What Executive Interviewers Are Really Looking For

By Shawn Slusser, Slusser Advisory Group

I used to think the best way to hire an executive was to focus on expertise and experience.

What had they done?

Where had they worked?

What results had they delivered?

Then I read an HBR article called 21st-Century Talent Spotting that challenged how I thought about hiring.

The premise was simple.

Don't just hire for what someone has done.

Hire for their potential to succeed in what comes next.

That changed the way I interviewed executives.

Over more than three decades of interviewing, I developed a catalog of about 70 interview questions.

Many of them were designed to help me understand something that wasn't obvious from a resume:

Does this person have a leadership system?

I wanted to understand how they lead themselves.

How they think through problems.

Whether they had developed repeatable frameworks they could apply when facing a situation they had never seen before.

And whether they could inspire a larger team to follow them and achieve something difficult.

Because at the executive level, your pedigree and accomplishments only tell me what you have done.

I also need to understand how you lead.

Here are two questions I found particularly revealing.

"If you were promoted into your current boss's role today, what's the first thing you'd change to improve the team's value creation?"

I wasn't looking for the perfect idea.

I wanted to know whether the candidate was already thinking like a leader before having the title.

Do they notice what could be better?

Are they thinking about how the organization could create more value?

Do they already have ideas about what they would change?

I expected a fast answer. Why?

Because leaders don't wait until they're promoted to start thinking about how things could be better.

Potential shows up before promotion.

The second question was even more personal.

"What are three principles or values you lead yourself by that you will bring to work?"

Most experienced candidates can eventually give you good words.

Integrity. Respect. Accountability. Trust.

The words weren't the most important part of the answer.

I paid attention to how quickly they could answer.

If you have spent years leading yourself according to a set of principles, you shouldn't have to invent them during an interview.

You should know them.

I've disqualified executive candidates based on their response to questions like these.

Not because they gave me the "wrong" answer.

Because I couldn't see evidence that they had developed a consistent way to lead themselves and others.

That experience changed what I believe executive candidates should prepare for.

Don't spend your entire interview telling me about your great pedigree.

Don't just tell me about the breakthrough results you created.

And don't leave me thinking those results depended entirely on the circumstances you happened to be in.

Help me understand the leadership system behind your results.

What principles guide you?

How do you solve problems?

What frameworks have you developed from your experiences?

How do you inspire people?

How do you develop others to achieve more than they thought possible?

Your past experience may get you into the executive interview.

Your leadership system gives me confidence you can succeed in the situations you haven't faced yet.

If you're preparing for an executive interview, ask yourself:

Can I clearly explain not only what I've accomplished, but how I lead?

Reference: Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, “21st-Century Talent Spotting,” Harvard Business Review, June 2014.