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Any advice for navigating the marathon executive interview process in academia?

Elaine Varelas provides things to consider during an extensive executive interview process

December 18, 2024

3 minutes to read

Q. I’ve been interviewing for President roles at academic institutions around the country. It’s been an exhausting process as the interviews are typically two days long with back-to-back meetings and dinners in the evenings. During these interview marathons, I meet with approximately 20 people, which requires a lot of preparation if I am to be effective. What is the best way to prepare for these meetings?

A. Congratulations on reaching the executive interview stage for President positions. Academia loves to get everyone’s input and you are feeling the impact of that process. But you know that! You haven’t moved up this far without having the political skills to deal with many constituents. At this level, the position is obviously very important to the organization and they want input from a variety of stakeholders, and consensus.

We asked Howard Seidel, Senior Partner at Essex (a division of Keystone Partners) who works with executives for his thoughts. “Academic institutions interview processes tend to be especially driven by building consensus, coupling multiple one-on-one interviews with often large panel interviews. Some candidates find panel interviews particularly challenging because multiple interviewers can make the interactions feel more formal and less conversational. Don’t be thrown by its more impersonal nature. As with any interview, prepare for how you want to summarize your background and experience, know the backgrounds of the participants, and develop organized and relatively concise answers to anticipated questions.”

Get ahead of the schedule. Often, the schedule is just sent o you with very little thought to your comfort and physical needs during a lengthy process. Please make sure that you have breaks scheduled during the days if they haven’t. We’ll call them rest breaks, but they’re really restroom breaks. You need to have enough time to be able to be able to hydrate. And we know every meal will be part of the interview process. We’ve observed that some organizations only allocate 30 minutes, but they should allow at least 45 minutes if an hour isn’t possible. We understand that they are trying to make the most of their time with you, but you also need to recognize that this is a stress on your body and that your brain needs some down time.

Organizations that aren’t thoughtful about the interview process reveal something about their internal culture, whether they know it or not. And you really need to pay attention if they’ve given this task to a junior person. Someone needs to let that person know that they should treat this person as you would a sitting senior executive or board member. And recognize that they’ll need some downtime during the interview process.

It’s important to take a healthy food break, or at least a snack, during your many interview meetings. Have something in your pocket – just in case. Remember to prioritize your well-being. Frequently, your sleep might be impacted especially if you are flying to a different time zone, and you may have jet lag. Most of us just accept the interview schedule and don’t push back on a full day interview. But you can speak up and say, the schedule looks great, but I’d love to schedule a walk through campus after lunch. Recognize how important it is to keep yourself healthy as you go through the interview process.

Be collegial, and review this schedule document as you would anything else – something that people have dedicated significant time to that most likely has room for improvement. It is perfectly acceptable to have notes on these individuals to help refresh your memory as you transition from one meeting to another during the interview process.

To prepare for these interview meetings, research each of the individuals you’ll be meeting with, yes students too. Gather information about their professional backgrounds, experiences, any interesting personal information, and any mutual LinkedIn connections you may share. Search for any videos featuring the individuals, which will give you a leg up as watching the videos can provide valuable insights into their personality and speaking style.