think it is macho or hip, you misunderstand the dynamic. Your goal is not to do locker room bonding with the search consultant. Make him feel confident that, in a client setting, he knows that you handle yourself appropriately.
Sixteen Ways to Blow a Job Interview
You made round one and now you are scheduled to spend the day with the clients. You made a good impression on the search partner and he has endorsed you strongly. Remember, this is like Olympic diving-your scores in the preliminary rounds don't count. You are starting from zero. It doesn't matter how big a lead you might have created over other candidates in the earlier rounds. From the client's point of view, you are all starting the same. One bad belly flop ends the competition for you. There are many ways to blow an interview. I list sixteen.
- Act disinterested. Remember, there are four phases to this process and being coy during the first three is counterproductive. In the client's eyes, you are still an applicant. Even if it is true that the search consultant might have dragged you to the interview kicking and screaming, if you act disinterested, the client's reaction will be the same. They will wonder why you came at all. Remember you have the magic "no" card in your back pocket. You can play it anytime. But if you play it too early, you will never get a chance to understand enough about the circumstances to see if there is a basis on which a "yes" would make sense.
- Don't do your homework. Saying, "I really haven't had time to learn much about the company, you tell me" gets you a bum's rush out the door. If you are going to come to the interview, even if your interest is light or preliminary, do homework. Show that you have invested some time in them. What you are really being judged on is how you approach important situations. If you rely on someone else to give you the facts, you are not the kind of person people want as one of their general managers.
- Assume that the interviewer will ask all the questions you want answered. Most people aren't trained interviewers. You may be playing coy, you may just be shy or you might not want to appear too cocky, so you allow the interviewer to take the lead. When you do that, you convey the wrong attitude. Someone who handles an interview by constantly saying, "Well, what else can I tell you?" and lets the interviewer ask the questions show a disturbing lack of curiosity and understanding. Even though you are being interviewed, the best approach is to ask questions about the company and the job. Show by the kind of questions you ask that you bring the right perspective. Answer open-ended questions in a way that brings out the points of your own history to demonstrate results, strategic thinking and key executive skills.
- Forget that each interview starts from zero. You may have been through several interviews already today. It is easy to assume that somehow all of your charm and charisma gets transmitted from interviewer two to interviewer four. But don't "power down," or truncate your responses. Even worse, don't show irritation by referencing repetitive questions with "Well, when I visited with Joe, I gave him much of that background." If you see six people during an interview, and the vote is five to one because you ran out of gas or showed irritation in having to do it all over again, you may as well have blown all six.
- Show disregard for less senior people who may interview you. A sure way to shoot yourself in the foot. How you react if you don't think certain people necessarily deserve to be on your schedule or deserve to be evaluating you is important. If the employer put them there, there is a reason. You can use the opportunity with junior people to learn about the company. Ask them about their own careers and the things they have worked on. They will be complimented by your interest and you will learn something about the company. They will have felt like you have treated them like an equal. If they like you, they can push your candidacy. Employers know that character is judged by how you behave when you think no one important is watching.
- Start to negotiate too early. The company will signal when it is time to negotiate. You have to be sensitive to it. There are many false invitations you might jump on inappropriately. For example, someone could say, "What are the things about this job that would attract you or that might concern you?" You might feel that is an opportunity for questions about salary, the benefits, tide or structure. Not so. What they are interested in is your sense of enthusiasm; whether this kind of challenges you are looking for, and your sense of mastery over comparable subjects. They want to know if you think you can do the job. At some point they will make a specific offer. That's when they'll ask you to consider this job and offer the particulars. That is when you negotiate. You know they have to get there ultimately, so you can afford to wait.
- Show lack of confidence in the client. In response to open-ended questions about concerns, don't start talking about what happens two years out to your career. Don't question whether they will provide the resources to help this position be successful. Both kinds of discussions communicate a lack of confidence that they know how to run their business. Wait until they offer the job to get these assurances where you need them.
- Betray a confidence. You are still a guest, and still work for someone else. You have obligations to your current employer, employees and customers. You have no obligations to the people you are interviewing, and they understand that. There is nothing awkward about telling them you can't share things they don't need to know. Talk about your successes and skills, not your employer's weaknesses or foibles.
Don't talk about problems that make you want to leave. Do not bring along items that are clearly the property of your current employer. That doesn't mean you are not going to get those types of questions. But no one wants to hire an executive who doesn't understand where his or her obligations are until an agreement to move to another company has been signed, sealed and delivered.
- Show hostility toward a current or former employer. Resist any temptation for revenge, to vent or portray your-self as a victim of evil people. You get no sympathy for portraying yourself as a victim. You do get people questioning your judgment for getting into those circumstances in the first place. It is not because they don't understand those things can happen to everyone. The key is how you responded. If you focus on what you were leaving as opposed to what you were going toward, it is easy to conclude that you are a person who works on regrets and "could have been." When you left employers, stress that it was to do bigger, better and more challenging jobs. Do not stress the problems or persecutions you left behind.
- Do anything to suggest that the interview isn't the most important thing you are doing at that moment. In your mind, this may be an exploratory visit. But in the client's eyes, you are someone who is applying for the job. They need to be convinced of your interest and suitability. Don't point out that you need to cut the visit short to do something else. Don't take or make phone calls. Don't make it hard to schedule follow-up meetings.
- Forget that they have heard everything that you have told the search consultant. So introduce new data or new perspectives very carefully. If the search consultant is likely to describe you as quite interested and positive, don't switch to indifference for the interview. If most of your focus during the conversation with the search consultant was about your experience in the most recent job, don't assume that whole subject has been covered and you can spend all your time talking about other parts of your career. Remember, you are there because the search consultant recommended you. The client is trying to confirm that that is the right judgment. Any big differences between what the search consultant said and what goes on during the next interview raises questions.
- Take credit for things you didn't do. This comes up repeatedly. Never imply any degree of involvement that really wasn't there, or claim a link to results that may not be totally yours. As the process moves ahead, many people will be asked about you. They'll be asked specifically about your role in key results. Since one of the hardest things to do is establish the linkage between your actions and certain achievements, those are the ones tested on the outside. People make their own judgments about your likability, communication skills, and your ability to think strategically. But when they go outside for references, it is to prove that what you said about what you did is straight up. Let them always be positively surprised.
- Hide holes in your resume. Everyone can smell a situation that didn't work out, a downsizing or period of plateau. Today there is no shame in being the victim of a merger. If in fact you were fired, be direct and non-defensive if you are asked. If you made a bad decision and bailed out after six months, or a year, deal with it and move on. Someone attempting to hide things is not the kind of person I trust with major parts of my organization.
- Pretend to be something that you are not. In the best of interviews people display good self-awareness. They understand who they are and what they are like. They know where they fit on the scales for aggressiveness, extroversion, risk taking and need for collaboration. It doesn't mean you have to match perfectly, but someone with high self-awareness can relate in a broad variety of environments. Those who don't understand themselves attempt to be chameleons.
- Talk too much. The best way to sell your-self is to be interested, ask good questions, and be a good listener. They are trying to get to know you and you are trying to understand more about them. Take good advantage of their time and willingness to share information. That means answering concisely; make your key points but don't over elaborate. Assume that they will ask for detail where they want it.
- Say bad things about anyone. You never know who is connected to whom. Remember everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by no more than three or four linkages. Your mother was right, "If you haven't got something nice to say, don't say it." You can throw the entire interview away if you take a pot-shot at some public figure who turns out to be the best friend of your interviewer.
You have the "no" card, your power to let the process unfold naturally and yet feel that you don't have to go along with things you don't want.
But the important thing to remember is that, when you want out, play the "no" card quickly, and play it with finesse. People can accept the "no" as long as they don't feel that you have held out until long after you knew the answer yourself. The graciousness comes in expressing your reason in a way that is not a negative reflection on the people you have met. You also don't want your reason to become part of a permanent profile that then excludes you from other similar opportunities. The trick is expressing your reasons in ways that aren't necessarily permanent. Make the client feel that he wasn't rejected. Say that, under other circumstances, you would have been honored.
There is a ritual and convention to this. Just to have some fun, let's list the eight ways to say no nicely-and what everyone knows they really mean,
- "I feel an obligation to finish some things I have started here." Translation: "Many of the things you are offering me are going to happen to me where I am anyway."
- "I am not a certain enough candidate for it to be worthwhile for you to spend time on me at this point." Translation: "Surprise me." This is saying no" unless there is something about this job that I don't understand in terms of upsides, etc."
- "Too much of what this job entails is repetition for me. I am eager to do different kinds of things." Translation: "You've got to be kidding. This is a lateral move."
- "I have never thought about these kinds of jobs before. I am pretty focused on the tasks I am doing. Maybe I ought to have my eyes wide open but this is a little too far afield for me right now." Translation: "I wouldn't mind seeing other things like this and maybe relatively soon, but this isn't the one."
- "I like everything I hear about your client and over time I would love to think about being part of that organization." Translation: "It is a great company but this isn't a big enough job. I don't want to be presumptuous, so I just hope that we either stay in touch or this job can be enlarged over time."
- "I am potentially interested but I have some spouse and family issues that ultimately I would have to be address." This is always a dangerous one. What you are really saying is "I would like to learn more but I can't even give you a firm yes or no about my level of interest." The client will rightfully say, "Look, those issues should be the ones most obvious from the get go. If they are big, let's be honest about it and not use them as a reason to back away." On one hand it is legitimate not to expect families to go through trauma when there is ultimately no decision to be made, so it is still a good way to delay making a commitment without necessarily giving a categorical rejection. Most search consultants will tell you that when a spouse or family issue is raised, it is very iffy, at best, whether the candidate will accept the offer and ultimately move. Most executives already understand what circumstances and geography are acceptable to their families and are preparing to say no in a way that they feel is less "insulting."
- "This is something that might make sense at another stage in my career but not now." This is a nice "two-for." It means you need to hit it bigger before something like this can be considered. It is the usual response to public sector, government, not-for-profit or prestigious yet low-paying jobs. It says, "I would be interested in those over time, but help me find the big payday in the meantime."
- "Over time I want the freedom to do things where money isn't the issue." Translation: "Right now money is the issue. I need to see equity and upsides that aren't apparent in this situation."
PART THREE
Tales from the Front
The Search Firms Partners Speak
Collecting the ranking of selection factors, I had the opportunity to survey the search firm's partners about a variety of issues that go beyond just data. In each case we began with their written comments to "open-ended" questions and then had one-on-one follow-up interviews.
In the first chapter in this section, we asked the search firm partners to boil down what they had seen during their experience that would help us get a sense of the most important executive selection factors. We asked, "If you could only know one or two things about a candidate, what would they be?" Experts who do studies call this a forced ranking technique, and it offsets the tendency people have to list a large number of factors. It helped us distill out those criteria on which the true discriminations are made.
We also asked them to look at the other side of the equation. We asked, "Where are the risks and pitfalls?" We asked them to describe the worst disaster they ever saw of a candidate eliminating him from contention. This also was a forced ranking to get at those faux pas that are unrecoverable.
In Chapter 9, we asked them to turn the tables and talk to their own clients. How do they advise a company to be a smart user of search services? All our partners had strong views. They want their clients to be better clients, recognizing that the better a client is the more likely it will be happy with the outcome. There was also some frustration in handling difficult clients. They had a number of very telling insights and were eager to contribute them.
All in all, our partners said they enjoyed the opportunity to talk candidly in a way that sometimes isn't possible when they are actually on an engagement. For example, many said they avoid coaching candidates so as not to create favoritism or influence the results. But without the constraints of a specific assignment they had plenty of useful things to say. I hope you enjoy their comments.
