5 Reasons Why You’re Not Landing Leadership Roles

Going from resume to interview is a positive sign that your background is desirable. Getting offers for more pay is a positive sign that you are interviewing well enough to convince employers to want you around. If you don’t already have a middle management or executive title at your current employer, expecting your next employer to give you one is a stretch. Companies typically hire people into roles they have done before (i.e., a similar level of responsibility).

One exception is if you’re changing employer sizes. If you go from big to small, you might get a title bump. If you go from small to big, you might see your title drop since middle management roles at big companies may have the same or larger scope than an executive role at a smaller company.

5 reasons you might not be landing leadership roles:

1. Executive Presence.  Do you come across as someone others will follow? Is your posture confident? Do you maintain steady eye contact? Is the cadence, pace and volume of your voice engaging, assertive and compelling? Recruiters assess numerous factors on the executive presence checklist. While this isn’t the only thing companies consider when determining the level at which someone is hired, improving your executive presence only improves your chances both with prospective employers and with career advancement at your current company.
2. Interview Technique.  As you move through the hiring process, are you acing the interviewing at the leadership level? Are you engaging each interviewer on the issues that leaders will decide — strategic vision, bottom line impact, employee engagement? Are you showing a grasp of the prospective employer’s pain points and demonstrating an original point of view for how you will approach these problems? Treat senior level interviews like consulting RFPs – you are an expert on their business, uncovering potential opportunities with insightful questions, and sharing enough of your expertise that you’re perceived as the solution.
3. Interview Examples.  Remember that companies hire people who have already done a similar job. Title bumps are rare, so you need to give the impression that you are already operating at the C-level in order to be hired as such. Your interview examples should include stories about how you initiated new ideas or processes, as well as measurable results that impact the bottom line. Your examples should specify how many people and dollars you have managed. Ideally, you have stories that show you can get results in up and down markets.
4. Interview Follow-up.  Are you staying top of mind by following up regularly and consistently in between interviews? The hiring process extends over multiple rounds, especially for leadership roles. Keep track of everyone that you have met, as well as what you have specifically discussed with each of them. Send personalized follow-up emails that engage each interviewer uniquely based on what you discussed. This differentiates you as someone who listens and cares about them specifically. While this type of customized follow-up is helpful to candidates at all levels, it’s especially important at the leadership level, where there are often multiple decision-makers across different departments, with different priorities and preferences. Being able to juggle these different constituents is something you will need to do as a leader, and starting these relationships now will help you get the job and onboard smoothly.
5. Leads In Your Pipeline.  There are fewer available roles as you ascend into leadership – the typical company structure is a pyramid. Maintaining a healthy amount of leads in your job search pipeline is always important, but even more important when there are fewer overall roles.

There are so many variables in the hiring process that it’s hard to pinpoint any one reason why a job search isn’t yielding the results you want. If you want to land a leadership role, make sure you’re performing at a high level with all five factors above. Consider targeting smaller companies where they may be more open to giving you a higher title to land your big company experience.