Interviewing in a box: Weird and necessary

Interviewing for a CEO job is not something you do every day. Even before the pandemic, interviewing for a CEO role created anxious moments for both candidates and board members. Now, layered on top of interviewing in a box are unprecedented health, environmental, cultural, and financial challenges. Both parties need to get the hiring decision right, and there is little to no room for a hiring mistake. 

By the time you get to the final interview, your expertise, experience, and education should be known by the board of directors or the committee doing the interviewing. If your search consultant or recruiter has done their job, you will be well-vetted in those categories. There is more, though, that decides whether an offer is forthcoming. 

A new challenge comes with interviewing from a video box on your laptop. As well acquainted as you are with using video to communicate face-to-face with various constituents, interviewing in a box is a new phenomenon.

Connecting with your interviewers is the most crucial step in interviewing, especially when doing so in a box. No matter how exemplary your expertise, experience, and education are, you need to connect on a visceral level with each person on the other side of the box. Eye contact is one necessity for success. This means focusing on that illuminated green dot at the top of your monitor, keeping your eyes and chin level so that you do not look down or up. Connecting means extending your energy in such a way that the interviewers imagine you leading their credit union.  Hope is generated within them about you as well as the anticipation that you are the one to hire! 

The visceral connection comes from within you, from your heart space, not your headspace. Energy is created through mood, language, and action. Your mood is uplifting, and your language touches the imaginations of the interviewers. Language produces action, which is a finely tuned interview skill. Specifically, the board listens to your language and how it produces imagination, success. and skillful action. 

Interviewing for a CEO role doesn’t happen every day for those in the room. Both parties—the board of directors and the candidate—will have a certain level of anxiousness, which is to be expected. For a CEO candidate, however, a certain level of executive presence is expected. You have to produce that presence from your video box. 

Most days, CEOs have surprises, unanticipated challenges, new opportunities, and many perspectives to process from personal and professional perspectives.  Expect to receive a question about you. The board wants to know about you beyond what is on your resume. It is your choice on how to answer this question. Some candidates speak all about work, why they love credit unions, and how their careers started.  You might share a narrative regarding family, community, and the credit union. There’s no one right answer. The purpose of the question is to provide a space for everyone to settle in, take a few breaths, and realize that the interview is happening!

Strategic vision, direction, and execution are extremely important to the board. Be expected to share a case study or two in which you made a strategic decision, why you picked that specific direction to pivot, and how your decision supported the organizational vision. You might be asked to share a time when there was a challenging initiative or opportunity that involved people, whether your direct reports, peers, or your managers.

If you are asked a question about the organization or its current trajectory of products and services, branding, business model, or balance sheet, be direct, respectful, concise, and curious. You are encouraged to ask questions for clarification and insight.

The interview in a box is here for the next several months, at least. Know this . . . leaders speak with confidence and wisdom from any platform. Your sense-of-self resonates regardless of interviewing in person or from a box. The other piece to know is that your preparation for this interview started many years ago. Be clear on your offer and who you are; interview with self-integrity, always.