There is a lot of great stuff in your article. I have enjoyed reading. Let me add some observations:
- The skill of understanding P&L is completely missing among mid-managers and below. In tech companies, I met many long-term managers who never came into touch with money.
- I am not with you in interviewing for director+ positions by juniors. I have a negative experience, as these have no practical experience with a job, and often miss life experience. I do not believe structured questions will somehow fix it. In my several recent interviews for director+, I was approached by a junior recruiter in HR. I always got only two questions: 1) do you want to work on a contract or permanent status? (where all three responses were wrong) and 2) how much salary do you expect? This is not answerable if I do not know more about the work, arrangement, habits, etc, especially if the position is in a foreign country and if I do not know to assess what real impact and contribution I can make. After the interview, I can have a better picture. But the interview always ended here. I believe the interview should be a dialogue https://bit.ly/3CCQvAU
- Once I met in an interview with a hiring manager, 15 or more years younger than me. He knew about the domain just a little after a few days of training. His expectations were completely different from what the role was about. I do not want to be a trainer, especially not in the hiring interview.
- I believe management is a profession, which requires training and formation. It is something I rarely see among managers. I am not so sure if all director+ candidates are great in communication and self-promo. I saw many very introverted, who behave poorly in hiring interviews, but they are marvelous in the field.
- In big corporations, there are managerial roles whose purpose is unclear or just a vertical messenger. These people are good in foggy corporate language, but unable to operate as they never had a chance to learn it. I met the CEO/Country Manager of 2000+ company, who has had 6 direct subordinates only, all assistent. Everybody else reported elsewhere in a matrix structure. Such a role is only representative but for business does not matter. The same with fast-track careers - I met a few managers, who change positions every 2 years, CV on LinkedIn is impressive, always CEO reinventing org, and enormous accomplishments. I asked him a few questions about strategy, and he had none. Two years is usually time, after which results start to be visible. If he quit earlier, nobody will discover he did nothing.
Hiring is always a challenge, for any role. But I wouldn't approach it as a task to be done - 30 minutes and goodbye. It takes time to know the person better, and in a dialogue, one can discover where a person fits. The time with an interesting candidate is not a waste of time as it can bring benefits later. It is also not purpose to interview 50 people for a single role when among 10 directors with experience at least 2-3 are fit.
