Aspiring Chiefs of Staff or existing Chiefs of Staff looking for your next job - how do you ace the interview?

In the wise words of my high school PE teacher: “Play the game, don’t let the game play you.”

You have to understand how the game is played so that you can play to your advantage.

The best hiring teams use a Chief of Staff Interview Scorecard.

In this newsletter, we teach you how hiring teams use scorecards, and how you can present your best self during the interview process.

Interview Scorecards 101

So what’s an interview scorecard?

It’s a hiring document that evaluates a candidate’s Chief of Staff specific competencies and cultural fit. It also identifies areas of concern and delivers a hire / not hire recommendation.

And how does it work?

Hiring teams use interview scorecards to standardize the evaluation of candidates in the interview process. Each interviewer completes a scorecard for each candidate. The hiring team compiles all scorecards to compare rankings and identifies the strongest candidates.

Why is it important?

This establishes a rigorous interview process and promotes more objective assessment. It makes sure everyone is on the same page on how to assess candidates. It also ensures alignment upfront on the ideal candidate.

Ok great, you might be saying, but what does it look like?

Take a look at our template here.

The first section contains administrative details, like Candidate Name, Interviewer Name & Interview Date.

The second section gets right to the Overall Score, Overall Recommendation & Areas of Concern.

The third and final section lists all candidate attributes, and then notes from the interviewer on different categories, along with a score of 1-5.

Attributes include Job Title, Role Deliverables & Long Term Goals. Then comes Tools & Techniques, Experience & Portfolio Examples. Plus Character Traits & Work Style. Career Trajectory, Soft Skills & Culture Fit round out the end of the matrix.

Play to your advantage

So now that you know what the interview scorecard looks like - how do you play the game?

Ask your recruiter or anyone else on the hiring team what they are looking for in an ideal candidate. Question them on what qualities and experiences are the most important in their future Chief of Staff. Go through each of the attributes listed in the template above and gain clarity on which will be weighted more.

Reverse engineer the scorecard.

Figure out your strengths and weaknesses based on the scorecard. Think like a tennis player - you may be good on clay but not so good on hard court. So prepare your interview answers accordingly.

Go into the interview confident that you know exactly what they are looking for and show off your best qualities as a stellar Chief of Staff candidate.

Looking for your next Chief of Staff job?

Thank you to the 50+ folks that signed up for my Chief of Staff Talent Network waitlist on Pallet. It’s now live!

I’ve started to review candidate applications and accept them into my talent collective.

And I’m in the middle of outreaching CEOs who want to gain access to my hand-selected candidate database.

What’s the result? I’ll be able to make warm introductions between CEOs and candidates, making personalized matches on behalf of each party.

Ready to get started? Click this link to complete your application to my Talent Network.

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