• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

• Focus on results: Can you recruit a quality subordinate team and get them working together, to generate high levels of performance?

• Smart: Do you have a strong intellect, coupled with pragmatism and pure common sense?

Business Intelligence

• Budget conscious: Do you understand the critical importance of cash? Do you watch expenditures as an entrepreneur would, or simply spend knowing your paycheck and benefits will come, no matter what?

• Judgment: Do you have the ability to deal with novel and complex situations where there is no history or road map?

• Customer focused: Do you understand how the industry and marketplace work?

Emotional Intelligence

• Persistence: Can you drive programs to successful fruition? Are you highly self-motivated?

• Empathy: Do you have the ability to connect with employees and customers?

• Stamina: Do you demonstrate a built-in unrelenting drive to succeed?

➤ Human Resources Department

Human resources (HR) has concerns that go beyond those of hiring managers and executives. HR is also interested in your overall fit with the company’s core values and culture—your relationship intelligence. The people in HR look for the following attributes:

• A fit with the next job: How easily can you move up as the company grows? HR will consider your qualifications for the next job because an upwardly mobile person eases their burden for succession planning and improves their department’s return on investment (ROI).

• Ability to fill a gap in the management mix: Good coaches know their relative offensive and defensive strengths and make trades accordingly. Likewise, smart HR managers understand their organization’s strengths and weaknesses and will seek to complement, not replicate them.

➤ Corporate Recruiters

These are a company’s internal recruiters, junior members of the HR team. More often than not, if you respond to a newspaper ad or job posting, a junior staffer will be the first person to assess your qualifications. The irony of tasking a company’s least qualified employee with the responsibility of acquiring its human capital assets probably hasn’t escaped you—but that’s reality.

Recruiters are often left to figure things out on their own. At a minimum, they have to compare candidates against a list of stipulated skills or abilities. If you have the exact skills you make the cut—if not, you’re out. They have a lot to lose professionally by recommending someone who is not qualified. Some people have said that these people might not know good credentials if they slapped them in the face. They can’t read between the lines. Tailor your response to exactly what was advertised. Here’s how to give corporate recruiters what they are looking for:

• Work experience: Tell them how your experience fits their opportunity. You have to connect the dots for them subtly.

• Goals: Your short- and long-term goals must be reasonably in line with the opportunities for advancement.

• Personality: Chemistry and cultural fit between you and your coworkers is critical. Find out what “type” they hire ahead of time. Call someone who works there.

• Communication skills: Written and verbal communication skills are becoming increasingly critical as the global marketplace evolves. Demonstrate your ability to listen effectively, verbalize thoughts clearly, and express yourself confidently.

• Image: Junior people are easily impressed by an appropriate ensemble, so dress for the part you want, not the one you currently have. They’ll mentally compare you to their image of the group you’ll be working with. When in doubt, overdress 2 levels above business casual.

• Knowledge of the company: Recruiters expect you to be as enthusiastic about the company as they probably still are. Make sure you read everything on the company’s web site. Don’t waste their time by asking questions you should already know the answers to.

■ THE INTERVIEW MINEFIELD

The most common way people