Page 111 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

to gain their trust. The reality is that we always have some kind
of image in our head.
We were hiring an investment manager at Hamilton
Bradshaw, and we met one candidate who we really liked at
the first interview. When he came back for the second interview,

he wasn’t wearing a tie and didn’t have a jacket on. I was quite
surprised. It was not what I was expecting and left me with a
mixed message.

Nevertheless, we still called him back for a final interview,
so he had the perfect opportunity to redeem himself, but again
I was a bit disappointed. For the third interview he was wearing
a suit, but still no tie, and – to be honest – the suit he had on
looked like it could have done with at least a brief encounter

with an iron. The candidate was actually quite good, but every-
thing about his image was wrong.
I was thinking less about his impact on me, more about the

impression he would make on clients. He would be interacting
with our investee companies, and we are supposed to be seen
as the gurus, the experts, the specialists. So I asked him, ‘Do
you think impressions matter? What do you think the image
should be for an investment manager working for Hamilton

Bradshaw?’ I was hovering around the subject, and in his
answers he said all the right things. And yet he didn’t look the
part. He clearly knew what I was asking, but I don’t think he

realized that he was not matching the message. Knowing the
answers is one thing, delivering them is another.

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