7 Green Flags that Hiring Managers Look For In Successful Candidates

Earlier this spring, I had the pleasure of speaking with a senior marketing executive at a fortune 50 company who is very passionate about supporting early-in-careers (EICs). This individual wishes to fly under the radar and shall not be named, but has personally supported 100+ students, undergrads, and MBAs and oversees an early-in-career program that has empowered hundreds of people across the U.S.!

Today, I am going to share some tips and insights from our conversation that will help you stand out as a candidate in this very competitive job market.

✅ Explain your thought process

For behavioural or case-type questions, make sure to explain the logic and reasoning behind your approach to a challenge. Sure, you’ll need to know the basic concepts for a particular discipline (e.g. the 4 P’s of marketing for a marketing role), but you aren’t expected to have any experience handling the hypothetical situations that are thrown at you. If you don’t know the answer, try to focus on what facts you do know and apply your existing knowledge and experience to the situation at hand. Walk the interviewer through each step and recommendation that you’re making.

✅ Acknowledge if/when you’re wrong or don’t know something

In a case-type situation, there may come a time when you realized you’ve taken the wrong approach. Instead of ignoring things and continuing on, take ownership and acknowledge that you’ve made a mistake and try another path towards the solution. This shows your maturity and growth mindset.

If asked a question you don’t know the answer to, it’s OK to admit you don’t know. Then, follow up with how you plan to find out the answer (psst… it’s called asking for help!).

✅ Show your interest and investment in the opportunity

How can you show that you’re committed to the job, team, and company?

Talk about relevant skills and experiences. For example: if you’re interested in marketing, then show that you’ve taken marketing courses and worked on marketing projects and gained marketing related skills. If you’re looking to transition from a different discipline (e.g. pivoting from Finance to Marketing), then show that you’ve sought and gained marketing related experience through volunteering, extracurriculars, courses/certifications, etc. These relevant skills and experiences help you get your foot in the door.

✅ Beef up your LinkedIn profile

Some company policies actually do not allow people to share resumes via email when making candidate referrals. Instead, people are encouraged to share LinkedIn URLs. This means you should have a great LinkedIn profile ready in the case that a recruiter or hiring manager checks that out before they even see your resume. Include relevant titles and descriptions, provide a clear scope of work, use concise bullet points, and show your professional licenses and certifications.

Karen’s Tip: Check out Are You Making These 5 LinkedIn Mistakes?

✅ Be authentic to your story

Don’t try to oversell your role or scope, it’s very easy to sniff out exaggeration. Be real about your skills, experiences, successes, failures, etc. If you’ve had to take time off for personal or other reasons, own up to it and explain why (if asked). This is not as much of an issue for hiring managers as it was in the past.

✅ Differentiate yourself and your value add

How can hiring managers make a decision between two strong candidates?

Sometimes, the hiring manager may be asking themselves “What will I lose if I don’t hire X?”

Your job in the interview is to show them what they could be missing out on if they don’t hire you. Show that you’re a bit different from the cookie cutter candidate and emphasize the different perspective that you can bring to the team. Show how you’re flexible and how you’ve successfully adapted to different situations and challenges. Show that you have a growth mindset and know how to ask for help.

✅ Be thoughtful when answering the “tell me about yourself” question

Tell a story beyond what you studied in school. Explain why you chose a certain path vs. another, and how you got to where you are today. Be brave enough to admit if you didn’t (and still don’t) have a 5 year plan or “career strategy” — because it’s totally okay to not know this!

TLDR:

  1. Explain your thought process when answering questions
  2. Acknowledge if/when you’re wrong or simply don’t know the answer
  3. Show your interest and investment in the opportunity
  4. Beef up your LinkedIn profile
  5. Be authentic to your story
  6. Differentiate yourself and your value add
  7. Be thoughtful when telling the interviewer about yourself

Thanks for reading this blog post! Hopefully it is helpful for you as a job seeker.

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Check out The Career Community on LinkedIn to see which hiring managers and recruiter are hiring, and go network with them! It gets updated daily.