How to Pass the Phone Screen Interview for Director, VP, and C-Level (9 Questions)

Senior level roles don't grow on trees. So when you get a first round job interview, you better know how to ace it. The good news is this interview is the most predictable, and I have interviewed as a recruiter and coached as a career coach thousands of director, VP, and C-level professionals such as Diane, who failed 30 interviews in a row before getting coaching, and within weeks I helped her to land 4 job offers. So let's walk through the 9 things you you should expect in a first-round phone screen and how to ace it. And stay to the end because you will very likely be asked what salary you want, and I have the exact phrasing of what you should say to maximize your earnings. Here are some rapid-fire first tips to start us off, and then I'm going to walk through my exact call script. First, phone interviews are often half an hour or less, so you need to be concise. Every answer you give should take you a minute or less, maybe 2 minutes if the question is really juicy. If they don't get through all of their questions, that increases the likelihood that you will be rejected. Second, have notes out. Your notes should include things like reminders about key accomplishments you want to touch on, key points in the job description, your research on the company, your research on the interviewer, and questions you want to ask the interviewer. Third, take notes throughout the call. They are going to give you lots of answers of what they're looking for in the role, and then take this language and parrot it back to them in the future interviews about yourself. You are going to forget it if you don't take notes. Fourth, always ask questions if they ask you, do you have any questions for us? You've got to, and I will link a document with 15 excellent questions to ask below, but I'll give you one here that I don't mention in that document, which is goals. It's not unusual for senior level roles to be left open for a while. And so if I sense that the role has been unfilled for a stretch of time, I'll ask the question of, how far are you into the search for this role? Has it been a few weeks, months? Sometimes they'll say something like, eh, it's been a few months and it's been tough to find the right person. And I'll ask, oh man, what seems to be missing from a lot of the candidates you're speaking to? And they will spill the beans on what the hiring manager is most hung up on. Now you know what to emphasize, or if it's also a weakness you have, you could strategize on how you can address that area and overcome it. All right, let's get into the questions. Question number 1 in the interview is typically, how are you? And you may not have realized, but yes, that question very much counts and very much matters. Have an energetic sentence that shows warmth and shows that you're in control and you're not afraid to give questions back to them, such as, I'm great. This is my 3rd morning doing tea instead of coffee, and I'm really liking it.

How about you?

The secret to small talk is it doesn't really matter what you say. People are just grateful that you're talking and not making things awkward. Now, I personally love coffee, but it has too much caffeine, so I drink tea instead. Are you team tea or coffee? Let me know in the comments. Next, the interviewer will likely ask if you are familiar with what the company does, especially if it's an executive recruiter or someone who sourced you and invited you to interview, which for my senior-level clients usually is around 50% of their interviews come from being sourced. So if you need help with that, I will link coaching below. But when the recruiter asks if you're familiar with the company, say something like, yes, I downloaded the app.

Yes, I was on your website last night.

Yes, I saw a news article of the new product that just launched. And then say, but I'd love to hear more about the company from your perspective. It's always helpful to hear how companies characterize themselves. The third question you may be asked is of course the infamous tell me about yourself. Or walk me through your resume. Here is how you answer. The only reason someone asks you, tell me about yourself, is if they didn't properly prepare for this interview. So in this moment, they are looking to be led by you. You need to lead them to know what is important about you, and that will shape their questions in the interview. Which brings us to the second point, which is that you know as you climb into the big leagues of an organization, the checks may get bigger, the hours often get longer, but the communication gets short. So your answer to this Needs to be 2 minutes, maybe 3 minutes if it's really that good. Step 1, your professional identity. You lead with who you are both by title and with a summarizing accomplishment statement. So this helps the interviewer to confirm, okay, good, we're talking to someone who knows our world. Step 2, your highlight reel.

I want you to go in reverse chronological order of your past jobs and pull out Summarizing accomplishment statement for each of your past roles.

Not necessarily your biggest accomplishment per se, but your most relevant accomplishment. You can even follow this 3-part formula. 1, name a major challenge or opportunity you inherited.

2, say what you did to transform it, such as their hiring, the process, the strategy, whatever.

And 3, say the big result that follows. Step 3, why this role you're interviewing for is the best next move. Here's where you show strategic thinking. You're not just excited about the company, you're showing that you understand the specific challenges and how your expertise maps to them.

Don't say something generic here about why you wanna join the company saying things like, I love your mission, or you have a great culture.

That is a junior level answer. Instead, you want to look at the job description and consider what legitimately interests you about the role. So if you've spoken with other people on the team, what did they say that made you feel that you could do well in this job. Okay, here's an example.

I'm a finance leader focused on financial planning and forecasting in growth stage companies. In my current role as director of FP&A, I've managed a planning function for a company that scaled from $90 million to $250 million in revenue over 3 years. I led the end-to-end budgeting cycles, built forecast models that reduced variance by 18%, and partnered closely with product and sales leadership to align our capital investments with the strategy. So I did a lot of translating complex financial models into actionable insights for these non-financial executives. Before that, I spent several years in corporate finance where I streamlined our month-end close process, cutting it from 15 days to 8, and built a team responsible for variance analysis and board-level financial presentations. And then earlier in my career, I held several analyst roles. And then what drew me to this VP of Finance role at your company is is after speaking with Chelsea on your team, she explained your recent funding and the direction you're heading in.

And this is a phase where forecasting and strategic capital allocation will be a big focus.

And that's exactly the work I've loved doing.

The fourth question they may ask you is, what are you looking for in your next role?

Hello.

The person on the other end of the phone is trying play matchmaker here to figure out if what you want in your next role is the same as what they're offering. This isn't meant to be a trick question. They genuinely want to make sure that this is a beautiful, magical fit on both sides. But of course, if what you describe isn't really the type of role they're offering, you're likely to get disqualified here. For this question, you should answer how this role you're interviewing for fits what you want next, such as if the job description says you'll be overseeing both sales and marketing departments, you can say, "I have deep expertise in both sales and marketing, so ideally my next role allows me to focus on both." Match made in heaven. The 5th question is a variety of logistics. Can you commute 5 days a week to our location? Are you legally able to work in this country? When is the soonest you'd be able to start for this role? For those questions, answer directly for the most part, though I do have client situations that are a little bit unique that I have to coach them on a better response. The 6th question a recruiter may ask you is, why do you want to leave your job? Or why did you leave your last job? When you are at a director, VP, or C-level, your answer to this question is more high pressure because they are worried that you may be difficult to work with. You were fired from your last job. At this level, your impact on the culture is outsized. So they are looking for any early warning signs that you're capital T trouble right here in River City. Trouble right here in River City. If you were sourced, your answer is simple. I like where I work, though when I was reached out to about this opportunity and I researched what you all were doing, I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't explore it. Otherwise, this answer should be concise, and hopefully you can say something that is no fault, such as the company got acquired and my role was redundant. I moved cities and couldn't keep the job. Over time, the commute wore on me, so now I'm looking for something closer, or something that is a pull. Like, a former boss reached out with an excellent opportunity. I have a full video on this with 9 example answers that I will link below if you need further help on this. The 7th question that is common is, what makes you interested in this role and company? You may be sensing a trend here. Again, they're asking this for fit reasons. Companies want people who want them. So share how you're passionate and interested in the role. Here is how to answer.

When answering, why do you want this job? Why do you wanna work here? You should touch on 3 potential areas. The first is the role. This is the most important thing to talk about because they aren't looking for someone who simply loves the company and is trying to get their foot in the door.

No, they want someone who is all in on this specific role, the duties, the projects, the goals.

They want you to be a master of it and see yourself in this role for years to come. So say, say, specifically why this role is the best next career move for you. Geek out about what you like about the duties, how you're eager to jump in on the projects that you'd work on, and how you feel like you could make a great impact. Next, you can talk about the team. Talk about the people you've met in the interview process, if this question comes up a few interviews in, and say their darn names. Okay? It's going to sound like you're already a member of the team. Say specifics of what stood out to you in the conversations with them, how you could learn so much from them, and vice versa. How you could see you all working well together, and how working with great people makes all the difference. You know, you're lobbing on that sweet praise of true things that you noticed about the team. Finally, you can talk about the company. Discuss what you like about the product, what you're looking forward to accomplishing, why you're excited about the future of this industry, and how you feel that the company is aligned with your values. Now, warning, I would say stay away from an answer that includes things like the location, commute, salary, benefits, because a lot of that is quite similar across roles and companies. Such as a huge mistake I see people making is they answer this question with one of the reasons being, I'm really interested in this role because it is remote. Okay, millions of jobs are remote. It's like asking someone why are they interested in dating you and they say it's because you have brown hair. Not really a reason with any sort of depth that you would feel good about.

The 8th question will be a variety of questions around the skills you need to have for this role. This is to ensure that anyone who moves on to the video or on-site interviews meets the core qualifications of the role. And at the senior level, these often come in behavioral tell me about a time when questions to evaluate those skills. Now I've created a full video on answering behavioral interview questions as a senior level professional, which I will link below. And I'm able to predict what these questions will be with a pretty good accuracy for my clients, just based on the job description and the type of company it is. So Pour over the job description thinking about what are these core skills that you'll be asked about. And number 9 is the dreaded money conversation. Ugh, you may be asked, do you have any compensation requirements? Or what is your target salary? And here are a few key steps. First, it's best to ask them what their range is so you don't have to play this twisted game show where you're trying to say a number that they're willing to pay without negotiating against yourself and going too low. For senior level roles, it's best to push off the negotiation until they see your value towards the end of the hiring process so that they are more likely to be flexible. You have no negotiation power at the beginning. But if you do need to say a range, you can say it in a detached way, such as, "A lot of senior roles I'm seeing in the market are paying anywhere from dollar amount to dollar amount. Is that what you're seeing?" And this takes the pressure off of you of demanding a certain amount and can shift based on their reaction. I also have quite the surprise for you. I created a cheat sheet that goes along with this video so you don't have to take copious notes, and you get it because you stayed to the very end, my friend. It's linked below for free. Be sure to like this video and subscribe to this channel.

You've got this. Wi-Fi high five.