Dr. Geoff Smart

Geoff Smart is the #1 thought leader on the #1 topic in business. He is the Chairman & Founder of ghSMART, a leadership consulting firm, and his purpose is to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.

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Do You Know Someone Who Has What It Takes to Get Hired to the Consulting Firm Ranked #1 in Overall Satisfaction?

It was perhaps weird that I posted my last blog about a mentee who was trying to get hired to his dream job before knowing if my advice worked in his case! A few days after my post, he told me he followed the tips and he did end up getting hired to his dream job, as CEO of a hospitality company. And he is loving his job.

What a wonderful thing it is to have a job you love.

Speaking of having a job you love, please make someone’s day and give some thought to this question:

Do you know someone who has what it takes to get hired to the consulting firm ranked #1 in overall satisfaction?

To answer that question, you need to know what firm has the most satisfied people, and who gets hired.

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Three Things to Say and Get Hired to Your Dream Job

Last week, a mentee asked me a question.

“Geoff, a headhunter says I’m one of two [finalists for my first CEO job] with a decision to be made shortly. Any thoughts on how to close the deal, or let it close itself?”

His question sent a lightning bolt of excitement through me. How far he had come to be in a position to land his first CEO job!

This is not your stereotypical CEO candidate in the beginning.

When I met him, he was a high school junior attending a low-income/high-crime high school. It was the kind of school where kids had silver duct tape holding their winter coats together, if they had coats at all. I was there volunteer teaching a class on business finance. At his request for mentorship, my firm bought this aspirational leader a Wall Street Journal subscription, suggested he read it every day, and invited him to check in with us every 6 months if he wanted more career advice to become a successful business leader, which is what he said he wanted to do. That was 20 years ago. Fast forward through the hard work, the scholarship to a respected college, the long hours working for two investment banks and the successful stint as COO of a public company, and now he is about to land his first CEO job!

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Do You Have a “Ninja” Executive Assistant?

You should want to have a ninja executive assistant (EA). Let’s talk about how.

Two things determine if you have a ninja executive assistant: who you hire, and how you work together.

This article reveals a non-scientific set of tips based on a quarter-century of observations of what it takes to have a ninja EA. Since I founded ghSMART 24 years ago, I have had the privilege of working with dozens of ninja EAs at our firm. And we have interacted with hundreds of great and not-so-great EAs across our client companies.
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