Page 139 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want
P. 139
I said, ‘OK, let’s hire a communications manager.’
One of the candidates who came in had put together a pitch
document about how he would represent me in the media and in
the press, what my style should be, what my voice should be, the
topics I should speak about, the topics that I should steer clear of.
In this document he had included a number of press articles that
had been written about me in a section called ‘The Dos and the
Don’ts’ in which he said, ‘I would have done this article, but not
that one. This one conveys the right things, but this one dilutes
your message – a lot of the information is inconsistent’. He was
taking a bit of a flyer by being quite up front about it.
He had also been very critical about the company website.
He had studied it in real detail, identifying the elements he
really liked, those sections that he felt did not work. If I had to be
honest, we almost o≠ered him the position on the back of the
document. The document spelled the job out better than we had;
singlehandedly he had crystallized what the job was. We had not
really worked out the spec, because we had never needed to hire
anyone like that – I had never been in this position before. I would
say our job description scored 4 out of 10, and his document
scored an impressive 8 out of 10.
Being prepared to adapt
As the interview progresses, listen to what the interviewer is
saying and the signals they are giving out. Like any great enter-
tainer you need to sense the mood in the room. The direction and
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