When a candidate interviews with a company, they expect tough questions to determine their fit for the position. Employers want to know if the candidate has the skills, experience, and desire to fulfill their needs, both short and long term. The candidate should be frank about their abilities as well as areas to grow, to avoid creating unrealistic expectations. If someone has shortcomings in a specific software, being upfront gives the employer a chance to consider investing in training if the candidate fits other areas well. If the candidate is honest and the employer is thorough with their interview, the resulting hire will be less stressful for both employer and candidate.
The problem is when a candidate is “more show than go” as one of my employers puts it. Talking about a job and filling the shoes should be the same thing, but in some cases it’s not. Personalities come into play when the employer is not willing to dig into learning the candidate’s abilities to confirm skills claimed. Resumes can give a false impression of a candidate’s abilities, and different companies have different duties for the same title. Operations Manager at one company may mean everything but Sales and Admin, while at another company it means Production, Yard, and Trucking. Having 5 years of experience with one company may not be the same as at your company, especially when you are adding responsibilities to a title that the candidate hasn’t performed.
On the reverse side of the coin, candidates should interview employers just as hard. I recently had a VP/CFO candidate who found the perfect job, at the perfect-size company, and in a perfect location. All the candidate needed was the slam-dunk interview – and then the offer made was well above what was expected. While that may have been a red flag, the job, location, compensation, and benefits were exactly what the candidate wanted. They accepted. During a house-hunting trip, the candidate stopped by the company to fill out paperwork and meet with the retiring CFO who had not been available for the initial interview. During this meeting, the candidate learned that the company location had been losing millions and several of the department’s key personnel needed to be replaced, although no steps had been taken to correct any substandard behavior. The CEO had not disclosed any difficulties, only that they had some “challenges” to overcome but the parent company was being patient. The job went from looking forward to resolving “challenges” to being handed a mess at a company that most organizations would resolve by closing, selling, or replacing all of senior leadership. Being a competent CFO candidate, he soon saw through the challenges and lack of effort to resolve them, and then made the difficult decision to withdraw from the job. He went from traveling over a thousand miles on a house-hunting trip to salvaging a career where he had already given notice. Feeling played by the CEO and the absent CFO during his interview, he started to think of how he could have done a better job of seeing these issues up front, if the employer would have shared them; and I too wondered what flags may have been missed with this new client who was deceptive when placing that job order.
First off, the candidate was too focused on getting the job to think that an established company would be that deep in trouble. Second, with factors such as location and company size being a good fit, the candidate was rooting for the match and not focused on doing their due diligence. It was a perfect storm, so what could the candidate have done better? Research can help – whatever you can find on the internet is a start. Short of requiring a full set of books to determine the financial strength of the company, more time may have helped. That the CFO and Controller were not available the day of the interview should have been seen as a red flag. Perhaps if the candidate had asked for a meeting with them before accepting, the truth would have come at a better time, before accepting.
Hindsight is 20/20 and anyone could have missed the red flags, but bottom line is: a candidate must be as thorough interviewing the company as the company is interviewing the candidate. If your job requires that you drive a forklift, and the employer doesn’t ask first, demo it, drive the area you are expected to travel during a normal day, try a load of typical and difficult material, talk to the maintenance person to see if that machine is in good shape, safe, and if it goes out of service often. That has nothing to do with a CFO job, but any job has requirements and taking a test drive is the best way to be sure the job is a fit. Most of my employers will take a (non-remote) designer around the office and introduce them to the design team and design manager as well as show them where they would be working. If these steps aren’t possible, then maybe the employer is hiding something.
Do your best to be professional, be thorough, and remember that there are two sides to every coin. Saying yes to an offer should leave you satisfied that you did your best and won the prize you wanted.
Your “recruiter down the hall,” I’ve been recruiting off-site manufacturing industry professionals for 30 years through TheJobLine.com. Contact me for assistance with recruiting assignments or outplacement job search: twm@thejobline.com.