Make Sure You Interview For The Job You Came For

A candidate interviewed at a wonderful creative shop for a senior position.  She was doing great until she blew the interview.  Here is the huge error she made.

This candidate was interviewing with the president of the agency; it was her final interview. If the interview went well she would be hired.  She was with the president for almost an hour. She felt comfortable; there was good camaraderie between them and she was able to joke with him.  She could tell he really liked her. 

Then he very casually asked where she saw herself in five years. She is one of the few ad agency executives who started out in public relations and moved into advertising.  She was interviewing for a traditional ad agency senior account management position.  So how did she answer?  She told the president she really wanted to go back to PR.  Not smart when you are interviewing for an ad agency traditional account job.

Her answer came out of the blue.  They had not discussed PR at all.  The president told her that he had just made a proposal to a client to obtain their PR and corporate communications efforts.  For the next fifteen minutes she told the president how and why she could do that. The president was more than willing to consider her for this assignment should they win it.  But, as a result, she completely talked her way out of the account job. Sadly, she had no idea what she had done.

And, of course, if the agency does get this public relations and corporate communications assignment, the president told me he would seriously consider this candidate but would like to meet other corpcom and PR people.  She, naturally, thought the interview went perfectly and he would hire her one way or another. She was shocked when she did not get the account job. I had to explain to her that she blew it when she discussed a job she was not there for.

What she should have done was to tell him that she wanted to advance in the traditional account management area – after all, that is what she was interviewing for – and, because of her background, she would love to find a way to possibly combine her two disciplines. 

The best advice I can give is to make sure you interview for the job you go for.  Farther down the line she could have revisited the PR opportunity, especially after she was hired and had earned personal equity with the firm.  There is an expression, "Be Here Now" which means that you have to have your mind on what you are currently doing. 

Adventures In Recruiting: Great Quotes Over The Years

I thought it would be fun to share some of the more absurd things that both candidates and clients have said to me.

No Words Can Explain

When I told a candidate about a potential job, “Do they have private offices? My lease is up soon and I may have to stay at work for a while.”

Hubris

Said by an HR director at J. Walter Thompson when giving me a job order to replace a departing account person who was going to Margeotes, Fertitta, Weiss (one of the best and most successful of the small agencies in the 1990’s), “Imagine, leaving here to go to an agency whose name you cannot pronounce.” Unfortunately, she was serious.

Sore Loser

Said by a candidate who did not get a job after four weeks of intensive interviewing and going back too many times to count: “Well, I didn’t like them, anyway.”

Sore Loser, Too

Said by a candidate who did not get a job at Chiat/Day in their earlier days, “I guess it is a good thing.  I don’t look good in jeans.”

Huh?

The reason given by an account supervisor who wanted to leave Chiat/Day after only a week (I had not placed her there), “I have to do my own Xeroxing.”

She Doesn’t Get It

The entire email sent by a candidate who instead of returning my call to tell her about a potential opportunity wrote, “I no longer require your services.”

An HR Director Who Didn’t Get It

“The trouble with you recruiters is that you want feedback.  I don’t have the time for that s­­%@t---”

A Hiring Manager Who Didn’t Get It

Said after  I sent three really great candidates, “I don’t want to use you any more.  You only send me two or three candidates and I need to interview at least ten or twelve people.” Quantity over quality.

OMG!

When I first was recruiting in the 80’s, I worked out of my living room.  I was interviewing a woman while my wife was in the bedroom.  I swear this is true: “What can I do to get you to get me a job?” said she as she was unbuttoning her blouse. Well, it was the 80’s.

Get Over It

When I asked a candidate about a potential job, she asked me if a certain gentleman worked there.  When I answered yes, she told me that he was an “ass” and she wouldn’t work at any company that would hire him.  When I asked her why, she said, simply, “I was once engaged to him.”  I guess that is as good a reason as any for passing up an opportunity.

For Real?

The reason I use you is because you know the business.  That saves us the trouble of writing job specs and descriptions. Compliment yes. Direction no.

The Wife As Unseen Client

“I can’t hire her. She is way too pretty.  I will have to travel with her.  If my wife ever met her, she would castrate me.”

Why Vacation Days Policy for Executives Is Insulting

In almost every placement we make, I have to negotiate vacation days. Most people plan real vacations months in advance, so when a new job comes up, time off has already been scheduled. It is almost never an issue; most companies accept time off for their executives, even if that time off is within a short time after they start work.

Executives are paid by the year.  They are expected to get their jobs done. Period. As long as they accomplish their work, most companies actually don’t pay attention to vacation policies, or at least they shouldn't.  Almost every executive I know works far more than a 40 hour week.  In fact, sixty or seventy hour weeks or more are not uncommon.

So why do companies actually enforce vacation time? 

One senior vice president I know had scheduled a week's vacation and sent an email and included his human resources manager.  He out actually received a notice that he was not yet entitled to take this time off.  He had started his job about four months prior and had worked for most of that time seven days a week, including a lot of travel. The notice he received said that he was not yet entitled to vacation time because he had not been employed for six months.  The executive was furious at the note, as well he should have been.  Whoever sent the note looked only at his days out of the office rather than looking at his total time worked.  They also didn’t look at the person or the job he was doing and what he had accomplished.  They merely looked at just the numbers. It was highly bureaucratic and insulting.  Of course, he took his week off without any issues.  But it shouldn’t have been an issue at all.

Most executives are truly responsible.  They work hard and, occasionally, play hard.  Someone who travels weeks at a time, works until midnight and spends weekends in the office, is certainly entitled to time off.  There should be no one week, two week or three week rules for these people.  They take what they need to keep their batteries charged and stay refreshed.  No one should be counting their days out of the office; and if they do, they should be compared to hours worked.

If an employee is getting his or her work done, then there should be no formalized vacation.  Those rules make executives feel like clerical employees and are demoralizing and unnecessary.

If companies want productive and motivated executives, they have to be treated like trusted adults.