What CEOs look for during a job interview
Compiled by Chathurika Jayawardana,
HR Consultant
(Small & medium-sized enterprises)
Chathurika Jayawardana
Data published by the Department of Census and Statistics reveals that the unemployment rate in Sri Lanka soared to 5.7 percent by the first quarter of 2021. The most probable reason for this is the pandemic, which forced many employers to do away with certain job roles. For those who are job hunting currently, landing a job can be quite a challenging process unless you know how to convince the CEO of the company that you care about the success of their business and will do everything it takes to grow it, despite the pandemic.
You may have two to three rounds of interviews during the hiring process within the same company. The final interview being a meeting with the CEO or Managing Director, which is good news, because you are close to being selected. It is most likely that you are the only candidate who has moved ahead to this (almost) final stage of the recruitment process. The hiring team sets up this interview because it is the CEO who approves all the incoming talent into the company. You may consider it like the final person signing off a settlement. However, it’s not a done deal until he/she decides that you are the perfect candidate for the job.
How can you convince a CEO that the value you bring to their company will be totally worth the salary they pay you? I’ve invited CEOs across different industries to share their individual views on what particularly they look for in a candidate during a job interview, so you can be prepared for this otherwise nerve-racking experience. Let’s hear it from the CEOs without further ado.
A. M. Weerasinghe
Candidate’s career goals must
complement the company objectives
A. M. Weerasinghe, Founder of Royal Ceramics and Chairman of multiple organisations, verifies if the candidate has the ability and capacity to perform the duties efficiently. He also considers the goals achieved in the previous organisations, instances they have failed, how they have gone out of the way to achieve something extraordinary and so on. He pays attention to the competencies that a candidate brings to the table and if they intersect with the job requirements and the work environment. He is also interested to know why a candidate wants to leave his previous employer and how he expresses his reasons which would count on his respectability. He throws light on the fact that the career goals of the candidates must meet the business growth objectives of the company. If a candidate has been job-hopping very frequently, it’s possible that they do not have their career planned out. Hiring such a candidate might be a risk as it may disrupt the company’s business strategy in numerous ways.
Discipline in conducting business and
professionalism in the workplace
Danesh Abeyrathne
Danesh Abeyrathne, CEO of LOLC Advanced Technologies, believes that a great attitude and personality will play a huge part in adapting to a new role. He further explains that, most certainly hard skills are required to execute the job role, however attributes such as discipline, credibility, corporate responsibility and loyalty will ensure that the hard skills are deployed effectively towards professional success. The highest degree or most needed skillset will not balance out for dishonesty or misconduct. When advancing one’s career to a senior position, one must constantly display discipline in character to be accepted as a responsible and respectful leader.
Dhanushka Fernando
Integrity and
loyalty are key
values one must uphold
Certainly, the right set of skills is needed to get the job but are you someone who is committed to maintaining integrity through all business dealings? An employer who values integrity as an important virtue is Danushka Fernando, the CEO at Inmarc Holdings & Finez Capital Ventures. He pays heed to how respectfully the candidate upholds the reputation of the current organisation. The next important thing he looks for in a candidate is the attitude and how enthusiastic the candidate is towards the bigger purpose of the organisation they intend to be a part of. He often asks the candidates about something that is not mentioned on the CV, which allows the candidate to make a self-assessment of their personality and character. He thus identifies if the individual’s personality would suit the job role.
Emotional
Dilan Rajapakse
quotient over
intelligence quotient
A candidate’s great attitude is one of the indicators of his potential to perform well within a team. IQ matters but EQ also matters to work collaboratively within a team environment. A person with a higher EQ level accepts feedback from co-workers and works towards making improvements. Higher EQ helps them to understand other people better. Dilan Rajapakse, Managing Director of VitalHub Innovations Lab, considers the ability to work independently as a prerequisite when hiring in this remote working era. If the individual is a self-starter, they would be productive despite working away from office. He looks for motivational cues that tells him that a candidate has the innate drive to perform.
Ability to fit with organisation’s culture and humility to grow with the business
Dulari Senaratne
Ramesh Ranasinghe
Directors of The Island Muse Pvt Ltd, Dulari Senaratne and Ramesh Ranasinghe, pay attention to the body language of the candidate, be it an in-person or a virtual interview. If they can make a great first impression, there is no doubt that such an individual has the capacity to thrive within the organisation. They often ask the customary questions about their strengths and weaknesses. They believe that being aware of one’s weaknesses and speaking about it is being able to accept criticism which helps professional development. There are candidates who walk into the interview without studying about the company and its products or services. A candidate who does his research will be able to gauge if their personal values will fit with the core values of the company and its vision. Mr. Ranasinghe firmly believes that an individual who can fit in well with the organisation’s culture would be able to take the business forward.
Eagerness to embrace new
skills and technology
Dulendra Udukumbure
An employee’s potential to grow within an organisation is seriously considered by some CEOs. One such employer is Dulendra Udukumbure, CEO of Thrive Hive. He considers the most important quality in an interviewee to be the willingness to acquire new skills and embrace new technology and their pace of grasping. Only then will growth of the business and career advancement of the candidate happen simultaneously. In his view, an adaptable candidate practices authenticity, is open-minded to listen to other’s opinions, is flexible about taking on new tasks and is rather comfortable in taking on risks. Another aspect he particularly notices is the readiness of the candidate to take on the role, which is clearly depicted by his readiness for the interview.
Empathy on how the
company could progress
Imthiyaaz Hassim
Imthiyaaz Hassim, CEO/Co-founder of SIXER VIDEO, expects the candidate to be completely honest about why the candidate wants the job and their own perspective about the job and the business. He also tries to identify the candidate’s positive attitude through his speech, gestures and facial expressions. According to him, a must-have attribute is empathy, since practicing empathy goes a long way in closing and managing a deal.
High level of self-motivation
over anything else
Manjarie Tissera
The pandemic compelled most companies to switch to working from home. Manjarie Tissera, Deputy Chairman of Ceylon Brand House Pvt Ltd, emphasises that given the situation, the principle attribute she must look for in candidates is ‘the motivation to work’. Determining self-motivation at the interview can be extremely difficult. Some candidates appear very motivated during the interview and it’s easy to build a false perception. She often gets creative in identifying the truly result-driven individuals and probes into evidence. Is the person on a pursuit of continuous self-development? How has the person stayed focused on their goals despite many failures? And as a fundamental requirement, has the person researched about the company before the interview?
Adaptability is one of the
top skills in demand
Subodha Perera
Subodha Perera, Managing Director of E-consulate, is another employer who has come to the realisation that technical skills can be taught, whereas soft skills such as adaptability to new technology is not impossible to develop in a person. So, when hiring he focuses on this skill. He also pays attention to the candidate’s logical thinking pattern. It may not be tangible or easily measurable at the time of the interview but when he digs deeper into scenarios where the candidate has had to take ownership of a team or the most significant problems they have solved, their responses portray these skills. Being a high-tech employer, his other prerequisites when hiring are the capability of self-learning and logical-thinking skills.