Now is the opportunity to dive deep into the details of someone’s background. Take as much time as you need to determine if the executive’s experiences closely apply to your company, your situation, and your needs.

Ask detailed, probing questions about past experiences that are relevant and analogous to your current situation. Probe with follow-up questions. This is the time to verify if somebody not only can do it but has done it. Having been an executive for ten years does not mean someone can step into any role and figure it out. Though most executives are quite versatile, make sure you are bringing in someone who can bring applicable experience to your situation. You are bringing this high-level executive to help you avoid costly mistakes rather than figuring it out as they go.

The Executive’s use of Pronouns: “I” versus “We”

At the executive level, you are speaking to highly accomplished individuals. They have had successful careers and have achieved quite a bit during that time. It is not unexpected to hear someone reflect on accomplishments and use singular personal pronouns such as “I” or “me.”

Keep in mind, however, that especially in the interim executive space, you aren’t engaging someone for what he or she personally accomplished. You are engaging the interim executive for results. You are engaging an executive who has led companies and teams to accomplish great things. A company is rarely looking for someone who will operate alone. Listen carefully for the singular personal pronouns and how the narrative about accomplishments is related. Does the executive speak about mentoring the team and leading them to great accomplishments, or is this discussion a long story about the star of the show?

On the flip side, listen carefully to the plural pronouns as well. Are all of the pronouns “we”? Is there any “I” in this team at all? Did the executive lead the efforts or was he or she merely a member of the team that accomplished the very impressive result, with someone else leading it? Depending on the executive’s role in the company, this can matter very little or a great deal.

Resumé of The Executive Can Serve as a Discussion Anchor

As archaic as it seems to have an executive talk through the resumé and discuss each situation, the circumstances, what transpired during their tenure there, and the reason for leaving, it can provide some launching points for discussion—an anchor of sorts for a more free-flowing discussion.

• Referring to the resumé, ask the executive about the strategy at each company.
• Have the executive describe the leadership team they worked with. Even the most experienced executive at interviewing will have a tough time hiding any misalignments or disagreements.
• Ask the executive how he or she personally led the execution of strategy at each company.
• Ask what experiences on the resumé are most directly relevant to the challenges your organization is facing now and how they would shape the executive’s first thirty days in the role.
• Ask about the size, scope, and structure of the teams and support infrastructure at prior assignments or positions. How did those factors contribute to the executive’s results? It’s one thing to generate operational efficiencies in a global enterprise with a team of twenty direct reports and a robust ERP/MRP system; it’s another to come in and build those resources from scratch.

You get the idea. The resumé is a springboard, not a script; use it to shape a discussion about how the executive you’re speaking to can work with your organization to tackle its current challenges and lead the team to mission-critical breakthroughs, and how past work informs his or her approach to creating infrastructure for future success.

Finding the Right Executive

At Cerius, we have been vetting executives for over ten years to reduce the risk of companies bringing in the wrong executive. If you decide to engage an interim executive on your own, we have put together and will share some of our best practices to help minimize your risk when searching for the right executive expertise, whether it is on a part-time, temporary, interim, or project basis.

Through a deep resource pool of thousands of vetted executives, we offer full interim staffing services across all management disciplines. From our network, we develop a customized interim executive solution tailored to your needs. You gain immediate access to a carefully selected skill set with the additional leverage to reach into the larger pool of Cerius executives as needed — all to secure new growth strategies, carry out organizational or cultural change, manage complex projects, or fill business-critical vacancies.