Job Interview Questions

These four closes put a little heat on the interviewer:

1. I have other offers pending that afford me tremendous potential. But I like what I see here, and I know I’m the right person for you. If you agree, can we talk turkey?
2. Is there anything I have said that indicates I am not the perfect candidate for this job?
3. I am in final-stage interviews with other companies, but I like what I see here. I’d like to have an offer from you so I can make a decision.
4. Based on my family’s needs and other interviews, I am committed to making a decision by next Friday. What do we have to do to speed up the decision-making process so that I might consider an offer from you by that time?

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1. Is there anything personally or professionally that you believe would prevent my being a solid contributor in this role? If not, you can assume that the next step is working out the hiring details. If yes, then you are positioned to address the objection.
2. Mr. Employer, your search is over.You will not find anyone else more qualified to do this job than I. If I were you, I’d cancel all the other interviews and make me an offer. This approach can be considered either confident or cheeky. But in the right tone of voice, it can be effective.
3. Mr. Employer, I’m not going to keep it a secret. I really want this job, and I know I will be fantastic in it. Now shut up and listen. Resist the temptation to justify this bold statement. If you are in a dead heat with two other candidates, all other things being equal, you can bet that the most enthusiastic job seeker will get the nod.
4. Until I hear from you again, what particular aspects of the job and this interview should I be considering? Notice how confident the question is. It’s not “if” but “when.” The question deftly reminds the interviewer that just as the company is considering you, you are considering the company.
5. I know I can meet the demands of the position and would make an outstanding contribution. Can I have the offer? Confronted so directly, the interviewer must make a statement about your chances of being hired. If the interviewer doesn’t, he or she isn’t interested in you at all.
6. What will be your recommendation to the hiring committee? Phrased like this, you are flattering the interviewer that his or her recommendation is valuable.
7. I’m ready to make a decision based on the information I have. Is there anything else you need to make me an offer? An effective one-two punch of a question that combines an expression of interest with a subtle invitation to see an offer.
8. I am very interested in this job, and I know your endorsement is key to my receiving an offer. May I have your endorsement? Phrased this way, the question does not request that the interviewer offer a job, but merely the endorsement. It also flatters the interviewer by making it clear that his or her recommendation carries considerable weight, whether it does or not.
9. It sounds to me as if we have a great fit here.What do you think? Note that this is very aggressive phrasing, perhaps best suited for a sales position.
10. It has been an interesting and fruitful discussion. I would very much like to take it to the next step. This is a statement rather than a question, but it closes the interview very effectively by not only requesting a next step, but assuming that there will be one.

Bid-for-Action Questions committee, hiring details, interviewer, job, questions

For sales interviews, phrases like these may be appropriate:

• I really want this job. Am I going to get it?
• I think I earned this job. When am I going to receive an offer?
• Did I get the job?
• I’d like to start right away. When can we get the paperwork out of the way?

The following bid-for-action questions give you some wordings to ask for the job with varying degrees of directness. Each one of the questions can serve as a proactive close to the main part of the interview. Each of these questions has been field-tested and, in the right circumstances, has been shown to work. In other cases, the questions may backfire. The risk is that the interviewer may regard you as cheeky or insolent. Study the situation well and tread lightly.

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It’s good to be direct when asking for the job, says Tony Stanic, resource manager at CNC Global, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. “I think it is good to come across as enthusiastic and direct as possible. The person that appears to want the job the most will get the offer. Try to find out their level of interest in you by asking them directly.” Stanic has been impressed with candidates who could deliver lines such as:

• Do you feel that I am suitable for the position?
• Do you have any reservations about my ability to do this job?

“Don’t be afraid to ask these questions,” Stanic continues. “You may be able to overcome any objections that they may have. It may feel a bit uncomfortable but it’s better to find out what their concerns are than it is to find out that you did not get the job. Asking for the job can be a crucial factor in the interviewer’s decision-making process.”

“There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance,” says KnowledgePoint’s HR director, Rich Franklin. To be successful in some jobs, you need to be pushy and demonstrate in the job interview how aggressively you can sell. For example, Franklin recruited stockbrokers for Dean Witter for 10 years before he joined KnowledgePoint. Stockbrokers, of course, are salespeople who sell securities. One question from a sales candidate that that impressed him was:

• I’m the person for the job! Can you tell me when you can make me an offer?

“In the software industry where things are more laid back,” Franklin continues, “I’d be a little less comfortable with a guy coming on that strong.” The Pacific Firm’s Nancy Levine also urges caution. For her, such direct questions are indications of too much thinking inside the box. What Levin likes to hear from candidates are more subtle probes for objections:

• I am very interested in this position. Do you have any questions or concerns I can address?
• It has been a pleasure meeting you. I really want this job. Can you tell me where you are in your process?

“Then, hopefully, the interviewer will cough up objections that the job-seeker can address and overcome,” Levine says. The important thing, she says, is not to appear like you’re trying too hard. For example, Levine criticizes a formulation such as this:

As I understand it, the successful candidate will be someone with x education, y qualifications, and z experience. Do I understand the opportunity correctly?

“For me this formulation is too cookie cutterish, too car salesman-y, a bit transparent in terms of trying to close,” she says. “It may work as a line of questioning in a first phone call, but not to close in an interview. I would expect that our discussion would pinpoint what we’re looking for.”

Susan Trainer Senior Information Systems Recruiter RJS Associates Hartford, CT “There has to be a certain chemistry between me and the candidate for those kinds of questions to come off well,” agrees Kimberly Bedore, director of Strategic HR Solutions at Peopleclick, Dallas, Texas. “You have to know the interviewer is really interested; otherwise it makes the interviewer uncomfortable.” Don’t put the interviewer in a defensive mode, she adds. “Just demonstrate that you understand the company’s greatest business problem and that you have what it takes to solve it. Asking for what the next step will be is always okay.”

So the burden is on you to call it right. If your timing is even slightly off or your voice is a little too shrill, you will come off as grasping, clumsy, or, worst of all, desperate. If you’re going to ask for a job, please practice these questions with a trusted friend or mentor. Use a video camera to record yourself uttering the questions. Until you can pull off a vibe of relaxed confidence, I’d avoid these questions.

Bid-for-Action Questions experience, job offers, position, qualifications, quality questions, think

So it is with each job interview. Each time you meet with a hiring manager, you have an irreplaceable opportunity to ask for the offer.

“When I’m interviewing a candidate for a sales position, I want them to close me,” says Bob Conlin, VP of Incentive Systems in Bedford, Massachusetts. “If they give me a soft close, or, worse, no close at all, I get concerned.” Here’s an example of what Conlin considers to be a hard close:

Bob, every year I’m going to be your number-one guy. Every year I’m going to beat quota. I’m your candidate.When can I start?

“I know I’m being closed here,” he says. “The candidate is speaking my language. His confidence is infectious.”

But Conlin also wants to see evidence that the candidate is mindful of the organization’s goals, not just the salesperson’s goals. The following question is even more thoughtful because it demonstrates that the candidate is already thinking as a member of a team:

I know I can drive the revenues and net the customers.What kinds of processes are in place to help me work collaboratively?

Besides asking for the job, bid-for-action questions ask for an indication of how favorably the interviewer assesses you. One way to assess a company’s interest is to see how hard the interviewer tries to sell you on accepting the job when you ask these questions. Some candidates grow pale at saying something as blatant as:

Are you ready to make me an offer now, or do I need to sell myself some more?

But what do you have to lose? If the job you are applying for has any marketing or management quality at all, the interviewer will be impressed by your confidence. Every great salesperson knows to “ask for the order.” Here’s how to ask for the job in the final interview. Begin with a statement of your understanding of the opportunity:

As I understand it, the successful candidate will be someone with x education, y qualifications, and z experience. Do I understand the opportunity correctly?

Here your purpose is threefold. First, you are testing to see if you indeed understand the situation. If you missed something, or, more likely, the interviewer forgot some important requirement, now is the time to get it right. Second, assuming you summarized the position correctly, the interviewer is impressed by your organizational skills. Third, asking for agreement at this point is a strategy for getting the interviewer into the habit of saying yes. Yes is the answer you want to the next question, and it’s good to have the interviewer in a yes mood. The critical next question is:

Do I meet the requirements?

Now wait. That’s the hard part. The interviewer is making up his or her mind. The answer will tell you if it is time to close or if you have more persuading to do. If the interviewer is positive and says that, yes (there’s that word again), you have all the qualifications, you can now deliver the strongest closing line there is:

I’m glad we agree. I feel that way, too. So I am certainly interested in receiving your strongest offer.

But I must issue a fair warning. You are on dangerous ground here. Your decision to ask for the job must be pitch-perfect. Before asking for the job, you must have created a good rapport with your interviewer, established that you are a good fit for the job, and extracted at least some expression of interest from the interviewer. Your timing must be so perfect the interviewer could set her watch by it. In other words, unless you have a high degree of confidence about each of these points, I wouldn’t take a chance. It’s a risky move for two reasons:

First, while asking a prospect to say yes to an order for a gross of pens with the business’s logo emblazoned on them might occasionally get the prospect to sign on the bottom line, it’s highly unlikely that you will actually get a hiring manager to say, “Sure, you want the job? You got it! When can you start?” Even the hiring manager has a process to go through and must consult with others. Still, asking for the job might move you up in the crowd.

And second, it might blow you out of the water. That’s because in contemporary American business culture, asking for something as important as a job is loaded with a lot of emotional baggage. It’s very much like talking about money. Talking directly about money is taboo. Everyone knows it’s the most important part of the conversation in a job interview, yet the pretense we all have about money relegates it to the end, almost as if money were an afterthought.

So it is with the business of directly asking for a job. Still, the benefits usually outweigh the risks. If your tone is pitch-perfect and your timing is right, asking for the job will help differentiate your credentials from the crowd, reinforce your value proposition, and in extremely rare cases, even land you an offer on the spot.

Bid-for-Action Questions hiring manager, interview, requirements