Ikea interviewEarlier in my career, job interviews were pretty straightforward: meet with the would-be boss and possibly a few other folks, all on one day, and then wait to hear if you get an offer. Sometimes there were two rounds, a few weeks apart. But executive interviewing is a lot more complex, even if you are working with a headhunter, and the subject of your sexual orientation will almost certainly come up. In the case of the job I recently landed, it went like this:

Round One: an executive headhunter called and asked me the standard pitch: whether I “knew anyone who might be interested” in a position his firm had been retained to fill. When I expressed interest, he asked for my resume (which fortunately was up to date) and we made a time to speak by phone to go over my qualifications and ‘fit’ for this role. What actually transpired during that 30 minute phone call was a laundry list of whether I had experience in X, whether I had experience in Y, and what was prompting me to look for a new role at this point in my life. This round is called a “screen” and it sorts out people who look good on paper from people who would actually appeal to the company looking to fill the executive role. It is usually conducted by a junior recruiter and if you are successful, you will then be scheduled for a follow-up with the senior headhunter who is actually filling the role.

Round Two: the senior headhunter and I spoke by phone for about an hour, going into detail about my current job and responsibilities, previous positions, and what exactly my dissatisfactions in my current job were and what would prompt me to actually leave, i.e., salary, bonus, title, reporting lines, potential further promotions, geographic location, etc. (This is where I would encourage anyone going through this process to be totally honest: if you wouldn’t leave your current position for less than $250,000 a year and 30% annual bonus, say so. If you wouldn’t relocate, say so.) He then educated me exhaustively on the details of the potential new job: the kind of company, the detailed responsibilities of the new role, a personality profile on the boss, potential for further advancement if I was successful in this new role, and possible concerns about the role. Finally, the recruiter said he would get back to me about a first interview with the manager of this role.

Round Three: because I was hundreds of miles away, the headhunter’s office set up a video conference with the hiring manager and a colleague. The headhunter prepared me a few days before with the likely areas of questioning, and things I should consider in my responses: whether I would actually relocate, whether I had experience in the technology side of learning management systems, etc. For the interview itself, the would-be manager and chum sat in their corporate headquarters in the Midwest, and I went to a Kinko’s in NYC where (did you know? I didn’t) they have video conference rooms for rent. After some initial technical difficulties, the 90-minute video interview took place. A slightly different set of interview skills is needed for videoconferences. You need to address your questions and answers to the camera, not the screen, if you want to have solid eye contact. You need to be poised and sit fairly still so that the video transmission can capture your movements. And you need to smile and try to radiate warmth and charm much more than if you were in person. A successful outcome to a videoconference means you will be asked to visit for in-person interviews, at which point you can assume your competition for the role has dwindled to a half dozen or fewer candidates.

Round Four: I flew out to the Midwest, where I was put up in a fancy hotel and chauffered to the corporate headquarters. Often you will have to make your own travel arrangements and save receipts to be reimbursed, but in this case the company I was interviewing with made the arrangement themselves and had costs billed directly to them. This trip consisted of two solid days. The first day was scheduled for 15 hours, including breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings, with the would-be boss, his boss, business unit leaders, and various others who would have to work alongside me or be reporting to me. The second day consisted of nothing but psychometric testing with an outside specialist company. For a solid day, I took tests that profiled my personality and leadership styles, assessed my IQ, put me through a 2.5 hour “business scenario” where I had to write up a business plan as if I were running a fictional company, followed by a role play with a person posing as one of my (misbehaving) staff in this fictional company. All this was capped by a psychoanalytic interview. I had no idea of my results at the time: I was told the hiring company would get a full psychometric report on me within a week, and that I should make a telephone appointment within a month or so (after the hiring decision) to get my results. I flew back home and waited to hear about the next steps.

I assumed, as should you, that during this kind of in-depth interviewing, questions about your orientation and family status will inevitably arise. Flying me out for several days and paying for a swanky hotel, a company is going to want to know exactly what they are investing in. In the U.S. there are lots of restrictions on what can be asked during interviews, but sophisticated questions make it difficult to evade the truth, and if you are successful in masking your situation, you will still come off looking evasive–which is not a formula for a successful executive interview! Fortunately, I had researched this company and found it to be very gay-friendly (which is one reason I allowed the interviews to get this far). So when questions came up over dinner and drinks about whether I would be willing to relocate, and what that would involve, I took the plunge. I mentioned my partner Rob, his work, and his feelings about the move as well. It felt slightly risky to do so, as I didn’t want to lose this job opportunity. But I also reassured myself that I only want to work for a company and a boss who fully accept me for who I am. If I lost the opportunity because of that, then it’s the wrong opportunity.

Round Five: A few weeks later, I was invited to fly back out to the corporate headquarters for a final round of interviews. I assumed, as should you, that getting to this round means you are probably the lead candidate for this role, or possibly one of two finalists. The money spent on the previous round (probably $2000 in travel costs + about $6000 for the psychometric testing) meant that I was one of the top candidates, but to be called back again means that the company is just double-checking that it is truly getting what it expected. This round was only a day. I interviewed with the global head of Legal, the global head of Human Resources, various major business division leaders, and the Chief Operating Officer. The intention was not merely to check me out re: the immediate role I was applying for, but to make sure that if I were to be promoted, I would be acceptable to the most senior people in the company. Since I “came out” in the previous round regarding my partner Rob, I also felt reassured that my sexual orientation was not an issue, or they would not have called me back.

The Pre-Offer Offer: About a week after the final round of interviews, the senior headhunter contacted me to say that the company wanted to make me an offer, and roughly what it was. We went in detail re: the start date, salary, annual bonus, relocation package, help in selling my current home, the health and retirement plans, vacation days, etc. (It’s worth noting that, regardless of any printed company policies, executives can and do negotiate all of this individually). Since the salary wasn’t quite what I wanted, but close, I asked the headhunter to negotiate for me a one-time “signing bonus” (a lump sum just for signing on the dotted line) as well as a “disturbance grant” (another lump sum, to compensate for incidental costs around moving) to go with the relocation package. All this negotiation goes on behind the scenes before an executive gets an actual offer in writing, which by then is just a formality.

The Actual Offer: this is a job offer letter like any other, except that it contains contingencies regular job offers don’t. An executive must agree to a detailed background check, a credit check, and usually an agreement not to ever sue the new company but rather to settle all disputes in arbitration. With this in hand, I gave notice to my old company, Rob gave notice at his company, and we prepared to put our current house up for sale in New Jersey. Stay tuned for what happened next!