5-minute mastery of your 30/60/90 interview

Whether you are recruiting or looking for pastures new when it comes to executive hiring it’s essential to know exactly what you – or the person in front of you – propose to do in the first three months.

I’ve recently been speaking with Andrew Howe (“Howie”), who is an experienced people leader having spent many years working for media owners and digital marketing technology companies. Howie also happened to find himself hunting for a new senior opportunity in the Covid-19 marketplace. We quickly established that there is one thing which hasn’t changed in the interview process. It’s quite a basic requirement in fact, yet I have seen many senior executives fail on this task, if not approached correctly. Have a read to find out more and also we have prepared a downloadable deck template to get you started (available below).

Kris: So, Howie we live interesting times yet interviewing for executive jobs haven’t changed. I hear the slide deck request for the first 100 days (or 30/60/90 as some are calling it now) is still very much alive?

Howie: Definitely!

Kris: Knowing your recent job search I’m sure by now you have mastered it well. What would be your top 3 tips for the 100 days in a new executive role? Have you developed a framework for these type of interview requests?

Howie: Yes, I would start off with the following:

1. Firstly, what are the key skills and experience the panel are looking for in the candidate? Once you identify them, emphasise those by spending more time/slides on them. Also, did they tell you they have a sales process that is lacking, or they need a really strong Scrum leader? Again, spend more time on areas that are most relevant.

2. Be confident in your approach – leadership 101, you should not make any big decisions in the first 100 days, don’t be tricked into thinking that you need to have implemented all the answers inside this timeframe. The opening 3 months should be about understanding your new team and the business they operate within!

3. Are there key things that you want to get in but have run out of the room? Put it in the appendix, you can pull these slides up in the interview during the discussion, it makes you look extra prepared.

Kris: Any special advice on the deck layout itself?

Howie: Yes, try to ask the company for their blank deck so that you can present the content in the companies slide design language – it will make you feel much more like an employee already.

Kris: How about the presenting part on its own? How do you go about that?

Howie: Make sure that when you are presenting that you give the panel examples of when you executed the things you are putting forward as good practice. i.e. “it is really important to do XYZ, for example, when I worked at “ABC” I implemented XYZ and we improved efficiency almost immediately”

Kris: Sounds like a very good and practical advice Howie. You have also kindly offered to collaborate with Optima Europe and prepare a template which we could extend to a wider public…

Howie: Correct. I thought it may be helpful to candidates to have a well-structured 100 days framework for their upcoming interviews…

The presentation template is downloadable from Optima’s website under the “Candidates” section: https://www.optimaeurope.com/job-interview-preparation/