How Do I Prepare For A Director Interview?

What are the essential steps in preparing for a director job interview? The ZD team share their executive interview tips.

Director interview preparation – essential steps

The thing with preparing for a director interview is that you’ve been here before. This won’t be your first exec-level interview. The things that served you well when you were aiming for promotion to regional manager or head of department will still be effective.

So what are the things that can make the difference when you’re thinking specifically about director interview preparation? Those of us who’ve spent a lot of time with exec-level candidates feel the following are the three elements that matter most.

Show your role in making a difference

When you’re operating at the highly strategic level and delegating the implementation to others, it can be harder to put your finger on the specific difference you made. Those that can – who can point to their role in the high level considerations and strategic discussions that led to success – will have an advantage. So when preparing for director interview, ensure you can clearly show what you did to develop the plan, set the strategy, solve the problem etc, and the impact that had.

Demonstrate the strategic view

An experienced director knows how to take the helicopter view that enables them to see across the whole business. They know how to ask the crucial questions at the crucial time, and have experience in making the tough decisions that need to be made.

If you have that experience, show it in the ways we explore below. If you don’t have quite that level of strategic track record, consider the examples you can use that show your understanding, capability, and readiness to step up to the next level.

Do the preparation

Good candidates have their stories and case studies well prepped. Great candidates dig deep into the business they’re applying to to understand its culture, values and the issues affecting the business. They’re then able to tailor their stories to match the moment. Preparation – and being able to show you’ve clearly done your research just from the details you weave into your answers – counts for a lot.

What are some common interview questions asked in director interviews, and how should they be addressed?

Interview readiness for directors is all in the preparation, and no preparation is more valuable than anticipating the interview questions coming your way and having some well-prepared responses ready to go.

• How would you describe your leadership style?
• What’s your vision for the organisation/department?
• What makes you the ideal candidate for this role and why?
• How do your values align with ours?
• How do you drive cultural as well as strategic change – can you share an example?
• What’s the biggest business challenge you’ve had to solve and how did you do it?
• Tell us about a time you had to drive strategic change. What did you do?
• What’s the one skill you’d most like to improve while you’re with us?
• What’s the one change you would make to improve our market share?
• Why are you leaving your current role?

How can candidates effectively showcase their qualifications and leadership skills in a director interview?

We’re into ‘show, not tell’ territory here. Your CV or application already has the core information an interviewer might need, so there’s no point in repeating it verbally.

Showcasing your capability and leadership skills, then, isn’t about saying it, it’s about showing it. How do you do that? Here are our executive interview tips.

Tell stories: Pick an example from the last year or so that shows you at your best. Use the following format:

• Briefly set the scene and the challenge you were faced with
• Explain how you resolved the issue.
• Discuss outcomes, that is, the difference you made

Of course, you don’t know exactly what you’re going to be asked, but you can anticipate the broad areas likely to come up. So as part of preparing for your director interview, think about the stories you can tell that touch on two or three of those potential interview questions, and practice telling your story and shifting its emphasis.

For example, let’s suppose your current employer recently acquired a smaller company, and you led the merger of that brand into yours. That’s a task which likely had strategic and tactical elements. There was probably a big communication part to it.

And you probably had some significant obstacles to overcome too. Think about how you might tell the story, then consider how you might amend it to focus on the strategic, obstacle or communication elements.

With this approach, you only need a handful of stories up your sleeve to be able to answer lots of potential questions.

A final point here, you’ll want to make sure that your examples, case studies and stories are at the level you’re applying to. Interview readiness for directors means looking for examples that have weight, impact and importance. How you managed the outcomes from the merger is a big deal. How you managed a store opening – unless it’s a phenomenal answer – probably isn’t.

Demonstrate development: A good way to showcase you qualify is to show how committed you are to going further (and namechecking existing qualifications you already have as part of that).
So any question about learning becomes not about what you’ve done (which is already in your CV), but the areas you have targeted for improvement next. This shows you’re self-aware, not content to rest on your laurels and take a strategic approach to your development.

Look for opportunities to be a leader: You’re here to be interviewed, but it’s just possible that something will happen or someone will say something that will give you the opportunity to show you are an empathetic, engaged leader.
One of our team tells the story of the candidate who had arrived for the exec interview and was waiting at reception behind a contractor who was tearing a verbal strip off the receptionist. She intervened and calmed the situation while dealing firmly with the contractor.

While no one from the interview panel was there to witness the incident, her willingness to step in and the manner in which she dealt with the incident clearly made its way back to the panel.

The moral of the story: always be ready.

Be smart about the questions you ask: Every interviewer knows there are two types of questions that candidates ask. One is the pre-prepared, don’t-really-care-about-the-answer-but-I-suppose-I-need-to-ask-something question.

The other is the insightful question that picks up on something an interviewer said, which is asked in a thoughtful way that shows an understanding of the topic. You don’t need us to tell you which one is better.

Ask for feedback: Leaders want to get better at what they do. So ask for feedback. You won’t ask for it there and then. But signpost that you will be seeking it in the next couple of days and follow up with an email.

Director interview preparation with Zachary Daniels

We’ve got a serious track record in director-level appointments. If you’re ready for your next move, we’re ready to help in finding you the right role, and prepare for director interview and onboarding.

To take your next career step, talk to us now.