One of the things I love most about the work I do is helping women land their first Sr. Director, VP (or even C-level) role. And what I’ve noticed is that the interview is often where everything either clicks or falls apart.
I’ve worked with multiple women who have gone on to land executive roles at organizations where they’ve never worked at that level before. Brand new companies, bigger scope, higher stakes. And the thing that made all the difference in landing the role wasn’t that they suddenly became more qualified. They were already qualified! What shifted was how they showed up in the interview.
Often, we aren't intentional enough about showing up as senior executive material in interviews. But if you're willing to be, it can really pay off.
One of my clients had no problem landing VP-level interviews, but at the end of the process, she kept being offered director-level roles. The reason they gave was that she did not yet have VP experience. Guess what? As soon as we changed how she was presenting herself in these interviews, she landed a VP role. It's not about the experience you already have.
Another one of my clients had only ever been in an acting VP role and was hoping she had the experience to land her first permanent VP role. She even felt nervous about putting ‘acting VP' on her resume! Through an intentional interview process where she focused on showing up as that next-level leader, she did one better, landing her first-time C-suite role instead.
So what do I mean when I say ‘showing up as a VP'? Well, here’s what I’ve learned from sitting on both sides of the table: most women walk into a VP interview and talk about all of the things they’ve done. They run through their experience. They give thorough, detailed answers. And they leave thinking it went well.
But being thorough and detailed isn’t what gets you the role at this level. What gets you the role is showing the interview panel that you already think and communicate like a VP. And that takes preparation that most people don’t do.
So today I want to share three things I always work on with my clients before a big VP interview, because they make an enormous difference in how you’re perceived.
Let’s dive in…
Your elevator pitch should be four lines, not four minutes
When someone says, “Tell me about yourself,” most people launch into a chronological walk-through of their career. Five minutes later, the interviewer’s eyes have glazed over, and you haven’t said anything memorable. This is the fastest way to lose the interviewer before you've even started.
Here’s what I coach my clients to do instead: prepare a four-line elevator pitch that is conversational, practiced, and succinct. Not scripted word-for-word, but practiced enough that it flows naturally and lands with confidence.
Here’s the structure:
Line 1: A one-line summary of your career experience. Something like, “I’ve spent 15 years in commercial leadership in biotech, leading teams across sales, marketing, and operations.”
Line 2-3: Something you’re proud of that you’ve achieved, paired with a skill that’s directly relevant to this role. This is where you show them you’re not just experienced, you’re impactful. “Most recently, I built and scaled a commercial team from 5 to 30 people and helped grow revenue from $10M to $50M. I’m really strong at taking an early-stage function and building the strategy and infrastructure to scale it.”
Line 4: Why you’re excited about this specific role and why it’s a great fit. This is the line most people skip, and it matters more than you think. It shows intentionality. It shows you’ve done your homework. And it tells the interviewer that you’re not just looking for any VP role, you want this one. “Given the stage of (X company) and where you're looking to go in the next 2-5 years, I believe it's a perfect fit for my experience and am confident I can create the same impact here.”
When you nail this, it sets the tone for the entire interview. You come across as clear, confident, and intentional. And the interviewer immediately gets a picture of who you are without having to dig for it.
Prepare 3-5 impact stories (not job descriptions)
This is one of the biggest mistakes I see women make in interviews, and it’s an easy one to fix once you see it.
When you’re asked about your experience or given a behavioural question, most people default to describing what they did. They walk through the situation, the steps they took, and the process they followed. It ends up sounding like a job description being read aloud.
And I get why this happens. You’re trying to be thorough, and often you're thinking on the spot. You also want them to see how much work went into it. But at the VP level, nobody cares about the process. They care about the outcome. They want to know what you achieved and what impact it had on the organization.
So get ahead of this and prepare 3-5 impact stories before a big interview. These are specific examples from your career that clearly articulate what you achieved, not just what you did. Use numbers and quantify the impact, and ideally, ensure they relate directly to the role you’re applying for, so the interviewer can easily picture you doing the same thing for them.
The difference sounds like this:
Job description version: “I led the implementation of a new CRM system across three regions. I managed the vendor relationship, trained the team, and rolled it out over six months.”
Impact story version: “I identified that we were losing deals because our sales team didn’t have visibility into the pipeline. I led the implementation of a new CRM system, and within six months, we saw a 25% increase in close rates and shortened our sales cycle by three weeks.”
Same experience, but with a completely different impression. One sounds like a manager. The other sounds like a leader who understands business outcomes.
Before your interview, map your stories to the key priorities of the role. If the job description emphasizes scaling teams, have a story about building and scaling a team and the results that came from it. If it’s about driving revenue growth, lead with a story where you drove revenue growth and can speak to the numbers. The goal is to make it so easy for the interviewer to connect the dots that they’re already picturing you doing this work for them before you’ve even finished talking.
Also, if you're someone who's been trained to use the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) when sharing your stories, here's a tip: Try sharing the result first instead of last. It can be much more impactful.
Know who you are as a leader and be forthcoming about it
At the VP and C-suite level, the interview isn’t just about whether you can do the job. It’s about whether you’re the right leader for this team and this culture. And that means they’re evaluating your leadership philosophy, whether you articulate it or not.
Most women don’t think about this ahead of time, and if they do, they want to ensure they are sharing answers that will be well received. But this isn't the point! The women who stand out in VP interviews are the ones who can clearly articulate how they lead, what kind of culture they build, and what they believe about developing people.
This matters for another reason that I think is just as important: you want to know if it’s the right fit for you, too.
I’ve seen too many women land roles where the cultural fit was off, and it made everything harder. They walked in excited, and within months, they were questioning whether they had made a huge mistake. Being forthcoming about who you are as a leader isn’t just good interview strategy; it’s how you protect yourself from stepping into the wrong environment. If your leadership philosophy doesn’t align with the organization’s culture, you want to discover that in the interview, not six months into the role.
So before your interview, get clear on your answers to questions like: What kind of culture do you create on your teams? How do you develop people? How do you handle underperformance? What’s your approach to leading through change? How do you think about building trust with a new team?
You don’t need a rehearsed script for these. But you should have a clear sense of your leadership identity so that when these questions come up, you’re sharing something that’s real and grounded, not scrambling for an answer. The women who stand out in VP interviews aren’t the ones who give the “right” answer. They’re the ones who clearly know who they are as leaders and aren’t afraid to say it.
When you walk into an interview with that kind of clarity and willingness to be open about it, it creates a level of confidence and authenticity that is hard to fake. And at the VP level, that’s exactly what they’re looking for.
If you want help landing your first VP role
I’ve helped dozens of women land their first Sr. Director, VP, SVP, and C-level roles, many of them at organizations where they’d never worked at that level before. If you’re ready to start positioning yourself for executive roles, I’d love to help.
BOOK A CALL to learn more about what it's like to work with me.
Until next time friends… ✌️💜
Katy
