Nailing your Interview – Part 1: Preparation

Congratulations! You’ve got the interview. The good news is you’re one step closer to landing your next executive role. The less good news? You’ve still got considerable ground to cover.

Whether you’re pursuing a GM position at a veterinary pharmaceutical company, a CFO role in aquaculture, or a senior leadership position in livestock health, interview preparation can make or break your chances. After 14 years specialising in animal health recruitment across Australia and New Zealand, I’ve seen exceptional candidates miss out on their ideal roles simply because they didn’t prepare adequately for their interview.

To ensure you excel in the interview process for your next animal health role, I’m putting together a series of posts to guide you to success. This article focuses on comprehensive interview preparation specifically for senior professionals in the veterinary, companion animal, livestock, and aquaculture industries.

The Importance of Interview Preparation for Senior Animal Health Roles

Like with basically everything in life—and particularly at the executive level—the more you can prepare, the better you’ll perform. When you’re competing for leadership positions in Australia’s competitive animal health market, thorough preparation isn’t optional; it’s essential.

Getting to know the company intimately, understanding the broader ANZ animal health landscape, and preparing yourself strategically will ensure you’re perfectly positioned for the kind of interview that naturally leads to the job offer. For senior roles in our industry, hiring managers expect candidates who demonstrate not just competence, but genuine strategic thinking and deep market knowledge.

1. Your Presentation

Whether or not the animal health position you’re pursuing is commercially focused, you absolutely have a product to sell: yourself. Particularly at the executive level, your presentation speaks volumes before you’ve uttered a single word.

Dress for the Role You Want: Make sure you dress appropriately, keeping with both the company culture and the broader animal health industry norms in Australia. Even if the company has adopted business casual for day-to-day operations, err on the side of formal for your interview. 

If you’re uncertain what’s appropriate for a specific organisation, you could wait in the lobby or outside their office at the beginning or end of business hours to observe how senior team members dress. 

Arrive with Time to Spare: Part of ensuring you look the part is allowing plenty of time to get to your interview. Nothing will let you down more at the last minute like arriving late, looking frazzled and feeling stressed. Aim to arrive 10-15 minutes early—not so early that you inconvenience your interviewer, but with enough buffer to compose yourself, review your notes, and observe the company environment. Use those extra minutes to notice how staff interact, the energy in the office, and any recent company news displayed in the reception area. These observations can provide valuable talking points and demonstrate your situational awareness.

2. Do Your Research

At the executive level in animal health, superficial company knowledge won’t cut it. Hiring managers expect candidates to demonstrate a thorough understanding of their organisation, competitive positioning, and the broader market dynamics shaping the Australian and New Zealand animal health sector.

Know the Company Inside Out: Research the organisation thoroughly. Go beyond their website to understand:

• Their product portfolio
• Recent regulatory approvals or product launches
• Their distribution channels and key partnerships
• Company ownership structure and financial performance (if publicly available)
• Their reputation among veterinarians and animal health professionals
• Recent press releases, conference presentations, and industry awards
• Their corporate social responsibility initiatives and sustainability commitments

Understand the Competitive Landscape: For senior animal health positions, you need to demonstrate strategic market awareness. Research their main competitors in the Australian market to get an idea of where the company sits in the market and how they differentiate themselves.

3. Compile Your Greatest Hits

This is your opportunity to deliver the evidence of your performance. For senior animal health leadership roles, hiring managers want to see results, initiatives you’ve led, and the tangible impact you’ve made in previous positions.

Put together a portfolio of your proudest career achievements relevant to the current role. Now is definitely not the time to be modest or understated—you’ve earned this chance to prove yourself, so take it confidently.

Present Your Achievements Professionally: Consider creating a clean, professional one-page summary or brief presentation deck highlighting your key achievements. For very senior roles, you might prepare a 30/60/90-day plan demonstrating how you’d approach the position. Ensure all metrics are accurate and that you can speak confidently about the strategies behind your successes.

4. Rehearse Your Elevator Pitch

Every animal health leadership interview may be slightly different, but if there’s one thing we can practically guarantee, it’s that you’ll be asked to walk through your career journey and explain why you’re the right person for this role. When you sit down in the interview and they ask you to introduce yourself, you need to be thoroughly prepared. 

Craft Your Leadership Story: Your executive elevator pitch should be more than a chronological recitation of your CV. It should tell a coherent story about:

• Why you entered animal health and what drives your passion for the industry
• The progression of your career and the reasons behind your moves
• Key times where you’ve taken on greater responsibility or tackled significant challenges
• Your leadership philosophy and how you’ve built and developed high-performing teams
• What you’re looking for in your next leadership role and why this specific opportunity excites you

Tailor Your Pitch to the Role and Company: Jot down notes about your background, but strategically emphasise the experiences and achievements most relevant to the position. For example, if you’re interviewing for a commercial leadership role at a companion animal company, lead with your success building veterinary relationships and driving growth in the pet health sector. 

Practice it out loud multiple times until it flows naturally. You want to sound confident and authentic, not rehearsed or mechanical. Consider recording yourself to refine your delivery and ensure you’re conveying executive presence.

5. Prepare for Common Interview Questions 

Beyond your introductory pitch, prepare thoughtful responses to questions frequently asked in interviews for animal health leadership roles:

• “Why are you leaving your current position?” (or “Why did you leave your last role?”)
• “What’s your leadership style, and can you give an example of how you’ve developed talent?”
• “Describe a time you had to make a difficult decision with incomplete information”
• “What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in the Australian animal health market right now?”
• “Where do you see yourself in five years, and how does this role fit your career aspirations?”

Additional Interview Preparation Tips for Animal Health Executives

Leverage Your Professional Network: The Australian animal health industry is relatively close-knit. Discreetly reach out to your network to learn more about the company culture and what success looks like in the role. Be mindful of confidentiality, but strategic networking can provide valuable insight that helps you tweak your approach.

Prepare Insightful Questions: At the executive level, the questions you ask are as important as the answers you give. They demonstrate your strategic thinking and genuine interest in the role. Prepare several thoughtful questions about the company’s strategic priorities, challenges they’re facing, team dynamics, and expectations for the role. Here are 10 questions to ask in a job interview.

Practice, But Don’t Over-Rehearse: While thorough preparation is essential, you don’t want to sound like a robot or as if you’re reading off a script! Practice your responses, but remember that an interview is a conversation. The best executive interviews feel like strategic business discussions between peers, not rigid Q&A sessions.

Take these steps before your next animal health leadership interview and let me know how you go! I’d love to hear how they work for you or if there’s something you think I’ve missed. As someone who’s helped place countless executives in senior animal health roles across Australia and New Zealand, I’m always learning from the experiences of industry professionals.