Why Trying to Sound Strategic Is Costing You the Job
- Martin Hill
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
According to SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends report, 75% of organisations report difficulty filling leadership roles. In a market like this, companies aren’t just hiring managers. They’re hiring future leaders.
At mid to senior level, interviews aren’t about whether you can do the job. They’re about whether you can shape direction, make difficult decisions, and influence. One of the biggest mistakes I see is this: strong managers try to sound more strategic instead of showing how they’ve made real decisions. They use bigger words. Broader framing. More abstract language. And in doing so, they weaken their credibility.
Where Candidates Go Wrong
There are three patterns I see repeatedly when managers try to position themselves as strategic. They don’t come from lack of capability. In fact, they usually come from ambition. But in interviews, they create distance between what a candidate actually did and what the hiring manager needs to hear.
1. Talking About Meetings Instead of Decisions
Many candidates describe being close to strategy rather than shaping it.
They say: “I sit on the leadership team.” “I’m involved in business planning.”
“I contribute to strategic discussions.” But being present is not the same as making decisions.
Hiring managers want to know:
What did you recommend?
What options were on the table?
What did you choose and why?
What changed because of that choice?
Strategy is not being in the meeting without influence. It’s choosing between competing options and understanding the risks attached to each one.
If your story focuses on participation instead of direction, you position yourself as supportive not decisive.
2. Using Bigger Words for Operational Work
As people move into more interviews for more senior roles, they often feel pressure to elevate their language. Execution becomes “transformation.” Process changes become “strategy”
For example:
“I redesigned the incentive structure aligned to long term growth objectives.”
It sounds impressive. But a hiring manager wants to know
Was this your idea?
What problem were you solving?
What alternatives did you consider?
What happened after the change?
If head office told you to adjust the compensation plan and you implemented it well, that’s strong execution. But it isn’t strategy.
The difference between operational and strategic work is simple:
Strategic work involves choosing between competing priorities and accepting risk.
If your example contains no trade offs, no tension, and no downside, it probably isn’t strategic.
3. Confusing Responsibility With Impact
This is the most common mistake I see particularly with high performing managers who have been given broader scope but not fully responsible for strategy
Candidates say:
“I led HR transformation.” “I was responsible for workforce planning.” “I drove expansion across APAC.”
But responsibility is not the same as impact.
At senior level, hiring managers want answers to four deeper questions:
What was the business problem?
What options did you consider?
Why did you choose that path?
What was different a year later because of your decision?
If you can’t clearly explain what changed, your example sounds inflated.
Strategy shows up when you can point to a shift in direction that had an impact on the business not just activity.
What Strategic Thinking Actually Looks Like
When getting interview feedback with hiring managers, these are the signals that consistently separate credible leaders from polished managers
1. You Can Explain How Your Work Affects the Business
By mid to senior management level, technical skill is assumed. What matters is whether you understand how your decisions effects the business
In leadership roles, that might mean being able to explain:
Why losing two senior sales directors could delay revenue by six months
How over hiring in one function can quietly effect profitability
Why a pay structure is driving the wrong behaviour
How weak succession planning creates bottlenecks to growth
If you can’t clearly explain how your decisions affect revenue, cost, or growth, you won’t be seen as strategic. Strategy is about understanding how the business actually performs
2. You Can Explain What You Said No To
Every real decision involves sacrifice. Strategy is not about finding a perfect solution where everyone wins. It’s about choosing the compromise that's best for the business
Strong candidates say things like:
“We stopped hiring in two regions so we could protect margin in our core market.”
“We accepted short term attrition to fix a broken pay structure.” “We paused expansion into a third market because leadership capacity was already stretched."
There is always something you need to compromise on. If your story sounds entirely positive, smooth, and linear, it probably describes execution not leadership decision making.
Senior hiring managers listen for how you overcame challenges and got buy in from senior stakeholders for those decisions
3. You Saw the Risk and Moved Anyway
Senior hiring managers know that every meaningful decision carries exposure. So when someone presents a story where everything worked smoothly and everyone agreed, it immediately feels incomplete. They want to hear that you knew what could go wrong.
For example:
“We knew centralising operations would affect morale.” “There was a real risk of losing critical talent during the restructuring.” “We anticipated pushback from revenue generating leaders when we redesigned the bonus model.”
When hiring managers hear that kind of language, it signals maturity. It tells them you weren't just executing a plan you were assessing the risk and exposure to the business
If your example contains no risk, it likely wasn’t strategic.
4. You Can Explain What Changed a Year Later
Operational stories end with: “The project was delivered successfully.”
Strategic stories answer what impact that had on business over the long term
What was different 12–24 months later?
Did succession gaps close?
Did leadership capability improve in underperforming regions?
Did sales performance improve after the incentive change?
If you can explain the lasting shift, you’re showing strategic thinking. If you can only describe implementation, you’re describing execution.
A Practical Way to Structure Strategic Answers
STAR works for mid level interviews. But for senior roles, you need more depth.
I recommend structuring answers like this:
Problem What business issue were you facing?
Decision What options were available? Why did you choose this path?
Alignment Who disagreed? How did you handle resistance?
Result What measurable outcome occurred?
After 12–24 Months What was different because of that decision?
This forces you to show decision making not activity.
Before & After Example
Weak Version
“I led an HR transformation across APAC aligned to business strategy.”
It sounds senior. But it says very little.
Strong Version
“When we entered two new markets, our cost base was rising faster than revenue. We had three options: freeze hiring, outsource support functions, or redesign our operating model.
Freezing hiring would have slowed growth. Outsourcing would have reduced control in sensitive markets.
I recommended centralising operational HR in Singapore while strengthening senior business partners locally. This required agreement from the leadership team and resistance from country heads.
Within 18 months, we reduced operating costs by 14%, stabilised attrition in revenue generating teams, and strengthened our leadership team before further expansion.”
That answer shows:
A clear business problem
Competing options
Risk and resistance
A measurable result
Long term impact
That’s the kind of answer that builds credibility with the hiring manager that shifts a hiring discussion from hiring managers questioning “How were they involved?” to them understand that owned and drove the initiative
The Hard Truth About Senior Roles
At mid to senior level, overstating your role is one of the fastest ways to lose credibility.
I’ve seen it happen a candidate speaks confidently about “leading strategy,” but when we unpack the example, it becomes clear they were implementing decisions made elsewhere. Experienced hiring managers know the difference between:
Being in the room
Influencing the discussion
Making the call.
Instead, say:
“My VP of HR set the retention strategy. As Senior HR Manager, I translated that into execution by redesigning onboarding for sales hires. That reduced time to productivity by two weeks and saved the business approximately £X per hire in lost ramp up revenue.”
That shows maturity. You’re clear about your role while still demonstrating impact.
How to Prepare Properly
If you’re preparing for a leadership interview, ask yourself a harder set of questions than you might for a mid level role. Don’t just think about what you delivered think about what you decided, what you influenced, and what changed because of you.
When did my decision make an impact on the business
Where did I accept short term pain for longer term stability?
What resistance did I face and how did I handle it?
What was still benefiting the business 12 months later?
If you can’t answer these clearly, refine your examples before the interview. It is far better to describe strong execution honestly than to exaggerate strategic ownership.
Often, the most credible candidates say:
“At that stage, I was working within a defined strategy. Here’s how I tailored in to the local markets and this is the impact it had on the business”
That honesty builds authority.
Conclusion
Trying to sound strategic is one of the most common and costly interview mistakes. Hiring managers are not looking for polished language or broad statements. They are looking for evidence of your judgment, how you comprised, your risk awareness, and measurable impact. When you focus on decisions instead of vocabulary, you come across as credible and ready for greater responsibility.
If you’re preparing for your next move, you may also find value in our article on 6 Daily Job Search Habits That Actually Get Results. To understand how employers assess candidates behind the scenes, read Interview Scorecards: The Secret to Smarter Hiring. And if you want to avoid other credibility traps, explore 10 Interview Mistakes Even Experienced Hiring Managers Make. The better you understand how hiring decisions are made, the stronger your positioning becomes.
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