First things first: as a search consultant, I made these mistakes myself earlier in my career, as a managing director and board member. That’s why I’m especially careful that neither my clients nor my candidates make them.
The cobbler’s children go barefoot.
In my daily work, not least because I can now watch a lot from the sidelines, I’m fascinated by the mistakes experienced leaders make in their own(!) applications.
Here are three highlights:
An unstructured interview. The interviewer is stressed, perhaps rushing from one meeting to the next, and says: “Tell me a bit about yourself.” It may be a deliberate trap or simply carelessness, because in the worst case the candidate starts with their education and even talks about childhood and parents, an endless litany. After 60 minutes the time is almost up and nothing relevant has been said.
My tip: talk about just two or three formative aspects of your working life, and describe your last role with numbers, data and facts that prove your contribution. Add something emotional. One candidate told me that, as a student, he worked as a troubleshooter in an airline’s catering operation and had to improvise under extreme time pressure, and that this shaped him more than many of the leadership roles that followed. Emotional moments are often worth more than a long routine.
Asking no questions. At the end of the interview, decision-makers often ask: “Do you have any questions?” Many candidates waste the opportunity. If you ask nothing about the company or the investment, you fail. Good candidates do their research beforehand and ask well-considered questions about the owner and/or the business model. It’s a misconception that investors or interviewers don’t want critical questions. They expect candidates to spot weaknesses in the investment or the role and to offer solutions, for example with war stories from their own experience.
Raising details and terms far too early. Bringing up salary, company car, a second home or flight class too early in the process is fatal. These topics belong in later, more concrete rounds of negotiation. Raise them in a first interview and you risk giving the impression that you’re only interested in the extras.
Instead, emphasise your strengths, your experience and your solutions to relevant problems. That comes across as more authentic and professional. The search consultant usually knows best when it’s time to put pay on the table, and their role means they can mediate intelligently.
