We tend to think that a job interview is like an audition. We think "I hope they like me!" That's exactly the wrong mindset to bring to a job interview.
Who cares if they like you, if the job isn't right for you? We spend all our mental and emotional energy at a job interview trying to be the candidate we think the manager wants to see.
How could we possibly know that? We read the manager's body language and study his or her facial expressions. That's the last thing we should do!
I have been interviewing job candidates for over thirty years now. In many cases, a candidate said something at an interview that startled or annoyed me. I may have shown it in my face. So what? Overnight, as I thought about it, I may have realized "That candidate was right on the money." I was glad that the broad-minded job-seeker hadn't worried about upsetting me. We all need to have our frames shaken at times!
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You can't spend your precious interview time trying to please the interviewer. Doing that will weaken your truth-telling muscles and could get you into a job you'd hate. What's the point of that? A job interview is a sorting exercise. It helps to clarify whether the two people sitting together, a hiring manager and a job-seeker, are meant to work together. If they are, great! If they aren't, that's great too!
The faster you say "See ya!" to the wrong opportunities, the faster the right ones will come in.
Here are ten questions to ask your next boss at a job interview. You probably won't have time to ask all of them, and I certainly don't want you reading from a script like the least-capable interviewers do on the other side of the table. Ask your favorite questions from our list if they're appropriate given the conversation you and your possible future boss are having.
Apart from the questions on this list, think about your hiring manager's business situation and ask questions about what's working and what isn't. That's the best way to uncover the Business Pain that is seldom if ever identified in the job ad.
Ten Questions For Your Next Boss
- What are the issues or projects you'd expect your new hire to have taken care of and put to bed ninety days after starting the job -- such that you'd be thrilled to have hired him or her?
- When you've talked about this position opening with the rest of your leadership team, how have you described the principal purpose of the role? Among all the items on the job description, what's the one that makes this new hire essential for you right now?
- What would you expect to be the biggest two or three projects or topics that your new hire will focus on right away, in his or her first few weeks on the job?
- Who are the internal and external customers of your new hire, and what is each of them looking for your new hire to provide them?
- What do you see as the career path for this person over time?
- What are your biggest priorities in the department for the coming year, and how will this new hire help you accomplish those goals?
- I try to be sensitive to cultural and team issues. If you had internal candidates for this position, what are the reasons you also looked at external candidates like me? If you end up hiring an external candidate, how would you like to see your new hire deal with possible bruised feelings on the part of current employees who were interested in the job?
- What are the first-year milestones for your new hire, and beyond those, which first-year wins would make you ecstatic to have hired the person you did?
- How does your team collaborate and communicate? Do you meet together, and if so how are those meetings structured? What sort of collaboration would you like to see from your new hire?
- How do you evaluate employees and manage pay increases here?
If you're not getting a clear sense of what the job entails during the interview, you can ask "What is a typical day like, in the life of your new hire?" Your goal at the interview is not to pretend to be somebody that the hiring manager will like, but to show up as yourself and make it easy for you and your possible future boss to decide whether there's a good match, or not.
