Are you looking for current and top-notch executive interview tips? Look no further! You have landed on the right page.
The hiring process for any position can be stressful, especially when venturing into the senior executive-level ranks.
Companies are looking to hire assertive, successful, and articulate executive leaders who have a proven ability to lead a team, achieve high quantifiable results, and demonstrate effective communication and interpersonal skills.
There are many do’s and don’ts for interviewing for senior-level jobs. Let’s discuss 20 strategies for interviewing to position you for landing a job offer for a new executive position. Whether you are applying for a CEO, COO, CMO, CIO, CFO, or any director or senior-level position, these interviewing tips will help.
Top Executive Interview Tips and Strategies to Land a Senior-Level Position
1. Research the Company or Organization
Make an excellent impression at your executive-level interview by researching and knowing as much as possible about the company you aim to work for. By researching the company’s financials, competitors, current market position, and business strategies, you will show the interviewers that you are not only prepared to become part of their team but also organized and confident enough to ask them analytical business-related questions.
Executive Interview Tip: Know the Organization
2. Career Profile
During an executive interview process, you will likely proceed through several meetings with individuals or within a panel setting. The first question to be asked during an interview is, “Tell us about yourself.”
This is one of the hardest questions to answer. Be prepared to share a career synopsis or short introduction, as this is a great way to introduce yourself and why you are applying for a particular position. Use your executive resume to highlight career accomplishments, summarize your achievements, and let your prospective employers know what you can bring to the company and the Chief Executive Officer or Chief Financial Officer position.
Executive Interview Tip: Create a Career Synopsis/Personal Profile
3. Know the Industry/Company
A strong executive interview strategy involves knowing the company’s underlying plans and the mission you wish to work for. Focus your research on company performance, executive backgrounds, business statistics, etc. Becoming familiar with this knowledge and coming prepared to ask questions shows you are assertive and competent to lead a successful team.
4. Dress for the Position
It is common to think executive attire consists of neutral colors. However, if you wear a unique shirt or dress color, they may be more memorable than the other candidates with the same qualifications. It is okay to wear something you are confident and comfortable wearing; ensure it looks professional.
For instance, perhaps you have a favorite tie with just a splash of color that sits well against a more neutral color. Was it also given to you by a loved one? If so, it may give you the extra confidence and comfort you need when you wear it.
Ladies, do you have a favorite pair of pumps that aren’t a standard color? Pairing pink heels with a black pantsuit or skirt and matching blouse will make you stand out and give you that extra little boost of self-assurance.
5. Executive Presence
After you submitted your CFO resume and passed the initial screening, you are excited to meet with the executive interview panel to solidify how you can become a valuable company member. This is where the greatest number of people, entry-level to senior positions alike, become the most insecure.
Nerves get the best of us; sitting in front of a panel of top executives can be intimidating. Practice speaking slowly, calmly, and don’t rush your answers. When sitting in the CEO job interview, do not slouch; sit confidently, and look your interviewers in the eye when responding to their questions.
6. Make A Lasting Impression
Throughout the executive interview process, you will encounter many individuals at the actual meeting with executives. Not only will you need to impress your interviewers, but think about making a positive impact with the recruiter, the secretary that is your first contact during the interview, and the assistant who calls to set up the meetings. Businesses value team players and often get a sense of your personality and leadership style in treating everyone in the office. Sharing your unique selling point during the job interview will be important to make a positive and memorable impression.
7. Be Confident
A senior-level candidate must display confidence and showcase their team leadership skills. Ensure your answers are relevant to the successes you were part of. If these successes were part of a collaboration, don’t be afraid to say that, as it proves you are a team player and have the skills to connect with and motivate your coworkers. Overconfidence may turn off potential employers, so make sure you come off as poised, self-assured, and composed.
8. Communicate Concisely and Clearly
Interviews are stressful at any level. When preparing for an executive-level position such as Chief Financial Officer or Chief Marketing Officer, the recruiter and interviewers are looking for a candidate who is an effective communicator, has an established leadership style, and is willing to make some hard decisions. You have already shown you are qualified for the position within the application process. Now you have to let your communicative and interpersonal skills show through.
9. Use CAR (Challenge, Action, Result)
An effective executive interview tip is to use the analogy CAR or STAR to help prepare your responses. STAR is Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
Prospective employers are looking for leaders who can get their point across clearly and concisely. You should prepare answers ahead of time to ensure your responses capture the interviewer’s attention and create an impression that will last past the actual meeting.
Create your responses to include a challenge you faced, the action you took to overcome it, and finally, the resulting outcome and how it positively affected the situation.
Some potential questions are:
– “Describe your experience reading and interpreting accounting and financial reports.”
– “Describe a time when you confronted an employee whose results were inadequate.”
– “Tell me about a time when you brought productive change to a company. How did you implement this change?”
– “Tell us how you would penetrate new global markets.”’
– “How will you expand the company’s portfolio and promote revenue and growth?”
– “How does your leadership style align with our company’s mission statement?”
10. Focus on Strengths for Executives
One of the top executive interview tips is being prepared for the standard interview questions: What are your strengths, weaknesses, etc? When asked about your strengths, keep the answers concise and relevant to the position you applied for. For example, if you are applying to be the Chief Marketing Officer, focus on strengths related to competitive analysis, market research, and public relations. On the other hand, if you are applying to be the Chief Information Officer, highlight your talents related to technology advancements and streamlining technical operations.
Demonstrate to your interviewers how your strengths will make you successful in the role and how you overcame your weaknesses to become a more confident leader. Take the time beforehand to sit down and come up with answers to these stereotypical executive interview questions so you can relay your leadership capabilities professionally and directly.
Executive Interview Tip: Turn Weaknesses into Strengths
11. Management / Leadership Style
Interviewers look for a leadership style matching the company’s atmosphere and mission. They want an executive who can deliver results and support their statements with hard, measurable examples. Ensure you can articulate your leadership style so the interviewers can see what kind of manager you are and how your experiences helped develop your vision for this career path.
According to Psychologist Kurt Lewin, there are three main styles of leadership:
• Autocratic – make decisions without consulting team members.
• Democratic – make the final decisions, but include team members in decision-making.
• Laissez-faire – French for “allow to do,” gives team members freedom in how they do their work and set deadlines.
Executive Interview Tip: Showcase your Leadership Style
12. Match Qualifications to Position
When asked about your previous work experiences, start with an overview of your involvement, describing the project’s overall big picture or assignment. Next, follow up with a few smaller points, specific achievements, or highlights that describe your contributions, How you worked with others to accomplish the results, and how you advanced your leadership capabilities.
13. Highlight Important Accomplishments
Another important executive interview tip is to respond with strong answers when asked some basic interviewing questions. Communicating your relevant success stories is critical to building credibility.
Do not simply answer with a short sentence. Elaborate and give a specific example, quantify your career accomplishments using numbers, and key senior-level capabilities, and relay it back to your leadership vision. Just ensure your responses to interview questions remain concise and to the point; do not overdo it with a lengthy answer.
Present answers related to your executive-level achievements with time management, personnel development, and company profits.
For example, to show how you increased sales or cut costs, say, “I oversaw a budget of $45,000 and cut costs by 10%”, or “I increased company sales from $1 million to $3 million within a year”.
Executive Interview Tip: Share Your Success Stories
14. Give Examples Relevant to the Executive Position
In your pre-interview preparations, develop examples within your previous positions relevant to your prospective job aspirations. Come prepared for your meeting with applicable job experience situations so you can showcase the skills and qualifications prospective companies are looking for.
Tailor your answers to quantify your accomplishments, thus creating much stronger responses. For example, you could say you increased productivity by 10% over six months by streamlining the overall training and development practices, holding employees more accountable, and encouraging delegation and teamwork.
15. Have Clear Intentions
Inform prospective employers that this is the position you want to progress your career. You are passionate about becoming a leader in the company, where you can make an important business impact. Demonstrate how you will be a successful Chief Executive Officer, an exceptional Chief Operations Officer, an outstanding Chief Procurement Officer, etc.
Communicate that you know the industry and the organization you want to be a part of. Your research before the executive interview process will separate you from other candidates and leave a lasting impression on the senior-level interview panel.
16. How Can You Contribute To Company Success?
Describe pertinent skills relevant to the position you are being considered for. Let the interviewers know how your senior-level qualifications and knowledge can be valuable in your new position as CFO or COO and how you would be an excellent fit within the company.
Strong leadership qualities such as setting clear goals and accomplishing them within a team setting, being accountable and an effective communicator, acting strategically, and taking a forward-thinking approach to business strategies are just some ways to integrate your skills into the position applied for.
17. Why Do You Want To Work For This Company?
Let your interview panel know you are passionate about your work and strive to impact your industry. Start a dialogue about why you ventured into this industry and how your work ethic, leadership vision, and passion have evolved into applying for a senior position as Chief Compliance Officer or Chief Development Officer.
Ensure you highlight the similarities between your current job and the position you are applying for so the panel can directly correlate to how you will perform within their company.
18. Ask Questions During the Interview
If there are any unanswered questions by the end of the interview process, take the initiative and ask your interviewers for clarification. If it is a point that you want to get across, do not be afraid to bring it up.
Let the interviewers know you want to share additional details and ensure you get your point across. Prospective employers want to hire leaders who take the time to relay all possible information and showcase their effectiveness.
Some questions to consider at the end of an interview are:
“Have I answered all your questions? Is there anything you would like me to elaborate on or give any more examples?”
– This allows you to clarify any responses with examples, or it may give you more confidence if they let you know you have answered their questions clearly.
“What are the biggest challenges facing the company right now?”
Their answer to this question allows you to reiterate your executive-level skills to help solve some company challenges.
“What qualities are you looking for in an ideal candidate for this position?”
– This question could uncover some of the qualifications they are looking for that have not been mentioned in the interview or job description – again, another opportunity to share why you are the right candidate for the executive position.
“What do you think are the strongest qualities to have to excel in this role?”
As mentioned above, this gives you a chance to restate your qualifications that will make you an asset to the company and give you an idea of which qualities you may need to strengthen before you start the position.
19. What Are The Next Steps?
There is a wrong and right way to end an interview. After your interview, make sure you show your interest and enthusiasm about working in that position. Express your eagerness to pursue this career path, and do not assume they noticed your interest.
At the end of your conversation, let the interviewer know you are intrigued by the position and ask what the next steps in the hiring process are or when they hope to make a hiring decision. This shows the interviewers you are excited about the opportunity and are willing to continue with the hiring process. It also helps minimize any unanswered questions and gives you a timeline of when you will hear back about the CMO or CEO position you applied for.
20. Follow Up After the Interview
One of the final steps of the executive interview process is the follow-up. To remain at the forefront of the interviewer’s or recruiter’s list, write a thank-you letter and send it back once you have completed your final interview with senior management. Your letter should include the names of the interviewers you met with, the date you spoke, and the position you want to fill. Reiterate some key qualifications and personal characteristics you would bring to the position and team.
Executive Interview Tip: Send a Thank You Letter
Suppose you apply the executive interview tips above to your meetings throughout the hiring process. In that case, you will not only gain the expected confidence of a top-level executive but also prove to the interviewers and decision-makers that you are the right choice for the position.
To be the most effective executive job seeker, attend every meeting and showcase your talent, passion, personality, knowledge, and qualifications. Ensure that the interview panel sees you as an outstanding leader and a valuable asset to their company!
Don’t hesitate to connect with Candace if you need help with interview preparation or resume writing. Call toll-free at 1 877 738-8052 or send an email.
Do you have any executive interview tips you could share in the comments?