Talent Trade Tidbit - Interviewing As An Internal Candidate

Almost every role we recruit for these days, there's an internal candidate who's already been in the organization that's applying for this larger role.

Despite what a lot of people may think, the internal candidate is rarely a shoo-in for the job.

What it comes down to is that board members and leaders who've seen you in one capacity have a hard time imagining you in that expanded capacity.

Even Jesus said, "A prophet has no honor in his own hometown." They've only seen you do this one thing.

Certainly, you're larger than what you've done for that one organization, and they may not even know all the complexities and successes of your job.

So it's up to you to help them see you in that expanded light.

That often comes down to two words.

One is executive presence.

Now, a lot of that's about optics, but it's also about confidence.

Do we have the confidence in their ability to lead at this level?

I'm not encouraging you to lose your sense of humor or whimsy or what makes you special, but you do have to walk into those interview rooms with a sense of authority and command and projecting the confidence that you are ready to lead at this level.

And the second thing that they're looking for is strategic thinking.

You have been in the department.

Are you now ready to lead the department?

You've been in the trenches day to day doing the operations of the organization, but can you pull yourself out of the day to day and think about the picture as a whole?

And you've got to demonstrate that you're ready and that you see all of the different facets, that you see all of the different pixels in the picture, and you're ready to handle this larger scope.

And so you want to, in the interview process, give them a sense of your larger, more strategic thinking, not just your day-to-day tactical

operations.