Tips for impressing the CEO’s and CFO’s?

pwjohnston

So I have a big interview on Wednesday with the CEO and CFO. Over a two month span I’ve interviewed with a minimum of 6 people from this company and had to deal with weeks of not knowing what is up with the job. Which in this economy has been rather stressful. I probably would have blown these guys off, but I feel like with this position I’m going to have greater latitude to get things done and be in charge for once.

Pluses
Just about every interview I’ve gone on recently has told me the same thing, “you just don’t have enough enterprise level experience.” The only reason I’ve put up with them for so long is because I’ve been getting passed over in interview after interview and with this job I’ll get some real resume adding material like:

More emphasis in a single domain migrating to multi-domain MS / RedHat environment.
More emphasis on MS Domain Infrastructure.
NetApp SAN support
Commvault Tape library support
Cisco Pix and ASA firewall support
Maybe some work with W2k8 and Windows HyperV(they have it on one machine now)

Probable minuses.
They’ve got Asterisk VOIP and legacy Lotus Notes (6.5 I think) environment. Which I think they would like to migrate to Exchange in the future it they can figure out how to get off notes. I’ll also be the desktop support guy for the office and possible customers outside as well.

They have very little inventory control or understanding of just what is in their inventory.

They have broke and busted machines all over the place, well not all over, but around.

Basically I want to go into this interview telling them how I’m going to save them money. I plan doing:

1. A full network inventory of all equipment.
2. As much documentation as possible because as far as I’ve been told there is none.
3. Enacting greater transparency with the Austin office so they know what is going on in the Philly office and provide remote support in the network as necessary (Since I’m going to be a one man show)
4. ?


How do I quantify these things and make them understand that the more efficient the office is the greater benefit it’s going to be to them and they are going to SAVE money?

Any ideas of things I can impress them with?

JDMurray

pwjohnston wrote:

How do I quantify these things and make them understand that the more efficient the office is the greater benefit it’s going to be to them and they are going to SAVE money?

Why do you think that a CEO and CFO would not already know this? Is this a really small or new company with inexperienced executives, or have they been CxO's for a long time?

The CxO's I work with want people who can execute and not just spout ideas. You need to present a description of how you will accomplish your plans and not just why (think tactics and not just strategy). It's also very important that you impress the need from the very top for a full buy-in of your plans or they are likely to fail (this is true for more business processes).

Gogousa

I wouldn't tell them what to do or what should they do until you know the company a little better. If I interview someone and that person is going to tell me what to do with out knowing my company I would tell that person thanks and thats it.
I would tell them my idea of an ideal company or how I would like to do things and how much can I contribute to the company needs and how they would benefit I I work there for them.
I guess yo have passed all those interviews because you are real, just keep being your self and thats it.
Good luck

pwjohnston

JDMurray wrote:

Why do you think that a CEO and CFO would not already know this?

I don’t know what they know and what they don’t to be honest. From talking to lower level manage, HR and the guy who would be my boss I heard things like:

“Here is where you’re desk will be. There are a few laptops here, they might be broken and need to be shipped back I don’t know.”

My boss doesn’t know where any documentation is, that’s surely not a good sign.

Both Admins in Austin acted like they really didn’t know what was going on in the network, documentation, equipment inventory (not only of clients but servers as well) and I have the feeling that the previous Admin kept them in the dark and just did his own thing.

One of them told me that “inventory and documentation were defiantly needed and that “if” I got the job it would probably be a good idea to fly them up once everything was inventoried so that we can see about decommissioning some old machines and consolidating some programs and servers on to some virtualized machines.”

This is a small business, 100 people in the corp office and they provide WiMax iNet service to about 14,000 people in the mid-west.

And, most CEO’s I’ve worked with in the past are doing good if they know how to use their Outlook. Which doesn’t mean that I’ll be condescending, but I just don’t expect them to know much about the network.

I mean it’s taken them 2 months (supposedly because of budget and economy issues) to hire an Admin/Tech and they have NO ONE running things. That surely can’t be smart? Can you imagine a company having 30 to 50 servers and probably 75 ish clients onsite and no on site IT support?

JDMurray wrote:

The CxO's I work with want people who can execute and not just spout ideas. You need to present a description of how you will accomplish your plans and not just why (think tactics and not just strategy).

Ya that’s kind of what I’m looking for, thanks. I do have some specifics I mind, but I didn’t want to be too concrete till I get onsite officially.

Anyway my plan would be to:

1. Inventory everything as quickly as possible, probably with belarc to start, then see if I can’t move them to one of the Belarc professional solutions or something else.
2. If not Belarc, Spiceworks is free and has some pretty good network mapping features, again I haven’t got the job yet so I haven’t done too much research.
3. Start documentation on critical systems (mostly just the servers)
4. Get info collected and get in contact with the guys in Austin who’ve been with the company a while. Then collectively decide what to do next (which will show I’m a team player as well.)

Of course there are a ton of things I don’t know about the company and things may change if I get hired, but I do have a general game plan that should cost them anything more than my time on site.

JDMurray wrote:

It's also very important that you impress the need from the very top for a full buy-in of your plans or they are likely to fail (this is true for more business processes).

How do you do that without overstepping your bounds(chain of command) with your immediate boss? I'm not doing this to climb ladders, take anyone job, or any of that BS, I'm doing this because 1. it'll look great on a resume, 2. the more efficient the network the less downtime and stress I have to put up with, and 3. I think it will be a good experience.

Thanks for the input though, that defiantly helps.

JDMurray

pwjohnston wrote:

JDMurray wrote:

It's also very important that you impress the need from the very top for a full buy-in of your plans or they are likely to fail (this is true for more business processes).

How do you do that without overstepping your bounds(chain of command) with your immediate boss?

You are not overstepping anyone. You need a buy-in on your plans from the entire chain-of-command between you and the CEO. If non-trivial projects don't have support from the very top then they are more likely to fail.

And trying to impress the CFO by cutting costs using free alternatives to commercial software is a good move, but first, find out what the CxO's think of free or Open Source software. Their backgrounds or lack-of-knowledge may have prejudiced them against it. They may want to pay for commercial licenses for everything because they feel more comfortable doing so.

pwjohnston

Gogousa wrote:

I wouldn't tell them what to do or what should they do until you know the company a little better. If I interview someone and that person is going to tell me what to do with out knowing my company I would tell that person thanks and thats it.

I understand what you saying and how they might view it. Who is this new guy coming in with all this, “this is how it’s going to be stuff?” Really I’m not trying to play politics here and I usually have to remind myself of that because when given the opportunity I’ve always been the type of person to take charge. I mean they have no onsite IT support at all. I just don’t actively seek out positions of power because of all of the BS that goes along with them.

I’ve always hated that hypocrisy. Everyone says be your own person, blaze your own path, be a leader, and people will look up to you for it. When actually they just feel threatened and jealous if you do succeed.

Really I’m not trying to make anyone look bad, I just want to get things done and get some good experience on my resume. I want to include everyone in the process.

Gogousa wrote:

I would tell them my idea of an ideal company or how I would like to do things and how much can I contribute to the company needs and how they would benefit I I work there for them.

That would probably be a better idea. I’ll have to think on that one for a while. Thanks.

JDMurray

pwjohnston wrote:

Really I’m not trying to make anyone look bad, I just want to get things done and get some good experience on my resume. I want to include everyone in the process.

You are being interviewed. They want to check if you think like they do or not. The more able you are to demonstrate that you are "cut from the same piece of cloth" as they are the better your chances for getting the job. You only need to worry about "stepping on political toes" if you are already working there.

blargoe

My experience.

If you're on your sixth interview and you're talking to the CFO, then you're pretty much there, as long as you don't say something that sends up a red flag to them. They're not gong to try to assess you technically, that part of the interview is over with. They like it when you ask questions about the company usually. Maybe mention in passing that based on what you've seen so far you've already come up with some ideas to improve efficiency in the job position and save money.

Next step - job offer!

LarryDaMan

blargoe wrote:

My experience.

If you're on your sixth interview and you're talking to the CFO, then you're pretty much there, as long as you don't say something that sends up a red flag to them. They're not gong to try to assess you technically, that part of the interview is over with.
Next step - job offer!

I would generally agree, but this sounds like an unusual situation. Why is a CFO interviewing him anyway? Must be a very small company. Maybe the CFO is also the Network Administrator and the Janitor. 6 interviews is too many anyway, I would not want to work in that kind of bureaucracy.

Turgon

pwjohnston wrote:

So I have a big interview on Wednesday with the CEO and CFO. Over a two month span I’ve interviewed with a minimum of 6 people from this company and had to deal with weeks of not knowing what is up with the job. Which in this economy has been rather stressful. I probably would have blown these guys off, but I feel like with this position I’m going to have greater latitude to get things done and be in charge for once.

Pluses
Just about every interview I’ve gone on recently has told me the same thing, “you just don’t have enough enterprise level experience.” The only reason I’ve put up with them for so long is because I’ve been getting passed over in interview after interview and with this job I’ll get some real resume adding material like:

More emphasis in a single domain migrating to multi-domain MS / RedHat environment.
More emphasis on MS Domain Infrastructure.
NetApp SAN support
Commvault Tape library support
Cisco Pix and ASA firewall support
Maybe some work with W2k8 and Windows HyperV(they have it on one machine now)

Probable minuses.
They’ve got Asterisk VOIP and legacy Lotus Notes (6.5 I think) environment. Which I think they would like to migrate to Exchange in the future it they can figure out how to get off notes. I’ll also be the desktop support guy for the office and possible customers outside as well.

They have very little inventory control or understanding of just what is in their inventory.

They have broke and busted machines all over the place, well not all over, but around.

Basically I want to go into this interview telling them how I’m going to save them money. I plan doing:

1. A full network inventory of all equipment.
2. As much documentation as possible because as far as I’ve been told there is none.
3. Enacting greater transparency with the Austin office so they know what is going on in the Philly office and provide remote support in the network as necessary (Since I’m going to be a one man show)
4. ?


How do I quantify these things and make them understand that the more efficient the office is the greater benefit it’s going to be to them and they are going to SAVE money?

Any ideas of things I can impress them with?

You will need to be careful with this gig. I wouldn't make too many promises at this stage. Your ideas are good but they will require time and documenting infrastructure is a very timeconsuming business. In all probability you are going to be run off your feet supporting what they have for a while with all it's problems. If the documentation is poor or non existant it could take you at least three months to find the time to get the infrastructure down. At that point you are in a position to tentatively make some recommendations for improvements. Improvements take time and money. So you could be looking at a one year window to move things forward there, even longer if you don't have the backing.

My advice is to take the job and settle in. Concentrate on learning what they have and what it does and how they use if first. If you spot things that are dangerous bring them to the attention of management immediately and put it on a snag list which you can go over with management in three months time. At that point you should have a better feel for how everything hangs together and the issues. But at the moment get up to speed with keeping things running as they are and concentrate on that. Improvements can come later. If the place is a teetering pile of crockery and there is no real support from management to do things properly you can assess your options but give it 6 weeks first. You will learn a lot about the requirements by then and what is doable in the present setup. You will not significantly change things for the better if you are spending all day simply keeping everything up and running. Much depends on how things were setup there and how they have been maintained. So if the support requirements are a shocker and things are just not right all over you are going to need lots of backing in terms of time and money to straighten things out. If that isn't forthcoming, get experience there and look for another job.

One thing you should look at straight away is backups. Make sure they have some. Also see what support contracts they have in place for anything and start making calls against those contracts to get some help with the things they are running.

pwjohnston

LarryDaMan wrote:

I would generally agree, but this sounds like an unusual situation. Why is a CFO interviewing him anyway? Must be a very small company.

They have "supposedly" had some budgetary issues. I say supposedly, but in this economy it's entirely possible.

If you want the back story it's here:
http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=275991#275991

I personally think they have the CFO there because they are going to offer me even lower salary(less than 52K) because this economy has a lot of people at a disadvantage. I really need this job.

My strategy is that if I can offer to save them money they "MIGHT" be less inclined to try and drop my wage.

pwjohnston

Turgon wrote:

You will need to be careful with this gig. I wouldn't make too many promises at this stage. Your ideas are good but they will require time and documenting infrastructure is a very timeconsuming business. In all probability you are going to be run off your feet supporting what they have for a while with all it's problems. If the documentation is poor or non existant it could take you at least three months to find the time to get the infrastructure down. At that point you are in a position to tentatively make some recommendations for improvements. Improvements take time and money. So you could be looking at a one year window to move things forward there, even longer if you don't have the backing.

My advice is to take the job and settle in. Concentrate on learning what they have and what it does and how they use if first. If you spot things that are dangerous bring them to the attention of management immediately and put it on a snag list which you can go over with management in three months time. At that point you should have a better feel for how everything hangs together and the issues. But at the moment get up to speed with keeping things running as they are and concentrate on that. Improvements can come later. If the place is a teetering pile of crockery and there is no real support from management to do things properly you can assess your options but give it 6 weeks first. You will learn a lot about the requirements by then and what is doable in the present setup. You will not significantly change things for the better if you are spending all day simply keeping everything up and running. Much depends on how things were setup there and how they have been maintained. So if the support requirements are a shocker and things are just not right all over you are going to need lots of backing in terms of time and money to straighten things out. If that isn't forthcoming, get experience there and look for another job.

One thing you should look at straight away is backups. Make sure they have some. Also see what support contracts they have in place for anything and start making calls against those contracts to get some help with the things they are running.

Thanks, that's a lot to think about. The servers and back up are defiantly going to be MY first priority. Making sure all the critical systems are well documented and that backups are being done correctly. The last IT guy told me they were, but that amounts to nothing since I'm going to be the one responsible for them.

blargoe

I saw on your other thread where you had concerns about the benefits and such. The company I'm with now, when they offered me a temp to perm contract, offered to pay for my COBRA expenses as a compromise. They wanted to show a good faith measure that they intended to bring me on board, but they had just gone to a policy of not hiring IT people and certain other people directly because of some issues that had gone on in the past that had shaken the higher-up folks' confidence in the IT hiring managers.

steve_f

I had a 3rd round interview with a CEO a while back. Got the job, didn't take it in the ennd.

A few days before the interview, my job agency told me that what needed to do to impress the CEO was:

To know exactly what the company does, how they make money.

Search google news for recent articles about them (especially financial ones) and search for major stories of the past 3 years.

Also have questions ready, like "what are the challenges in the future for the company", "Are there any big projects coming up" "How does the company compare to its major competitors" etc.

A CEO presumes you are interested in IT, and competent. That's why it took 5 minions to filter you before you get to talk to them personally. They want to know that you are interested in their company. Not much more than that. If you were going for a business/finance role, they might crunch some numbers with you. But not with an IT support person.

Good luck. Be interested, and interesting. If they do ask tough questions, don't be afraid to take time to think before answering.

Turgon

pwjohnston wrote:

So I have a big interview on Wednesday with the CEO and CFO. Over a two month span I’ve interviewed with a minimum of 6 people from this company and had to deal with weeks of not knowing what is up with the job. Which in this economy has been rather stressful. I probably would have blown these guys off, but I feel like with this position I’m going to have greater latitude to get things done and be in charge for once.

Pluses
Just about every interview I’ve gone on recently has told me the same thing, “you just don’t have enough enterprise level experience.” The only reason I’ve put up with them for so long is because I’ve been getting passed over in interview after interview and with this job I’ll get some real resume adding material like:

More emphasis in a single domain migrating to multi-domain MS / RedHat environment.
More emphasis on MS Domain Infrastructure.
NetApp SAN support
Commvault Tape library support
Cisco Pix and ASA firewall support
Maybe some work with W2k8 and Windows HyperV(they have it on one machine now)

Probable minuses.
They’ve got Asterisk VOIP and legacy Lotus Notes (6.5 I think) environment. Which I think they would like to migrate to Exchange in the future it they can figure out how to get off notes. I’ll also be the desktop support guy for the office and possible customers outside as well.

They have very little inventory control or understanding of just what is in their inventory.

They have broke and busted machines all over the place, well not all over, but around.

Basically I want to go into this interview telling them how I’m going to save them money. I plan doing:

1. A full network inventory of all equipment.
2. As much documentation as possible because as far as I’ve been told there is none.
3. Enacting greater transparency with the Austin office so they know what is going on in the Philly office and provide remote support in the network as necessary (Since I’m going to be a one man show)
4. ?


How do I quantify these things and make them understand that the more efficient the office is the greater benefit it’s going to be to them and they are going to SAVE money?

Any ideas of things I can impress them with?[/quote

How did it go?

pwjohnston

Turgon wrote:

How did it go?

I did get the job. Started last Monday. So you guys defiantly had some good suggestions. Thank You. The only problem, now I'm the sole IT guy because the IT Director is leaving. >;(

Good thing, I have control over the entire IT at corp, bad thing, I don't think they have an IT budget or well any respect for IT at all. The network and documentation are a mess, they have about 2 dozen servers and are barely paying me for SysAdmin duties let alone the tasks I'm going to have to do from the IT Directors role. Hello IT management 101.

But hey it's a job and in this economy that's good, right?


Oh and I just took my 284 (today) and passed so bring on the holidays!

Turgon

pwjohnston wrote:

Turgon wrote:

How did it go?

I did get the job. Started last Monday. So you guys defiantly had some good suggestions. Thank You. The only problem, now I'm the sole IT guy because the IT Director is leaving. >;(

Good thing, I have control over the entire IT at corp, bad thing, I don't think they have an IT budget or well any respect for IT at all. The network and documentation are a mess, they have about 2 dozen servers and are barely paying me for SysAdmin duties let alone the tasks I'm going to have to do from the IT Directors role. Hello IT management 101.

But hey it's a job and in this economy that's good, right?


Oh and I just took my 284 (today) and passed so bring on the holidays!

Good news. Good luck in the new job and enjoy the holidays. Don't make too many promises or try to change things too quickly early doors. It could be a stressful job.