Blogs - Dangletech

Jul 13, 2010

Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle

One Reason Interviewing Candidates is So Difficult

I was browsing in my local bookstore on the weekend when I came upon a small book titled ‘Toughest Interview Questions’. Always interested in this subject I quickly leafed through it and put it in the pile to buy.
This morning, as I started to read it carefully, I noticed that while the book posed a variety of interview questions along with the attributes they probed, it also counseled candidates on how best to answer them. After reading several of these answers, I looked again at the cover of the book only to realize that the full title of the book was actually 101 Great answers to… The Toughest Interview Questions.

Strategies for those wanting to make a career or sector change

Many transitional executives contemplate career changes. It may be a career auto or general manufacturing sector executive questioning its future, or a large-company type who covets the chance to work in a smaller organization. Often, it is simply individuals longing to shed unfulfilling careers for exotic destinations as yet unknown. While such transitions are achievable, they are tricky and must be planned. It certainly will not happen simply by informing a headhunter of your ambitions.

Executives in Transition - Why a rifle beats a shotgun in nabbing that perfect job

As a headhunter I am an obligatory stop on the networking circuit of many executive job seekers. I hold the promise of a barometer on the employment market, contacts, ideas, and even suitable ongoing searches. I am always happy to participate in courtesy interviews as I neither envy the job seekers’ circumstances nor take lightly their courage in reaching out to me.

The Perils of the Successful Matchmaker

What is a successful matchmaker?
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Patti Stanger who runs The Millionaire’s Club, a Los Angeles-based “elite” matchmaking service and reality television program. In it she confides that the secret to her success is going beyond run-of-the-mill matchmaking to actively coaching clients on how to ‘win’ the dating game. As she clarifies, “Successful matchmaking is not really about just getting them on the date. It’s making sure they know what to do and say on the date. It’s asking ‘How was the date?’, ‘What did you wear?’, ‘What did you eat?’, ‘What did you do?’ and “How did you ask her out for the next time?’.

Interviewing: The Quest for Patterns and Themes

Last week, two seemingly unrelated articles caught my attention. The first was a magazine obituary on C.K. Prahalad, the management thinker best known for his work on core competencies. The article spoke extensively of his ‘big ideas’ and noted his habit of traveling the world “prying useful information out of everyone he met…always looking for connections and patterns, hoping to predict change”.

Checkers vs. Chess: Why Most Candidates Play The Wrong Interview Game…and Pay the Price !

I often join my clients when they conduct candidate interviews. I moderate, participate, listen and learn. They are fascinating glimpses into how candidates and companies alike play the complex game of talent acquisition. Each time without exception, I observe competent candidates eliminated from contention, not because they are less qualified than the others, but because they misunderstand the very nature of the contest itself. As a result, they come unequipped to win.

The superhero hiring game and why everyone loses

When it comes to recruiting leaders, companies continue to search for those Steve Jobs-like characters that can single-handedly turn around a company’s fortunes, blaze paths of innovation and market their wares like no other before them…

Why candidates should expand and prep their references

As headhunters scramble to match candidates with their shapeshifting clients, process and painstaking due diligence rule the day. To some candidates such rigor may feel intrusive or simply unnecessary. It shouldn’t. In fact, rigor should be embraced and used to all candidates advantage. Consider the use of references as an illustration.
Last week I interviewed a senior executive for a specific role. The candidate presented an intriguing combination of capabilities, accomplishments, values, motivation and style that appeared well aligned to my client. But there were a few cautionary flags. The candidate brushed over several questions and was vague on the circumstances around his departure from two organizations. Though my concerns may well have proven to be minor, they needed to be explored and clarified. Thus, on completing the interview I indicated that it would be helpful if I could speak to several of the candidate’s references around these specific time periods before putting him forward to my client.

The Unwanted CEO Job …and the one individual who thought otherwise

Several recent articles have lauded the success of Ottawa-based Bridgewater Systems. With skyrocketing revenues, a growing market, and money in the bank, the firm’s prospects have never been better and the street appears to love the story. It was a much more difficult story to sell in 2003, with one notable exception.
Bridgewater was founded in 1997, one of many Newbridge spinouts, a graduate if you will of the Terry Matthews school of stellar startups. The first few years were bumpy as the firm struggled to find its place in the evolving IP telecom marketplace. To make matters worse, in 2000 when its main benefactor, Newbridge, was sold to Alcatel transferring in the process its equity position in Bridgewater. It can safely be assumed that tiny Bridgewater was not atop of the French behemoth’s list of priorities.

Hiring Executive Talent: The Sheepish Canadian Startup

Much is written about the state of the Canadian tech startup sector and why it lags the US, Israel and other countries in producing a richer community of world-class companies.
While I am not qualified to comment on many of the contributing factors I am witness to how Canadian startups hire and lever talent at key points in their growth. I would argue that for many of these firms the bar excellence is set so cautiously low that to expect anything but mediocrity is laughable. Let me provide a recent example.

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