101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview (13 page)

Nevertheless, you probably will not go wrong if you presume that the Human Resources person conducting a screening interview has no time to become your best friend, knows little or nothing about the job you so desperately want, and knows even less about the hiring manager.

But it’s worth asking many of the same questions you would ask a recruiter or employment agency, and a few others. (As always, these are
not
in any order.):

What are your recruiting plans this year?

How is your recruiting going?

In other words, are they expanding? Do people want to work there? A talkative assistant might blithely confide to you that it has been difficult for them to find qualified candidates. That failure should give you pause: What do those candidates—the ones seemingly giving this company a wide berth—know that you don’t?

What’s a key thing about your company you’d like potential new hires to know?

What are the company’s priorities? If the answer is a series of numbers—grosses, sales, profits, ratios—you’ve just discovered your place in the pecking order: the bottom line. Personally, I’d value (and survive!) at a company that talked more about teamwork, the accomplishments of its people, or its sense of social responsibility. Make sure the company values what
you
do, or it will be an unwieldy fit—and probably a short stay.

Tell me some of the particular skills or attributes that you want in the candidate for this position.

The answer should tell you how much your traits are valued by the company. With this information, you can underline those traits you possess at the close of this interview—to end it on a strong note—as well as during the hiring interview.

Given my qualifications, skills, and experience, do you have any concerns about my ability to become an important member of this company?

Probably not—if you didn’t meet the summary of qualifications forwarded to Human Resources, you wouldn’t be talking to anyone. But it never hurts to ask a question designed to uncover hidden objections. (See
Chapter 6
for a more comprehensive discussion of this topic and a number of additional questions.)

How quickly are you hoping to fill this position?

Where are you in the decision-making process?

How would you say I stack up against the other candidates you’ve interviewed?

Can you tell me more about what I’d be doing on a daily basis?

How would you describe the corporate culture?

How would you characterize the company’s overall management style?

What can you tell me about the interviewer?

What can you tell me about my boss?

What can you tell me about the people with whom I’ll be working?

What can you tell me about the people I’ll be managing?

If you’re going to be managing a significant number of people, it’s unlikely you’d be forced to start in HR, but I’ve included this question here anyway.

Does the company have a mission statement or written philosophy? May I have a copy?

If not, consider the Chairman’s message in the annual report or the corporate mission statement.

Are there any challenges facing this department right now?
(Your department, not HR.)

Do you have a written description of the position? I want to make sure I understand my duties and responsibilities and the results you expect me to achieve.

This is a good question to pose to the screening interviewer (and a great way to ask it). It will help you prepare to face the hiring manager. If a written description doesn’t exist, ask the interviewer to tell you what she considers the primary functions of the job.

Watch out for job descriptions that are too general, too elaborate, or too far-fetched. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t schedule an interview, but it does mean you have to ask some clarifying questions. Why do companies lay out such god-awful descriptions? Why doesn’t the hiring manager take the time to more clearly define the role he wants you to play (and then tell those poor people in Human Resources so
they
can do a better job screening candidates)? It’s a mystery.

What other positions at the company should this job prepare me for? Is that the career track my predecessors followed?

You don’t want to blindly stumble into a dead-end job. So find out how you can expect to advance after you land this job. What happened to the person you would be replacing? Is he or she still with the company? If so, doing what?

Try to pursue this line of questioning without giving the impression that you can’t wait to get
out
of a job you don’t even
have
yet! If you ask questions like this in a completely nonthreatening manner, your ambition will be understood, even welcomed.

At the end of this chapter, I’ve included a more comprehensive list of questions to ask about the company, department, and position. Use it to craft your own list for Human Resources.

Am I overqualified?

This, of course, is a question you really should ask
yourself
before you go on
any
interview. It’s essential to admit, at least to yourself, if you
are
seriously overqualified for a position. Many of you might think it’s easier to get a job beneath your qualifications—to work as an accounting assistant when you’ve been a full-charge bookkeeper, to be a receptionist when you’ve been an office manager, to go back to sales after rising to sales manager.

It isn’t. You may have more qualifications than the job requires, but you may no longer have the
specific
qualifications it
demands.
While you may have overseen a 20-person sales force and be known far and wide as an ace motivator, you will have trouble getting a job selling copy machines. Why? Because they don’t
care
about your management and motivational credentials. Nor do they need them. They want to know how many copy machines you’re capable of selling a month. And they
do
care that you’ve never sold one!

Employers may question the motivation of someone willing to “do almost anything.” Will such an employee just show up, doing what’s asked and little more? What about someone willing to work “for almost nothing”? To quote another cliché: You get what you pay for. And that’s exactly what “almost nothing” is worth.

Especially in lower-level jobs, employers want people happy to be doing what they were hired to do, not constantly looking around and commenting how they could do the boss’s job better than he could. The office manager wants to treat the receptionist as a receptionist, not someone who has been an office manager and may, indeed, know more than he does about running an office. Just as some managers worry about hiring underlings who they fear may one day outshine them, many people worry about hiring people for low-level jobs who have already done what their boss is doing. It’s disconcerting and, to many, highly threatening.

Questions to Ask Your Peers (Future Colleagues)

If you actually find a way to talk with your potential peers (and in some companies, it is a normal part of the interviewing process), you will want to ask them many of the same questions you would ask a recruiter, keeping in mind that they will not necessarily be as forthcoming and may be wary of being
too
honest. Nevertheless, their input can be an invaluable part of your decision-making.

Why did you decide to work here?

What were your expectations when you started here? Were they met? How have they changed?

What do you consider this company’s (department’s) strengths and weaknesses?

If you had to do it over again, would you work here?

What can you tell me about working for ________?

How long have you worked for him or her?

How would you characterize his or her management style?

How are your contributions to the organization measured?

Does the company support you with ongoing training and education?

What do you know now that you wish you had known before you took your job?

How many hours per day do you usually work? Do you have to work weekends?

Do you consider this company to be an ideal employer? Why or why not?

You May Be Screened By Phone or In Person

Your “preinterview” with an employment agency, recruiter, head-hunter, or Human Resources may be on the phone or in person.

Telephone screening is an effective tactic used by many interviewers. Some interviewers, however, rely on the strategy as a
primary
means of qualifying candidates. For many of these interviewers, the in-person interview is little more than an opportunity to confirm what they feel they’ve already learned on the phone.

Interviewers who typically fall into this category are entrepreneurs, CEOs, high-level executives, and others short on time and long on vision. Their guiding philosophy could be summed up as “I have a personnel problem to solve, and I don’t plan to waste my valuable time talking in person to anybody but the very best.”

A telephone screener is also often the dominant interviewer at small-to mid-sized companies where no formal Human Resources (or Personnel) department exists or where such a department has only recently been created. The primary objective of the telephone screener is to identify reasons to
remove
you from active consideration
before
scheduling an in-person meeting.

Among the common reasons for abrupt removal from the telephone screener’s short list: evidence that there’s a disparity between your resume and actual experience; poor verbal communication skills; or lack of required technical skills.

If you are expecting a call (or calls) from telephone screeners, make sure family members know how to answer the phone. Hint: A sullen “Huh?” from your teenage son or brother is not the best way. And by all means avoid cutesy answering machine tapes. (“Hi!” [giggle, giggle] “We’re upstairs getting our groove on!” [giggle, snort] “So leave a message, dude.”)

What could be better than answering questions from the comfort of your own home?

For starters, conducting a telephone interview has cost you two valuable tools you have to work with during in-person interviews: eye contact and body language. You’re left with your skills, the facts on your resume, and your ability to communicate verbally.

Don’t
be discouraged.
Always
project a positive image through your voice and your answers. Don’t overdo it, but don’t let the telephone be your undoing either. If your confidence is flagging, try smiling while you listen and speak. Sure, it might look silly, but it works. I also like to stand, even walk around, during a telephone interview. It seems to simultaneously calm me down and give me more energy.

You have a right to be prepared for any interview. Chances are, the interviewer will call you to set a time for the telephone interview. However, if she wants to plow right into it as soon as you answer the
phone, there’s nothing wrong with asking if she could call back at a mutually agreeable time. You need to prepare your surroundings for a successful interview.

Next to the phone, you’ll want to have a copy of your resume (which you’ve quickly reviewed), the cover letter you sent to that company, a list of questions
you’ve
prepared for
them,
a notepad, your research materials on that company, and a glass of water. You will also want to have already answered nature’s call (since you surely don’t want to excuse yourself in the middle of the interview) and placed a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, so family members or roommates don’t interrupt. Needless to say, you never want to put the interviewer on hold for any reason.

Did the Interviewer Dial a Wrong Number?

The main rule most telephone screeners follow (or are taught to follow) is
not
to extend an offer for a face-to-face interview to anyone they feel is not well suited to the position or the company. If the phone interview has led them to this conclusion, there are two ways they will try to wrap up. The first is to let you down easy:

“Mike, I really appreciate your taking the time to talk about your background with me today. You’ve given me a lot to think about. You should know, though, that this is a very competitive position and that we’ll be talking to a lot of people over the next week or so.