How to Interview with a General Manager

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How to interview with a CEO No matter how much experience you have of being interviewed or conducting interviews yourself, that all-important meeting with the CEO can make or break things. How do you ensure you come out on top and differentiate yourself from other candidates? Here are 5 key questions almost every CEO needs to have answered in the interview. They may not ask them out loud, but you can be sure they’re thinking them. Are you commercial? Your technical skills may have got you to this stage in your career, but unless you have well-rounded commercial skills and business acumen, you are unlikely to progress further. To shine in the interview, talk numbers and results. Show that you understand what’s going on in the business outside of the confines of your own department and show financial intelligence. Tip: When preparing for your interview, go back through your key achievements in your career and find out what the numbers were. It’s not enough to say the work you did resulted in ‘improvements’ – prove it. Show the Return on Investment (ROI) for the projects and activities you led. Are you strategic? You may be fantastic operationally and this is a good skill to have. To bring in someone at a senior level, the CEO needs to be satisfied that the person they choose thinks and behaves strategically. They are looking for someone who thinks further ahead than next week or next month. They want a person who understands the organisation’s vision, mission and goals. If they don’t have them documented, they may want you to help create the vision, mission and goals, so you need to show you’re up to the job! Tip: Think about examples when you have behaved strategically and practice talking about what you did. You probably won’t be asked this question outright so you need to weave your strategic abilities into the answers to other questions and make sure
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