CEO Job Search: Authentic Personality Gets The Job
Picture this: the year is 2018 and the market was decent, and life was moving at a good speed. 425 Magazine had just published an article on me regarding my company, Mastor Recruiting & Consulting, (a shameless plug for us both). A wife had read the article and then sent it at her husband to read. You see, he had been unemployed for over 4 months as a high-ranking CEO in the greater Seattle area and had not received one offer. He had plenty of interviews because of his experience, but no offers. He was lost.
We met over zoom, and he said I was what he was looking for to help him, so we booked him a career consulting appointment. The consulting appointment was moving along just fine, a bit vague yet still getting somewhere ,until I started to ask him hard hitting questions about himself. That is when I saw the problem: you see, this gentleman was answering each question with a head nod and or a simple yes or no. He was very uptight and well, boring, to say the least. After about 20 minutes I stopped the conversation. I was not getting anywhere with him.
So, me being me, I asked him point blank, “is this how you answer all your questions on an interview?” “Yes,” he said. Ahhhh, I found the problem. He was told by a few of his colleagues that he should be interviewing this way to show his confidence, (unfortunately, he was told wrong advice)
So, me being me, once again, I told him what he was doing wrong. I told him he was f------ boring and wanted to know if he was like this when working. His first response was my favorite. He leaned in very closely to the camera and said, “WHAT?”. And then afterwards he said no, not at all.
Here comes the good stuff: I told him what he was doing wrong, how he came across to others and how to change his mentality, tone, and most of all, his body language. We had a great conversation moving forward and of course, three months later he was employed!
You can be the best candidate for any role, but if you come across as someone you are not, you will never get the role you want.
A simple change and a person who is direct and forward, (but nice about it), is all it took for this gentleman to smile, become himself and most importantly, get employed.
This is a conversation I enjoy having and invite you to hit me up with your questions, what if’s, and anything else on your mind. Contact me here:
Email: jennifer@mastorrecruiting.com
Phone: (425) 577-4102
Free consultation