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Top 9 Strategies for Conducting Effective Executive Interviews

Often it is the case during the interview that an interviewer needs to discern specific areas that a potential employee must excel, such as leadership or creativity or self-promotion. There are a vast number of books, articles, and web sites that have arisen in order to educate interviewees on what to say and what not to say during the physical interview. There are even individuals that have mastered the skills needed to pass an interview with flying colors, yet cannot perform the basic tasks of the job position. In these situations, the hired individual must be hand-fed everything and is unable to acclimate to the job and team. At this point, it is the duty of the hiring personnel to terminate his/her employment and hire another individual. In an effort to find the perfect fit for such positions, I have spent time studying the following 9 strategies (in descending order of personal use) in order to create effective and efficient employees at the executive level.

9. Do the Eyes Glaze Over?
Ask the interviewee about his/her experiences within the work environment, using technical terms as often as possible. If this individual handles these terms with a clumsy tongue or attempts to double-talk around the context of the responses, he/she might not be a great fit for the position in question. By doing this, the applicant has shown that there is awkwardness in the realm of the open position. However, if the individual is able to actively respond to the question without knowledge of the actual term, he/she is showing ingenuity that is beneficial for any high-level position. This shows that the applicant has a grasp on the vital materials involved in the position and will be able to work around the unknown with alacrity. Strong applicants are always in high demand and you can find a place in your company for such an employee even if he/she does not fit the pattern that has been designated for the executive-level career.

8. Asking Creative Questions
Ask questions that lead to out-of-the-box answers from the interviewee. Questions such as "When I was a child, people thought I was really cute" and "I take a different way home from work every night" (Weiss, 2007) will identify an individual's aptitude for salesmanship and creativity, respectively. Questions such as "If you were an animal", though classic in nature, will be able to determine what an individual perceives as his/her strength without needing to ask

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