Questions about the interviewer
Absolutely. People like to talk to people. Most applicants want to know about the interviewer. One big question is how personal can you get without crossing the line? “Asking questions about the interviewer is fine if you keep the questions relevant and focused on the job,” says Bob Conlin, VP of marketing at Incentive Systems in Bedford, Massachusetts. Conlin says he is often asked questions such as:
What convinced you to come to Incentive Systems? What are some of the best attributes of Incentive Systems? Behavioral questions very similar to the type candidates are asked are also fair game to ask the interviewer, says Melanie Mays, president of Empyrean Consulting, a recruiting consulting firm in Dallas, Texas. These questions are best asked after a mutual interest has been established. They should go only to the individual with whom you might be working:
Can you tell me about a project that was successful and how you accomplished it as a team?
Can you tell me about a time when you encountered constraints and how you resolved them?
How do you think your employees would describe your management style?
Some hiring managers are perfectly comfortable with such questions, but others might get defensive, Mays warns. If that’s the case, back off, although the defensiveness itself will give you a clue about the situation. Other personal questions to consider asking the interviewer:
Tell me about your career choice. How did you get into recruiting?
What attracted you to this organization? What are some of the things you especially admire about the company? If you could change some things about the company, what would they be? How many layers of management are there between you and the CEO? When was the last time you had contact with the CEO? Avoid questions that are over the line. Personal questions that are clearly inappropriate would be ones such as: Are you single? How much money do you take home? What would it take for you to leave your job? Would you want to work for the guy I might be working for? What’s the worst thing you got away with at this company? Aren’t you a little young (or old) to be in your position? “I welcome questions about my personal experience that give me an opportunity to share my enthusiasm about the company,” says Beau Harris, a recruiter at Handspring, Inc., the Mountain View, California–based manufacturer of the Visor personal digital assistant. What questions would Harris resent? “There are a whole range of questions about marital status, religion, political views that I as an interviewer am not allowed to ask,” he says. “I believe the candidate should be held to the same standard. Questions like that should not be part of the decisionmaking mix.”
YES, THERE REALLY ARE DUMB QUESTIONS
A platitude popular in educational circles is that there is no such thing as a dumb question. After talking to hundreds of recruiters and job coaches around the world, I can tell you that, unfortunately, there really are dumb questions, and their articulation has cost thousands of people jobs for which they might otherwise have been qualified. Job candidates ask dumb questions every day. These questions prove they haven’t done their homework, haven’t listened, or have a tin ear for context.
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