Some Basics for Getting Hired
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
Can you relate to these stories?
From HubSpot Co-Founder and Chair Brian Halligan: “There needs to be at least one person around the table who says, ‘I gave this person a four [out of five] by hook or by crook. I’m going to make this person successful.’ Be on the lookout for ‘unbendable’ or ‘uncoachable’ execs. We had hires come in with playbooks of how they did it at another company and saying they’re going to do the same thing here … but if you’re too rigid, the system will push back pretty hard on you.”
Then there is the executive recruiter who had four senior directors vying for a position at a Fortune 50 company. The Board wanted to move the process along and get the four people down to three, but after much discussion they still couldn’t figure out who to drop. Finally, they defaulted to one candidate’s lack of a cover letter during the application process as the reason to dismiss that candidate.
A client of mine went through about 10 interviews and was then asked to create a proposed curriculum. She spent hours and hours on this, because she thought that it was the deciding factor. After she was rejected for the job she discovered that several other people were going through the exact same process. They were all probably thinking the same thing.
While executive hiring—and hiring in general—can be very different company to company (even team to team, department to department, and division to division), there are some basic concepts that can make the process easier for you.
Make sure that your skill set matches what they are looking for. This means if they need a COO with 10 years of experience running a rehabilitation facility, and you don’t have any experience working in rehab facilities, you should pass on that position.
Hard work, loyalty, passion for the work, innovation, and transformation do not get you the job, no matter how qualified you are.
Use your impact and results to prove why you deserve the job –and your salary ask. Your skills and actions alone will not accomplish that.
Also, research the company before you consider them. If the company supports a charity that you don’t agree with, you might want to reconsider. If they use language on their website that is way too casual for you, or way too conservative for you, that means their culture probably won’t suit you, either.
I tell my clients all the time: Just because you can do a job, doesn’t mean you want to or you should do that job. How do you figure all this out? Contact me!
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!