I spent the first three days of this week in London interviewing candidates for Edelman Europe’s CEO. My style must be somewhat disconcerting to any candidate in that I do not follow a script nor do I have any specific direction for the conversation. It is a bit like a blind date- you go with the flow, hoping to glean tidbits of a personality and operating style. So much of our business is reacting to crisis or taking advantage of news opportunities. That is why I prefer the spontaneous interchange, probing for the creative spark, intellectual curiosity, business results and the fit with the entrepreneurial ethos of Edelman. I have made mistakes in hiring throughout my career by focusing on the CV of the candidate; now I opt for a honest exchange of views and interpersonal chemistry. Every time I go through this process, I recall the most difficult interview in my life, with the Dean of Admissions for Harvard College.
I was in the fall of my senior year at Phillips Exeter Academy. In those days, a prep school such as Exeter was prime recruiting ground for the top universities. I had pretty good grades, was a scrub (that means bench warmer) on the varsity football team, ran a high school literary magazine and was elected proctor of my dormitory. In short, I was a good but not great candidate for an Ivy League school, long on self confidence and ambition but neither a likely Rhodes Scholar nor Heisman Trophy winner. Over the summer I wrote my application to Harvard and left it in the mailbox for the postman. I will never forget my poor sister coming to the beach where I was sunning with my girlfriend to tell me that my mother had found a typo and that I was to report to the house immediately to fix it.
Flash forward to the fall, a vivid New England day, with a blue sky and crisp weather, leaves turning orange and red on the maples on the Exeter green. It was Harvard’s scheduled visit, to find the best and brightest from our class. I saw that I was selected as the first of seventy young men and that I had been tapped by the Dean himself, the estimable Chase Peterson, not his two young associates from admissions. A lanky but very formal man, dressed in a bow tie, with horn rim glasses that dominated his face, Dr. Peterson (later a noted heart surgeon), grasped my hand firmly and beckoned me to the high-backed wooden chair in front of him. He looked intently at me and asked, “Why did you have a gossip columnist write you a letter of recommendation? Is your application so weak that you needed to go to such lengths for an endorsement?”
I could see that my fate hung on my response to this aggressive opening move. He had decided to take me as his first interview of the day because Ann Landers, famous journalist and long time friend of my mother’s, had written him a letter. He peered over the tortoise shell glasses as he leaned forward, waiting for the inevitable crumbling of the lamb in front of the lion.
“You see Dean Peterson,” I said, “you should take me because I am pretty good at everything and not great at anything. I will not lead your orchestra nor catch the touchdown pass against Yale nor will I finish as valedictorian. You need a few well rounded, normal kids in the class. I am a hard worker who never quits.” He pushed back in his chair and smiled, moving onto more comfortable subjects. I even got him to laugh when I told him the story of my canvassing for votes for Democratic Senate candidate Adlai Stevenson III, when I learned the hard way to position myself sideways when ringing the doorbell in case a German Shepherd answered instead of the owner.
What’s the moral of the story? Turn adversity into opportunity, whether you are in a new business presentation or an interview. Take a chance, go with the big idea, connect when your interlocutor is pushing you the hardest. Think fast on your feet by saying the unexpected and thereby disarming the questioner. Respond as if you are a jujitsu expert, going with the flow but turning it to your advantage. Delivered with enthusiasm, the bold stroke is a winning strategy. Tell me your favorite interview stories and see whether you can top the sheer terror of the Ann Landers moment.