Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Yesterday, Business Insider published a sobering article--Headhunters Reveal 11 Ways To Ruin Your Chances Of Getting A Job. It illustrates some of the ways that executive careerists mess up their job searches and long-term career prospects when they engage with executive recruiters.

If you haven't read it--and you are currently in the market for a new executive opportunity--then we suggest you read the post...poste haste.

Of course there are some items not present in the article that, surely, we would add to the list. So...to get us to fifteen, we now offer four more ways that candidates unintentionally screw up the executive recruitment experience:

12. Dressing too casually. Sure, most workplaces have a casual attire policy. But if you are meeting a recruiter for the first time--and the recruiter has not told you otherwise--then please make sure that you dress for success: wear your nicest business suit and that appropriately conservative tie. And your shoes? Make sure they are polished to a spit-shine. We want to see you looking your very best so that we may visualize your appearance in (future) client-facing situations that require business attire.

13. Arriving late. James Taylor sang "Damn, that traffic jam...how I hate to be late!" We have grown so used to highway accidents and trains delayed by track work or other things that often we just write such annoyances off as an accepted part of the workday. Assume all this--show up late to your headhunter meeting--and be prepared to face dire consequences. Even if you have to arrive at your meeting place an hour or two early, make sure that you are on time for us. (Take a walk...grab a cup of coffee...)

14. Flubbing your elevator pitch. In Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy, we addressed the importance of the three-floor elevator pitch: a short, snappy, declarative statement of one's unique value proposition to a prospective employer. If you meet with an executive recruiter, and you are unable to articulate your elevator pitch in a concise and meaningful way, then please understand that you may end your meeting (with us) abruptly. We headhunters want to hear it from you--what makes you uniquely qualified for (our) executive-level assignments--in a compelling and concise manner. This is especially critical for The Green Suits as they seek out green business-related assignments. And...

15. Failing to follow-up in writing with the executive recruiter. Your face-to-face meeting with the headhunter has gone well. (That's great!) But fail to follow-up in writing--thanking us for our time and confirming your interest in current and future executive searches--and we will assume that you are not interested in hearing from us, ever again. Email follow-up to executive recruiters is perfectly acceptable...but please, spell-check what you send us!

Happy Summer! We hope that your time off is restful and entirely enjoyable. And if you haven't done so already, make sure to download a copy of Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy to your Kindle or Nook readers.

DAN SMOLEN is Founder and Managing Director of The Green Suits, LLC and author of Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy.