What does AVID EXEC tell candidates and employers most often?
These guides collect what AVID EXEC tells candidates and employers most often — how a senior résumé is actually read, how to prepare for an interview, how compensation is set, and how employers should interview and onboard the people they hire.
For candidates
What makes a résumé work for a senior role?
A senior résumé works when it reads as evidence rather than description. Each role should show scope, the decisions you owned, and outcomes with numbers attached. Tailor a version to each posting using that posting's own language, and lead with the accomplishments the role is actually judged on.
Résumé tipsWhich résumé format should you use?
Reverse-chronological is the default and the safest choice for senior roles, because committees read for progression. A functional format helps career changers but invites suspicion about dates. A hybrid — a short capability summary above a chronological history — is the strongest option for most senior candidates.
Résumé stylesHow should you prepare for a senior-level interview?
Preparation at the senior level means arriving with a point of view. Research the organisation's assets, market and pressures; prepare six evidence-based examples covering scope, conflict and failure; and be ready to describe what you would examine in your first ninety days.
Interview preparationHow do you assess whether an opportunity is right for you?
Assess an opportunity on four things: the mandate, the people you would report to and lead, how the organisation makes decisions, and what happened to the person before you. If a process gives you no visibility on any of the four, treat that as information.
Assessing an opportunityHow much should you expect to be paid?
Compensation is set by the market for the scope of the role, not by what you earned last. Value the whole package — base, bonus structure, benefits, pension, vehicle, vacation and severance terms — and give a researched range rather than a single number when asked.
CompensationHow should you resign from a job?
Resign only after a signed offer is in hand. Tell your direct manager first, in person, with a short written notice letter. Give the notice your contract requires, offer a genuine transition plan, and say nothing negative — Alberta's senior market is small and permanent.
Resigning professionallyHow do you get ready for a job change?
Before you start looking, be clear on why you are leaving, what you want the next role to give you, and what you will not accept. Then get your documents, references and confidentiality in order — a search you start unprepared takes longer and reads as uncertain.
Preparing for a change
For employers
What should an employer ask in a senior interview?
Ask questions that force evidence rather than description. Walk through career decisions and what triggered each one, probe a failure in detail, and test how the candidate would approach the first ninety days of this specific role. Rehearsed answers collapse under follow-up.
Interview questions to askHow should an employer prepare for a new employee's first day?
Have everything ready before day one — workspace, access, payroll, introductions and a written first-ninety-days outline. Senior hires who spend week one waiting for access and clarity start questioning the decision immediately, and replacing them costs several times the preparation.
Onboarding a new hire
Want this applied to your own search?
Guidance is free. A conversation about a specific role, on either side of the table, is more useful.