This email arrived over the weekend. It came to me from a CISO candidate I’ve been fortunate to work with as a career coaching client. While I don’t have any latest tricks or gimmicks to share, what I can tell you for sure is that this candidate for CISO Jobs is interviewing with confidence that comes from the clarity he gained by learning about his personal strengths through strengths coaching.
“Great news - interview went very well… Talking to the VP of HR I used a nugget from our Strengths coaching session… I was a good fit for the CIO's extrovert personality and was very good in crisis situations…anyway it looks like we are moving forward with offer discussions. With that - if you can squeeze a coaching session in tomorrow I would love to get your thoughts / direction on salary, the company, the people and other items.”
He’s on to the offer stage. Isn’t that what everybody wants when they put their resume in the hat for consideration? Knowing how to interview a prospective employer is just as important as knowing how to handle interview questions. While interviews generally start out as what feels like an interrogation, at some point in the interview, the tone should change and the interview should become a two-way dialogue.
At this point, the interrogation generally stops and a relaxed, comfortable, balanced two-way conversation takes over. At this point, a job candidate who is prepared can ask very unique questions that ultimately generate an invitation for the job candidate to talk about their personal strengths.
A person who intimately knows their strengths is the best qualified person in the world to talk about their strengths. The purpose of learning about one's strengths is to find professional work that aligns as closely as possible with those strengths.
The more closely aligned one's strengths are to their work, the more likely they'll be engaged in their work, passionate about their work, producing exceptional results and getting paid well.
