How to Pinpoint the Right Interviewer
As a rule, you need to be interviewed by the person to whom you will report if you take the job. It may be the CEO, the chairman of the board, a division manager, or a line manager. You can always start lower down the ladder of authority with a contact you have been given, with the human resources department, for example, but this will lengthen the process.
You may have no choice but to start with the human resources department, even for a very high position.
Sometimes the interview will result in a dead-end. It won't go anywhere, and you won't be recommended or passed on to the person who has the power to hire you. Especially with human resources people, the interviewer may not know there is an opening or may not realize that someone is thinking about creating an opening and, as a result, may simply conduct an information interview with you, after which your file goes into a drawer rather than upstairs to someone who counts.
You can also start interviewing higher up the ladder, but this, too, can backfire. If you go over your prospective boss's head, even inadvertently, it will do wonders for your ego (Who doesn't want to chat with the CEO or a division manager?), but it may not advance your cause in the long run, and it may hurt it. The Big Boss may see this as a courtesy interview, and like the human resources person, may not think to mention you to the right person. And if you are handed on by someone with more power than the person who will be your boss, this may create either pressure or resentment in the person who is responsible for hiring you. In other words, your loyalty may be suspect.
It is important, therefore, to find out exactly who has the power to hire you for the job you want and to speak to that person as early as possible in the interviewing process. There is another reason you need to get in to see the person with the power to hire you, and that is because there are two kinds of job openings. There is, on the one hand, the job opening that everyone knows about, the one that has been announced by the company. And there is, on the other hand, the job opening that hasn't been announced because it's still a gleam in some executive's eye. It doesn't officially exist yet. A CEO, for example, has been thinking that he needs another body in top management, someone to stand between him and his line managers. He hasn't thought through his needs yet, so he hasn't mentioned this to the chairman of the board, nor has he mentioned it to any of his line managers. But then, voila, you appear on his doorstep one day wearing your best navy pinstripe suit, resume in hand. Suddenly, things click. You are the right person for the job—they know it, and you know it. Soon, a job has been created where none existed before. But, that job can't be created unless the right two people--perfect job candidate and perfect prospective boss--meet one another.
Getting the Right Interview with the Right Person
A lot of skill, strategic maneuvering, and no small degree of art goes into getting in to see the right interviewer. The three most important things you can do to ensure that you meet Mr. or Ms. Right Boss when you need him or her are, one, to develop a solid network of contacts who will help you; two, to answer the right kinds of ads for the right kinds of jobs; and, three, to let some experts help you. None of these things can be done overnight. You must lay some groundwork. And the ideal time to set things in motion is long before you begin actively looking for a job.
See the following articles for more information:
- How to Start on the Right Foot in Your New Job
- What Are the Sources to Find the Information You Need
- The Background of Application Process
- How to Network and Take an Information Interview
