If there is one thing that employers, executive recruiters, human resources people, and outplacement specialists are all in complete agreement about, it is that far too few job candidates spend enough time preparing for an interview. Of those that bother to prepare, most focus their attention on collecting facts; they don't take the time to devise a list of hard-driving questions that will both impress a prospective employer and put them on the spot so that the candidate can really find out what makes the company tick.
Robert F. Maddocks, vice-president of organization and management resources for RCA, said many candidates don't even take the time to understand the basics about a corporation. According to Maddocks, they often don't read the annual report and the 10-Ks, forms that RCA and most other corporations routinely authorize executive recruiters to release to potential job candidates. Maddocks noted, "I rarely experience tough, hard questions from candidates. If questions showed an understanding of the corporation, I would welcome them. The kinds of questions I get show the candidate read the newspaper, not anything more. Anybody can ask those kinds of questions. I welcome tough questions, but I don't get them very often."
Few people seem to comprehend that a successful job interview is very much a two-way street The company interviews you, and you, sometimes working even harder, interview the company. The idea that a candidate should interview prospective employers strikes some people as strange, particularly those who are especially aware that the interviewer isn't exactly in the driver's seat during an interview. Asking the tough questions, however, has its decided benefits, and in a tight race for a job, it may be the factor that sets you apart from the other two or three highly qualified candidates.
How to establish and achieve your goals for the interview?
All this is leading you in one direction: toward the day you walk into someone's office for an important interview and put your knowledge to good use. Your questions should serve three purposes. First, they should impress the interviewer with the fact that you have done your homework. Second, they should show that you have experience the company can use. Third, they should help you get valuable information you need about the company in order to decide whether or not you want to hand over the next five to ten years of your professional life to this company.
Bear in mind, as you prepare to ask some tough questions, that an interview isn't a team sport. True, you are being interviewed to determine whether or not you're the right candidate to join the team, but at the moment of the interview, the only team you should be concerned with is you, yourself. Janet Tweed aptly noted the position of a job candidate when she said: "You are the only one who is going to be interested in you in this job. If you are outstanding in a job, it's because you are happy, well-paid, and, most important, you are in an atmosphere that allows you to function."
Because of this, you must ask some tough questions that allow you to determine whether you will, indeed, be happy, well-paid, and in an atmosphere that will allow you to function. Tweed commented: "You should ask tough questions. You should say, 'I read your annual report and it looks to me as if you had a bad year. How do you expect this to affect your team? I know you are facing some problems with product identification. How is this division doing?'"
Can you play hardball during an interview?
There are two schools of thought about how tough your questions can be. One holds that the very toughest questions can come only from candidates who have been recommended through an executive recruiter, who are thus presumably happily ensconced in their present jobs, and who have no intention of changing unless forces more powerful than themselves somehow make them an offer they can't refuse. In other words, the fact that you are in a position of being wooed gives you carte blanche to be tough—someone who wants to know everything because you must truly be persuaded to take this job.
Carrying this theory to its natural conclusion, this would mean that if you came to the company, as most job candidates do, in response to an advertisement or through a contact of your own and without the recommendation of a headhunter, then presumably you would not have as much freedom to your questions. And if you are currently unemployed or under pressure from your present employer to seek work elsewhere, then you can hardly ask tough questions. But Al Duarte thinks someone who is "looking" for a job should try to hang just as tough as someone who is being "recruited" for a job. He recommends: "Even if you are out of work and looking for a job, you should be as tough with a prospective employer as you can be because if you make a mistake at this stage, you could ruin a whole career."
Duarte says that if at all possible, even an out-of-work executive should prepare to put some tough questions to prospective employers. "The candidate has to put the interviewer under some stress, too. They can say, 'You want me to consider your company, but your last year's results were not very good. Why?' Or 'You came out with five new products, and three were bombs. Why?' The candidate has to do this," Duarte said "in order to evaluate the situation. Finding a job involves so much more than whether you like each other. If anything, the candidate's questions should be tougher than the prospective employer's questions."
He admits, however, that the very toughest questions can come only from an executive who is being pursued for the job. "Someone being recruited can even say, 'I wouldn't touch your company with a ten-foot pole,' and then let the company sell itself to him. It's the difference, again, of course, between looking for a job and being recruited."
Things to Think About When the Ball Is in Your Court
More than anything else, a job candidate's questions should be designed to determine whether the company is in trouble. The following warning signals should alert you to a company that may be having serious problems:
- no long-term planning
- morale problems
- lack of unity
- high turnover
- not enough turnover, making the company too inbred and leaving too little room for growth
- no new products when some are needed
- no clearly defined culture
- inflexibility in dealing with the marketplace; inability to respond quickly to customers
- too wedded to a rulebook to be truly creative or even responsive to employees' needs
Playing Your Best Shots
While many of your questions genuinely will be intended to gather information about the company, some will be designed to show off your expertise, experience, and intelligence. These are kinds of questions that require the most probing pre-interview research.
Make your questions as comprehensive as possible. For example, don't simply ask, "How do you think the market for your product is changing," but rather, phrase the question this way: "Industry experts have been predicting that streaming services will take over more and more of the industry. Do you agree? If you do, how do you think the competitors on cable and other networks can compensate?" This alternate line of questioning shows that you are aware of industry trends and forecasts and that you have given them some serious thought.
Other questions, though, can be even more pointed about showing off your knowledge and experience. For example, suppose you are interviewing with a software manufacturer and your pre-interview research uncovers the fact that the company just recently branched out into business software after years of exclusively supplying the game market. There has been talk in the trade press regarding problems with developing this new market. Phrase your question this way to make it comprehensive: "I understand you've had some problems building a market. Was this due to delivery problems or problems with quality control?" The real point to this question, of course, is that you have experience--and some intelligent opinions--about delivery problems and quality control. You have just managed to highlight your areas of experience and have invited further discussion about them. You have also demonstrated that you've done your homework and that you know something about this particular company.
Ask questions that go beyond the kinds of opinions and data you can glean from reading the business press. Show that you have taken the information you uncovered and digested it. In formulating your questions, ask yourself how the things you have learned apply to the division or department for which you are interviewing. Ask yourself what inferences you can make based on your reading, what problems you foresee. Then shape those thoughts into a question. The question format is best because you can avoid simply stating what you know and looking as if you are showing off. You are, but it's got to be subtle.
Word your questions so they cannot be misconstrued as an attempt on your part to give advice or recommendations to the company. This is never appropriate during an interview unless you are specifically asked for advice, and even then, you should tread lightly, since you are still an outsider who may not-cannot-be privy to all the information you need to analyze a situation. The purpose of the questions is to initiate discussion during which you can show off your knowledge and the homework you have done regarding this company.
See the following articles for more information:
- How to Start on the Right Foot in Your New Job
- What Are the Sources to Find the Information You Need
- The Background of Application Process
- How to Network and Take an Information Interview
