The 10 Rules of

Executive Interviewing

in Asia 

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Conducting interviews with senior managers as opposed to junior candidates is different mainly because the people involved are different. Junior candidates are often called Applicants because they are usually applying for new employment. They promote their resumes to a multitude of job postings, employment agencies and career fairs. In interviewing these people, the emphasis is on the candidate sell himself to the employer. 
 
Desirable senior candidates are the extreme opposite. These Job-Keepers are successful and content in their current positions and have no urgent need to change jobs. Confidentiality is of critical importance and they do not send resumes to job postings or employment agencies nor do they attend career fairs -- be worried if they do. Nevertheless, such people can be enticed to discuss a career opportunity if approached in an appropriate manner by people who they consider respected in their business community. Interviewing these people requires greater emphasis on the employer to provide strong justifications for career change. 
 
 
Rule I:    

Executives Interview Executives
 

Senior managers need to be interviewed by people who are more senior than them. In status aware Asia, HR recruiting staff who are great for interviewing individual contributors should not involved to recruit senior managers. Veteran executives should only be assessed by other veteran executives. There is probably no better way to turn off a desirable candidate than to have him be interviewed in a cubicle by someone holding a clipboard. 

 

Rule II:    

Candidates, not Applicants
 

Successful managers are almost always employed and mainly happy in their careers, and don't change jobs often or easily. In order to recruit them, tremendous effort must be made to demonstrate that the person is highly valued and his career would greatly prosper in the new organization. He is not an applicant applying for a job -- he is a gifted manager who could be critical to the success of the organization. If such a person is told to fill out an application form and left alone in a dreary waiting room, you may find nothing except a pile of ripped up paper when you return.   

 

 
Rule III:    

Be Concerned about Confidentiality
 

Senior candidates are stable career professionals with a history of long-term employment relationships and are not desperate for work. They are also well-known and recognizable in their business communities. For these reasons, they take a very real risk in being interviewed by another employer and attention needs to be taken to ensure their confidentiality. If they ever come to feel their privacy could be at risk, they will discontinue the interview process or, at the very least, down-grade their interest in making a change. 
 

 
Rule IV:    

Use a Conversational Style
 

Senior managers have many years of experience interviewing for their own positions. You will do yourself no good by using a set of questions that you would use for junior applicants. Manage the interview as an intelligent conversation between industry professionals. 
 

 
Rule V:   

It’s Not a Beauty Pageant
 

Research has proven conclusively that tall, good-looking candidates and good-talkers get the most job offers. Senior candidates, especially, can be utterly captivating because they have developed their personality skills over many years. A charming façade is certainly not a bad attribute but it does not make him the ideal candidate. Don’t let this one quality overshadow the huge number of other important requirements necessary for management success. 
 

 
Rule VI:   

Ignore “New-and-Improved” Tactics
 

As in other industries, consultants to the HR sector create new concepts to catch each new generation of hiring managers rather like fashion cycles. Many of these "highly-innovative" interview systems employ techniques to either intimidate or relax candidates in order to trick them into giving information they might not otherwise have provided. These should be ignored. Similarly, interview questions like, “Give me a sales pitch for my tie,” or “What kind of animal would you like to be?” are unsuitable for senior managers (or probably anyone else). There are no shortcuts or surefire systems to assessing candidates. It is a long process and a comprehensive interview is just one component. 
 

 
Rule VII:   

Sell the Opportunity AND Yourself
 

Hiring Managers are naturally more used to interviewing candidates for less senior roles and sometimes assume everyone they meet will plead to work for them. Desirable senior managers are almost always  successfully employed and happy in their careers. They don’t need a job but are interested to improve their situation. Many interviewers are so focused on evaluating the candidate that they forget it is a 2-way street – candidates are evaluating them just as much. Effort needs to be made by the hiring executive to describe the opportunity, the organization and its people in a compelling but realistic manner.  Most importantly, don’t forget to sell yourself.  Senior people understand that the “who” is more important that the “what.” 
 

 
Rule VIII:    

Be Friendly But Non-Committal
 

In selling-the-opportunity, it can be tempting to become overly enthusiastic about “what can be achieved” if the candidate joins the firm. Remember that if you give a range of income or bonus opportunity, the candidate will almost always remember only the top end of the range. It is no exaggeration to say that more than 50% of all hiring processes are harmed (and sometimes destroyed) by exaggerated expectations through such miscommunications. 
 

 
Rule IX:    

Consistency is Your Friend
 

Unlike junior candidates, desirable senior managers are usually in no urgent need to change employers. They understand that decision processes require time. That said, a confusing or disordered interview process that takes to much time will harm the candidate’s impression of the opportunity and your organization. Make your hiring process straight-forward and you will recruit the leaders you need. 
 

 
Rule X:    

People are Mainly Honest

 

It is our experience that most senior leadership people are essentially sincere. Something that helps keep them so is that most industry sectors are small communities where people know each other -- this is especially so in the relatively small economies of Southeast Asia. While there are exceptions, the pressure to “say anything to get the job” is overwhelmed by the stronger coercive pressure to not get caught telling exaggerations. 

One obvious mark of a deceitful candidate is a person who rarely admits to past failures or meaningful flaws. They will either use verbal calisthenics to evade “weakness” questions or they will twist around a negative attribute to make it seem positive: “I allow myself to get burned out because I work so hard.”  People who don't admit to their own faults are actually admitting to many. 

By using your own highly developed people skills and some commonsense, it is possible to find high-quality people. It starts once you connect with the candidate on a personal level and then the 2 of you work together to determine if the job you have is, or isn't, best suited for the candidate. 

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Media organizations throughout the world call upon the Principals of Chalre Associates for thought leadership.  Below are some examples of published material written by our consultants or international journalists who refer to them.  For a complete list of published work, Click Here.  

 

 

Getting Ready For The Deluge: Outsourcing in Philippines

by Chalre Associates senior staff

 

Download [PDF file, 62KB]

 

The Economist Intelligence Unit of the Economist magazine asked Chalre Associates' Chairman, Richard Mills, to write a chapter about the Philippine outsourcing sector in its annual Business Guide Book.  The material provides a Executive Briefing on the progress and major issues facing this industry that is certainly one of most significant growth stories in the world.  more

 

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Asia Pacific Mining Conference 2007 - Report

by Chalre Associates senior staff

 

Download [PDF file, 28KB]

 

The 7th Asia Pacific Mining Conference put on by the Asean Federation of Mining Associations was perhaps the largest such event in the region.  Richard Mills, Chairman of Chalre Associates gave this report on what was said by the prominent mining people who presented. more

 

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The State of BPO in Philippines: Dan Reyes Speaks

by Chalre Associates senior staff

 

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Richard Mills, Chairman of Chalre Associates, interviewed Dan Reyes of Sitel for ComputerWorld (US) recently to get his views on the state of the BPO industry in Philippines. Dan presented US readers with compelling information to support his view that Philippines is currently seen as the "Number 1" option by global companies sending BPO work to offshore destinations. 
 
Dan Reyes is easily one of most experienced Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) managers in the Asia Pacific region and the world. He is head of the extremely successful Philippine operations of Sitel, the world's largest call center organization. Among other things, he is a founder and former president of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines.    more