Job Interview Questions

1. Corporate culture is very important, but it’s usually hard to define until one violates it.What is one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s culture? This question reveals a sophisticated understanding of corporate culture as a force most easily observed in its violation. Typical responses are lying and other ethical breaches, but listen for other clues.
2. How would you characterize the organization?What are its principal values?What are its greatest challenges? This profound question demonstrates your deep interest in the organization’s makeup.
3. How would you describe the experience of working here? Here’s a question that goes to the interviewer’s experience of corporate culture.
4. If I were to be employed here, what one piece of wisdom would you want me to incorporate into my work life? This is a strong question that not only asks the hiring manager what he or she considers most important but also assumes that you are already on board.
5. What are a couple of misconceptions people have about the company? Every manager is frustrated by the way he or she thinks the world sees the company. Here is your chance get two pieces of critical information: how the hiring manager thinks the world perceives the company and what he or she believes to be the truth.
6. Work-life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work done and encouraging healthy lives outside the office? On one level, you want to find out how workaholic your prospective manager and the company are. On another, you want a clue about how the company handles the important issue of work-life balance.
7. How does the company support and promote personal and professional growth? This is another way to ask how the company culture promotes a healthy work-life balance.
8. What types of people seem to excel here? This will engender more conversation about personality styles and attitudes that mesh well with the culture and those that don’t. You bluff your way through this question at your own risk. Why would you want to go to work where you would be at war with the prevailing culture?
9. Every company contends with office politics. It’s a fact of life because politics is about people working together. Can you give me some examples of how politics plays out in this company? It’s a slightly risky question because “politics” has such a negative connotation. But the reality is that every organization is a political organization. The politics at family-owned companies is much different than the politics of large multinational companies. The issue is, with which are you more comfortable?
10. What have I yet to learn about this company and opportunity that I still need to know? A great open-ended question for the interviewer to elaborate on an important point you might not have considered.

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1. Why do you enjoy working for this company? Go for a personal relationship right away. Show the HR person you care about his or her experience and opinion. Plus you’ll get some useful information about the company and its culture.
2. What attracted you to this organization? Everybody likes to talk about themselves. Maybe the HR person will tell you a story about how he or she got there. That means that person trusts you.
3. Can you describe the work environment here? This is another way of asking about how the company works.
4. How do you describe the philosophy of the company or organization? It’s great to ask the HR interviewer’s perspective on this point.
5. What do you consider to be the organization’s strengths and weaknesses? Again, it’s the interviewer’s opinion that is at the heart of the question.
6. Can you tell me more about my day-to-day responsibilities? Listen for items that are emphasized or repeated. These are the hot buttons, and you will want to tailor the discussion of your skills relating to these areas.
7. How soon are you looking to fill this position? Get a sense of the company’s time frame.
8. How do my skills compare with those of the other candidates you have interviewed? It’s worth a shot to ask, although you probably won’t get a straight answer. Be prepared for the counter, “Why do you ask?”
9. I have really enjoyed meeting with you and your team, and I am very interested in the opportunity. I feel my skills and experience would be a good match for this position.What is the next step in your interview process? This is a very strong concluding question to an interview with HR. It expresses interest, reinforces confidence, and puts the ball into the interviewer’s court.
10. Before I leave, is there anything else you need to know concerning my ability to do this job? This is another positive way to end the interview, emphasizing your commitment to action.
11. In your opinion, what is the most important contribution that this company expects from its employees? Notice how the question solicits the interviewer’s opinion.
12. Is there a structured career path at the company? Some large companies and government agencies have career ladders, grade levels, and other formal steps for people to advance.
13. What are my prospects for advancement? If I do a good job, what is a logical next step? Some companies have more or less formal career progressions-for example, programmer to systems analyst to team leader to project manager to project director, in that order.
14. Assuming I was hired and performed well for a period of time, what additional opportunities might this job lead to? This tells the interviewer that you are looking past this assignment, that you are thinking of sticking around. HR people like that, because it makes them look good when one of their hires stays for a while.
15. Do the most successful people in the company tend to come from one area of the company, such as sales or engineering, or do they rise from a cross section of functional areas? This question immediately tells the interviewer you are sophisticated. The culture of most companies invariably favors employees from one department or another. Technology companies frequently favor employees from engineering. The CEOs of financial companies frequently come out of finance. Most industrial CEOs come out of sales. Perhaps the interviewer will go through the five most senior officers of the company with respect to their origins. Your goal is to note whether the department you plan to join is one of the favored developing grounds for the corner offices.
16. I know that for the position for which I am interviewing, the company has decided to recruit from outside the organization. How do you decide between recruiting from within and going outside? This question lets the interviewer talk about the relative merits of promoting from within and bringing in new ideas and talent (hopefully yours!) to meet the needs of the company. A good answer is that the company is growing too fast for internal promotions to support its challenges.
17. How does this position relate to the bottom line? This is an inquiry into the significance of the job or department. If the job has only an indirect impact on the bottom line, when times get tough it can be considered an expense center rather than a profit center.
18. What advice would you give to someone in my position? Don’t lay it on too thick, but this kind of question can make an HR person’s day.
19. How did you get into your profession? Remember, “profession,” not “job.”
20. What major problems are we facing right now in this department or position? Note the use of the inclusive “we.”
21. Can you give me a formal, written description of the position? I’m interested in reviewing in detail the major activities involved and what results are expected. This is a good question to pose to the screen interviewer. It will help you prepare to face the hiring manager.
22. Does this job usually lead to other positions in the company? Which ones? You don’t want to find yourself in a dead-end job. But also be sure you don’t give the impression that you want to get out of the job before you are in it. Remember, the HR manager wants to see stability tempered by “long-termism.”
23. Can you please tell me a little bit about the people with whom I’ll be working most closely? What a powerful question for finding out about your team!
24. As I understand the position, the title is ____, the duties are ______, and the department is called ________. I would report directly to _________. Is that right? This is an exercise in getting to “yes” plus demonstrating that you have command of the facts.
25. Can you talk about the company’s commitment to equal opportunity and diversity? Possible follow-up questions include, What’s the percentage of women or minorities in the executive ranks? Does the company have a diversity officer?
26. Who are the company’s stars, and how was their status determined? This indicates you want to be a star, as well.
27. How are executives addressed by their subordinates? You are asking about the formality of the organization.
28. What can you tell me about the prevailing management style? This is an inquiry into the management style favored by the senior executives.
29. If you hired me, what would be my first assignment? Message: Setting priorities and goals is key to you.
30. Does the company have a mission statement? May I see it? Mission statements are an important reflection of an organization’s culture. To be fair, they are generally meaningless, but the fact that the company went to the trouble to formulate one is a positive sign, and asking for it makes you look thoughtful and introspective. Be careful, though. Don’t ask for a mission statement if it is posted on the company’s Web site. That would make you look lazy.

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In other words, your strategy in interviewing with HR is to satisfy your interviewer that if he or she passes your file to the hiring manager and you subsequently get the job, there will be no possibility that you will embarrass him or her. To do that, you need to persuade the HR person of three things:

• That you are qualified to do the job
• That you want to do the job
• That if given the job, you will fit in

If you do, your application will move to where you want it to be: in front of the hiring manager, the only one in the organization with the power to give you the job you want.

Many HR people are informed, empathic, and professional, and they want you to succeed. Most of them are willing to assist you in refining your résumé, cover letter, or interviewing techniques. Many of them have gone out of their way to help me with this blog. If you are fortunate enough to get one of these folks on your side, they can really make the interviewing process much more productive and enjoyable.

HR people need to be respected, says Joel Hamroff, president of Magill Associates, Inc., a staffing service in Levittown, New York. “Remember that the person sitting on the other side of the desk at one time sat where you are sitting and they are at least as smart as you are. Human resources folks need a reason to exist, so the more you can ask about their experiences and opinions, the more it will endear you to them.”

But the bottom line remains: HR people cannot give you the job you want. Nor can they give you the facts-on-the-ground important information you need to make a good career decision. For the most part, HR people are well informed in a general sense about the company and its benefits policies. But they probably don’t have a lot of the specific information you want about the position and the people you will be working with.

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THE CARE AND FEEDING OF HR PEOPLE

Your job search will likely include working with HR screeners, so you should know a few things about their care and feeding. If you keep their agenda in mind, play it straight, and make it easy for them to do their jobs, you will be able to advance your application to the hiring authority. The questions in this chapter are designed to give the HR screener maximum confidence that he or she will not regret endorsing your application.

The central truism about HR people is that, as a profession, they are highly risk-averse. A nightmare for HR people is that the candidate they endorsed will melt down in the next interview or, worse, be hired and then turn out to be a lemon. When that happens, guess who gets clobbered? Right. The poor HR screener who missed the candidate’s signs of pathology that, in retrospect, were as glaring as a Times Square billboard. The result? If an HR screener has the slightest hesitation about you or your interview, she (HR screeners are overwhelmingly women) will simply go on to the next candidate. Given the economy and the large number of qualified candidates competing for each position these days, HR people won’t hesitate to move on if you give them any reason to question your desirability as a candidate.

So your first strategy is to not give them any doubt about your application. To do that you must be immediately interested, positive, and likable. Confidence is important, but avoid cockiness. Remember, your starting salary will always be higher-sometimes dramatically higher-than the salary of the interviewer. Don’t give the interviewer another excuse to dislike you.

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