Generic Executive Interview
Detail Orientation / Testing for "Builder"
- Can you briefly explain your company's product and go-to-market? They should have command of the product and process end-to-end. They should be able to cover value proposition, sales motion, customer/buyer, how expansion is driven, implementation/customer success, and competition.
- What are you personally responsible for? What about your team? What about other executives at the company?
- How do you segment your customer base? How does the GTM motion differ across each?
Hiring and Team Building
- What are the roles and responsibilities on your team?
- Can you take me through each of your direct reports and their strengths/weaknesses?
- Who are the best external and internal hires youʼve made?
- Can you tell me about a bad hire?
- Who are the top 3 people youʼll try to hire if you end up in this role? Will they follow you?
- What are your managerʼs strengths and weaknesses? If I call them, what will they say are yours?
- Tell me about an executive youʼve had a challenging relationship with.
Decision Making
- What KPIs or metrics do you regularly look at? Tell me about a meaningful decision you made based on one of them.
- Give me an example of when data/metrics have led you astray
- Do you spend time with customers? How much? Describe a decision that you've made from customer feedback.
Communication
- What are your companyʼs top strategic priorities? What is controversial about the strategy?
- What would you do differently if you were CEO?
- What are the lowest and highest performing parts of the business? What about your org? How do you know?
EQ & Habit of Self-Improvement
- What businesses have you learned the most from observing? What companies do you most admire?
- If you could go back in time a few years, what would you do differently?
- What is the #1 area you've improved in your current role?
- When in your career have you felt most accomplished?
- What is the toughest feedback youʼve ever received?
- What do you think will be the biggest challenge coming to our company?
- What would you do over in your career if you had the chance?
A note on detail orientation. At the early stages of company building, hiring failures often stem from a leader not willing to "do the work" in the role. By testing for detail orientation you get to the bottom of whether the leader actually went into the weeds of decision making and process at their company or if they delegated and made decisions from exec land.
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