Crafting the best interview

A common practice in interviewing for senior roles is to require candidates to make a presentation, with the hiring organization issuing instructions on time limit and subject. While this may seem like a daunting experience, it can actually be good for your candidacy, if you prepare. Presenting puts you in the driver’s seat and allows you to demonstrate sides of you that may not be as evident in a traditional interview situation. The presentation may also precede a bus…

The Executive Career Strategies at ExecutiveAgent.com newsletter came out today. The lead article for this issue was written by yours truly and focuses on how to make connections with executive recruiters.

I give 10 of my best pointers on making connections, and in particular, building rapport, with executive search consultants. I hope you find it useful.

Executive Career Strategies: Positioning Yourself with Executive Recruiters

One area that most resumes could use some work on is the traditional objective statement at the top of the first page.

The most common problems are:

• The objective isn’t specific and targeted enough to be appealing.

• The objective is too soft and generic. Stating that you want a “challenging and rewarding job that will utilize your skills” will do nothing for your candidacy.

• The objective is written as a statement of what you want vs. what you offer. Generally, employers aren’t as interested in what y…

Just off the phone with a Toronto client. She is in the running for a big internal promotion and in my opinion, makes an excellent candidate.

However, while she can talk with passion about the organization and her teams, she has a heck of time summoning that energy to talk about and sell herself. This is so common. Often, the most successful people are the worst at communicating what they do, what they’ve done, and how they do it.

If this is you, don’t feel bad. You aren’t alone.

Now, get over i…

The various uses and benefits of blogging

Let’s get this out of the way first. Blogs are online journals, incredibly easy to publish, with powerful abilities to link between posts (individual entries), and between other blogs. Bloggers write and post short messages and ideas and comments. They write articles. They link to relevant posts from other sites on the web, and they can publish audio and photos on to their blog. Blogs make it really easy as a reader to follow your favourite sites by subsc…

Update: This article has been updated to Four Factors in Getting Promoted to an Executive Role

Are you ready to take on an executive role? You need to examine the “Nuances” of breaking through into the executive ranks. Readiness to take on an executive role depends to a large extent on the facts of your career history, the messaging, your in-person presentation, and the opportunity fit.

The Facts

Your career history might result in a dynamic career trajectory, or the exact opposite, one that is s…