ECS Newsletter 21 - A Senior Recruiter Who Interviews Executives Every Day Says Most Make the Same Five Mistakes. Here Is What They Are.

Source: Business Insider

Business Insider published a piece featuring Matthew Siegel, a principal in Korn Ferry's executive search practice who interviews multiple senior candidates every day for roles ranging from private equity-backed companies to Fortune 50 corporations. He is also a former C-suite executive himself, which means he is evaluating candidates with the experience of someone who has sat on both sides of the table. The five mistakes he identifies are worth understanding not just if you are actively searching, but because the habits that produce them tend to develop quietly over a long career and go unexamined until they cost someone an opportunity.

The first mistake is reciting the resume. Siegel says most executives can walk through their career chronology without ever explaining what actually drove their decisions. Why did they make the move they made? What were they trying to build or learn? What changed that made staying the wrong call? Those details are what turn a list of titles into a narrative that tells an interviewer who someone actually is. His framing is worth holding onto. There is a difference between giving examples and telling a story. A story has an emotional component. Most executives have the examples. Very few have practiced the story.

The second mistake is getting lost in the weeds. The instinct to demonstrate technical command, especially when compensating for a perceived gap, tends to work against senior candidates. Interviewers at the executive level are not trying to determine whether you understand the details. They are trying to determine whether you can lead people who do. Diving into technical specifics too early signals subject matter expert, not strategic leader. The impression forms while the interviewer is still listening, which means recovery is difficult once the framing has been set.

The third mistake is glossing over shortcomings. No candidate checks every box, and the ones who pretend otherwise tend to come across as less self-aware rather than more qualified. Siegel describes a CEO candidate who flagged his own gap before anyone on the search team raised it. That move demonstrated that he had studied the role carefully, understood why he was being considered, and was honest enough to name what was missing. Siegel's read on it is exactly right. Acknowledging a shortcoming and moving past it demonstrates maturity. It also gives the candidate control of the narrative rather than waiting for someone else to raise it at the worst possible moment.

The fourth mistake is compressing early career experience into a single line. Siegel describes a finance executive who had spent fifteen years leading teams in a high-pressure operational environment and reduced it to one bullet point on his resume. Only after being pushed did the full picture emerge, and it made the candidate significantly more compelling. The early roles, the lateral moves, the time spent outside a primary specialty, these experiences explain how someone developed the judgment they are now being hired to exercise. Leaving them out does not make the resume cleaner. It makes the candidate harder to understand.

The fifth mistake is not knowing what they actually want next. Siegel asks some version of the dream job question in nearly every interview, and he says the number of accomplished executives who cannot answer it clearly is surprising. The cost of a vague answer is not just a weak impression in the room. It is the risk of ending up in the wrong role and leaving inside a year, which benefits no one. The marketing executive he profiles who realized mid-conversation that the role being discussed was probably not the right fit did herself a favor by being honest about it. Most people are not that honest with themselves, let alone with a recruiter, until after they have already made the mistake.

The pattern underneath all five of these mistakes is the same. Experienced professionals often stop investing in how they present themselves because the career has been moving without requiring it. The skills that got them here feel like sufficient evidence. They are not, and a senior search process is not the place to figure that out for the first time.

If you are a business professional trying to navigate these issues right now, book a free strategy call at www.elitecareersolutionsllc.com. We will give you a straight answer, not a sales pitch.

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