Can you give the top three things I have to execute to get an executive-level job and why they are important?
1) Skills: The best CFO in the world is not going to land a CIO role, so making sure that your specific skill set matches up what the company is looking for is critical to success.
2) Network: By the time someone gets to the executive level, he/she will have had contact with a multitude of people in their past. Every single person will walk away having either a positive or negative impression of you. Karma does indeed have a long memory, and if you aspire to be in a leadership role, remember to be professional, be a person of your word, and be kind. There is nothing that cannot be done better in a business setting by consistently remembering those three guiding principles. Failure to treat others with respect will ultimately come back to haunt you at some point in your career.
3) Technology: Staying abreast of technology is critical in this day and age. We consistently see executive level candidates that are so afraid of technology that they pass on the final interview because it involves Skyping, or balk when requested to prepare a PowerPoint presentation. You don’t have to be a technical wizard, but acknowledge that the world moves at a very fast pace these days, and having a basic ability to utilize Skype, Excel and Google SpreadSheets to name a few is critical. Yes executives have assistants, but if you are afraid to ask for help and refuse to embrace some of the basic tools now available, you will not get far in your job search, because you will be perceived as out- of- touch and resistant to learning new ways of doing things. We see it on a monthly basis with older, highly qualified candidates and it is truly a shame.
Ask Ann,
Have a question you’d like a recruiter to answer? Write to me at AskAnn@execunet.com
