Executive Level Interview Preparation

I'm going to see you again if you are new here my name is bill Benoist I'm a certified professional career coach in Silicon Valley and in today's video I want to talk about interviewing at the c-level so one of my clients recently reached out to me asked if I can help him prepare for a CEO position he was going into it was a small company like 50 employees or so and he was going to go and talk to the founder of this employee it wasn't a publicly held company he was really excited about this he was also probably experiencing a little bit of what I would say impostor syndrome he was questioning whether he could do it but he was really excited and he wanted some help with the interview process now a little bit about history of myself I have worked with a number of CEOs I've worked with even more of the c-level executives I have a master's in leadership I know a little bit about what I'm talking about there and in my last company that I worked for 18 years we went through four different CEOs and you may be thinking to yourself you know can't build what was going on with your company for CEOs and 18 years well let me tell you something the average tenure of a CEO is about five years so the good ones a lot longer but the average is about five years so keep that in mind if you're looking at you know at least a CEO level position probably the c-level positions a little bit longer I think but the bottom line is this when it comes to interviewing at the c-level position and that is it's going to be more about your strategy and your vision your growth I'm demonstrating your capabilities and handing handling excuse me financials operations management team building and culture there's there's really there's seven different areas there and what you want to do is you need to really kind of prepare for these different areas and again you have talked about this before source stories are going to be necessary because you're going to need to demonstrate your capabilities in these areas which means that you're going to have to share a situation that you face an obstacle that you may have faced during this time the action you took and the result that came out of it now that's your typical source story but I'm going to add one more element to that and that would be safe follow-up and the reason why I bring this one up is because I also recently worked with a client who is interviewing at Amazon and if you've ever experienced the interview process at Amazon or familiar with it there's 14 leadership principles but Amazon is all about the customer and also the follow-up so not only showing what the result was that you achieved but also the follow-up and so I would actually add that as well you know the thing about working as a c-level executive once you understand this as well you know as you go up the ladder the positions become a little bit far and fewer between so of course there's a lot fewer CEO positions out there then let's say product managers or marketing executives as you go down the level a little bit the CEO the CIO the CTO the CFO the C whatever you know I think we actually call them cxx nowadays do a little bit more common but still not a great deal of them and one of the things that I want you to really be aware of is that for senior level executive positions most companies to hire from with it not all not all but most of them hire from within so I think the odds or the statistics not the odds but these statistics are showing about 38% of companies will go to the outside to bring in some new blood but the rest of the time they are looking for with it so again it's going to take you a little bit longer and looking at these c-level positions but they are out there and the interview process is going to be a little bit different because what you really want to do is you want to examine these seven areas because this is what you're going to be asked about the seven areas I want you to keep this key number one strategy and vision number two growth number three financials number four operations management number five leadership number sixteen building and number seven which is culture you need to create a source story around maybe even a couple of source stories around each one of these areas you know so for example listen with the financials maybe asked a question like describe you're experiencing managing a significant budget and PLL's you may be asked how did you cry prioritize your investments out there so do you miss or story around something like that maybe to source stories leadership you know you may be asked what you believe makes a good leader but you're also going to be asked you know a little bit deeper questions like you know describe the environments in which your leaders style leadership style is most effective where have you been frustrated and maybe less successful in your leadership over time culture you're going to be asked about your core values and how they shaped you as they are today again these are a lot more what I would say expensive than if you were interviewing in one of those lower levels because vision strategy is going to be what you need to show is your expertise you know where do you see the in not your company where do you see the industry going in the next five years and how stay along with the industry all of these questions are going to be what is really geared and I'll put a list of these in the notes section below but there's something else that I learned about in leadership studies and that is the best leaders I want you to keep this in mind the best leaders are the ones who will step forward if something doesn't go right and their company if there's a failure if there's a massive mix-up and products or something they take accountability they take responsibility not like some people that you know we know out there and the other thing is is that when things are going really good and there's some major accomplishments they don't necessarily step forward they step take a step back and let their team take the recognition now unfortunately and please excuse my French but there are some really shitty leaders out there I'm talking about the good ones the best ones that are out there and you study this and books like good to great and some of the other leadership books out there talk about some of these leaders at companies that have been around for a long time names that you have not really heard of before so I hope you found this video informative and useful and if you haven't already done so make sure that you subscribe to this channel hit the bell notification as I do upload new crew tips and strategies every Tuesday and if you are by chance looking for a new job I have a free download in the notes section below the top five interview questions that any hiring manager is going to want to ask you as well as the best practice answers to these questions so check it out check out the questions that I've listed below for interviewing at a c-level position and I look forward to seeing you next week thanks for stopping by

Channel: Bill Benoist

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Keywords: Executive Level Interview, C Level Interview, c level interview tips, Interviewing for C Level positions, Interviewing for Executive Level Positions, Bill Benoist, andrew lacivita, andrew lacivita interview, interview questions practice, interview tips for senior management position, job search strategies 2020, executive interview prep, executive level interview tips, interview questions and answers, interview questions, job interview, executive interview questions, job search

Id: 8CrSeTtgc9c

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020