Young, fresh-faced professionals may have a reputation for flubbing their job interviews, but even senior talent can mess up their chances at the very start. Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman revealed that some C-suite candidates make a serious misstep when it comes to a basic interview expectation: actually looking into the company that they’re applying to.
“I’m mostly talking to executive hires at this point. An obvious red flag is if they haven’t done their homework, which still kind of surprises me,” Wacksman told CNBC’s Make It in a recent interview.
“I’ll talk to folks who are coming in for senior roles, and they’re asking pretty basic questions that you could answer in 10 minutes on Google or 30 seconds in Gemini.”
While waving off unprepared applicants hoping to rest on their track record, the CEO of the $10.5 billion real estate marketplace says he’s looking for candidates who have “thought deeply about the role they’re coming in for. And have thought deeply about what they would add to the job.” It’s the make-or-break factor between landing a C-suite gig or landing in the rejection pile.
One way job candidates can impress Wacksman is by showcasing their intellectual curiosity through asking, not telling. The CEO said that he judges an applicant’s eagerness to learn by the questions they ask—that way, he can assess whether “their passion and their interest [aligns] with the job.” The more “bespoke” the question is to the specific job they’re applying for, Wacksman explained, the better they show “they understand it well.”
