Asking questions -- an essential and overlooked step

In traditional employment interviews, once the interviewer has asked all their questions, they will ask if you have any questions for them. You would prefer to be able to ask questions as early in the interview as possible to get some feeling for the employer's situation and needs. Unfortunately, many interviewers will tell you right away that they aren't interested in hearing any of your questions until they've finished theirs.

Trained interviewers invariably use some form of "structured interview". They have been taught that skilled interviewers come in with a prepared list of questions and don't allow the interviewee to "take control" by asking their own questions. I can guarantee that you're not going to convince them to abandon this approach, so just accept it and work with it.

Unlike many other interview guide writers, I don't recommend that you try to take over the interview by answering questions with questions or using similarly irritating techniques. You should try to gauge your interviewer's receptiveness to adopt a more give-and-take approach, and have the flexibility to respond appropriately. If they're open to questions, by all means go ahead.

If you've arranged the interview with a company that doesn't have an advertised opening, the interview will be less structured and more balanced between their questions and yours. You can't walk in expecting the interviewer to have planned out the first 85 percent of the interview. You must be prepared to ask questions to reveal their problems and position yourself as the answer to those problems.

If you don't have any questions, the interviewer will likely be left with one or more of these impressions of you:

• You're not really interested in the position or the organization
• You're so lazy you couldn't be bothered to put any thought into it
• You're so desperate you'll go anywhere

Not the image you're trying to project in any case.

Despite this, very few people go into an employment interview prepared to ask questions. There's a reason employers usually leave so little time for questions at the end. They know they don't need any more than a couple minutes to answer the dull, perfunctory queries that interviewees routinely ask.

Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to know the hours you'd be working! It's often a perfectly acceptable question. But if this is all you ask, you've missed a wide-open opportunity to reinforce your credibility and help the employer see the value that you offer.

There are three ways to handle this part of the interview:

OPTION 1: Wing it

The most common approach is to go in unprepared and scramble to come up with something when the employer asks you if you have any questions. The result is almost always a couple of inane questions that do nothing to tap into the employer's aspirations or address their concerns. Often, you won't even really care about the answer, or the answer will be something you already know.

This is the approach you want to avoid. These questions don't help you in any way except to fill an otherwise embarrassing silence. They save you from saying "No, I can't think of anything right now" and looking like a complete dullard, but that's it.

OPTION 2: Show the interviewer that you've thought about the organization and the work you'd be doing for them

The second way to handle the "Do you have any questions for me?" stage is to prepare a few questions to get some additional information about the company and the position. They may just be simple fact-finding questions, but the areas you address will reveal what your priorities and values are.

Done properly, it's a way of communicating to the employer that you understand what's important for success in the position and how you can help the organization achieve its objectives.

Anyone can do this. It's simple. You can write the questions down and refer to your notes during the interview. We'll talk about some specific questions you can ask in just a minute. The only excuse for not preparing some questions for the interview is abject laziness. Fortunately for you, this disease inflicts many of the people you'll be going up against.

OPTION 3: Probe the employer's objectives, expectations and desires

All through the interview you've been trying to excite the employer's hopes -- to show them how you can help them to achieve their objectives and solve their problems. In most cases, you've done this without ever being told what those hopes, objectives, and problems are. Now you can explore the employer's goals, ideas, concerns, feelings, and situation directly.

This is how you can really show your interest in the organization and in the work you'd be doing for them. Instead of using some hackneyed interview book technique -- a superficial reference to a story you read in the paper, for example -- you can use questions to demonstrate to the employer that you're interested in their needs, concerns, and hopes.

If you're meeting with an organization that does not have an announced opening, you should go into the interview prepared to begin with these kind of exploratory questions. Your goal is to begin a dialogue -- something that is missing from most employment interviews -- and to uncover the employer's needs, problems, and desires so that you can address how you would be able to help them.

a) Exploring the current situation and previous experiences

The first step is to explore the employer's current situation. Most of the general information questions you might ask (including the "option 2" questions) can be classified as relating to the employer's current situation. These can include questions about the employer's customers, competitors, or management style, for example. We'll come back to these kinds of questions in just a moment.

In addition to basic fact-finding questions, however, you may also want to find out more about how the employer is currently handling the specific problems that you see yourself being able to help them solve. You can think of these questions as "How are they getting by without me?" (Never actually ask such a pompous question directly).

If you believe that the employer would benefit by hiring you, it follows that there is something about their current situation -- or an impending situation -- that you can improve. Since you probably know relatively little about their current situation, this is your chance to ask.

Asking about their current situation allows you to:

• Confirm your suspicions about how you'd be able to make a contribution.
• Uncover any inaccurate beliefs you may have.
• Probe for any other opportunities that you hadn't thought of previously.
• Find out how the employer feels about their situation.
• Get new information on the organization.

• How are you handling [specific situations/problems] now?
• How has that been going? How do you feel about the results you've been getting?
• So until now you've just had one sales rep and now you want to add two more, is that right?

Along with questions about the current situation, you may also want to ask about their previous experiences with people who do the kind of work that you do. If they've had bad experiences in the past, the employer will be even more cautious about hiring someone now.

Good experiences will shape the employer's expectations of what someone who will succeed in the position is like. They may be trying to duplicate the experience, skills, and personality of someone who has succeeded in the kind of work you're looking to do.

Examples:

• What has been your experience with people who have done this kind of work before? What have you liked about the way this work has been done? What would you like to see done differently?
• Who has been doing this work up until now? What happened to them?
• How long were they in this position? Were they successful?

b) Exploring the employer's desired situation

Now you have the opportunity to ask them about their hopes for how the person they're hiring will make a difference to their organization.

Get involved in the conversation here. You want this to be a two-way discussion, showing that you're in tune with the employer's aspirations and that you have something to contribute. You want to tap into their desires and expectations. Begin a dialogue and show that you can take an active role in helping them achieve their objectives.

Examples:

• What would you like to see happening in the future? Where do you see this organization going from here?
• Would you like to see any changes in the next year?
• What are your objectives for this company / office / department?
• What are some of the challenges you see this organization facing in the next year?

c) Success criteria and expectations

This overlaps with questions about the desired situation. These questions relate to the specific benefits that the interviewer is expecting the person they hire to deliver, or at least help to bring about.

Again, you should try to work with the interviewer here. Don't be afraid to provide your comments or suggestions to show that you also have expectations of yourself and are willing to be judged in accordance with those expectations.

Examples:

• How do you expect the person in this position will benefit your organization? What objectives do you expect to achieve with this person's help?
• Six months from now (or a year, or 3 months), what do want the person in this position to have achieved?
• Six months from now, when you're evaluating how successful the person you select has been in this position, what factors will you consider?

d) Questions about the decision process

There are at least two questions you may want to ask about the hiring process itself. If your interview is for an announced opening, you should find out how long they expect the decision process to take. You want to get a commitment from the employer that they will notify you by a specific date what their decision is.

You may also want to find out if the person you've been talking to is the one who will make the hiring decision or if they're just screeners for the real hiring authority.

Examples:

• When can I expect to hear back from you?
• What is your decision-making process? Is anyone else involved in the decision? Will you make the decision now, or do you expect that you will want a second meeting?
• When would you want me to begin?

e) The employer's decision criteria

Of course you'd love to know exactly what the employer is looking for, but there is a danger in coming right out and asking too soon. Once you've been told their decision criteria, you can easily seem merely to be parroting their answer when you address those areas -- particularly if you haven't brought them up in the interview up until now.

For example, if you ask the interviewer about their decision criteria and they mention, say, customer service, it's going to be hard for you to score any points just by talking about your customer service focus. It now seems prompted -- no matter how genuine your service skills and beliefs may be.

On the other hand, had you talked about your strong beliefs in service and building customer commitment before the interviewer had told you that this was something they're looking for, you might have made a strong impression just by bringing up the topic yourself. It would have shown the interviewer your awareness and insight into skills that are important for success.

I suggest that you first ask about specific areas that you suspect will be included in the decision criteria and for which you have some examples of your related abilities ready.

Examples:

• How much importance do you put on in choosing someone for this position?
• What are some of the qualities or abilities you're looking for in the person you hire for this position? What other traits or abilities do you feel are important for success in this kind of work?

f) Competitive standing and interviewer concerns

You may feel uncomfortable asking these questions, but it can only help.

Examples:

• How many other people are you interviewing for this position?
• At the moment, how would you say I stack up against the others? What concerns do you have that I might not be able to achieve the objectives you've set for this position?
• What have you liked in others that I might not be able to match? Any general strengths or weaknesses to the group as a whole?

General questions to ask the interviewer

The questions you'll want to ask to find out more about the company will vary with your strengths and interests -- and with the interviewer's. In general, you'd like to include questions that reveal your awareness of the employer's concerns and that relate to the areas where you feel you may have an advantage over the competition.

Here are some possible questions to get more information about the organization:

• What is management style (where you'd be working) / organizational culture?
• Do you have a mission statement / values statement?
• What is senior management's vision for this company in the future?
• How has this company evolved over the last five years?
• Would you say that this organization is customer-focused? How?
• Who are the company's primary customers? Are you going after any new markets? What customers would I be working with?
• How do you determine the value customers are receiving from your products or services?
• What new products or services have you recently introduced to serve your customers? What are you working on now?
• Who are your competitors? How do they compare to you?
• How are employee suggestions and innovations received?
• What would you say are important factors in determining the profit/surplus that this business earns?
• What principles or beliefs have influenced your management style?
• What training opportunities are available?
• Who owns the company?

Questions to get the employer thinking about you in the position:

• Who would I be working with?
• What kind of projects/assignments would I be working on first?

You might also consider asking to speak with some of the people you'd be working with, although you may want to leave this request for a second interview or for when they come back to you with an offer.

Last chance! -- What value do you offer the employer that you haven't discussed yet?

The interviewer isn't psychic. Any skills, abilities, or knowledge you possess that could offer value to the employer but that you leave unsaid in the interview can never do anything to help you get the job. The interview's almost over. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Many interviewers will end with a question like "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?" but not everyone will. You don't have to wait to be invited. If there's something else you think they need to know to make an informed decision, you must tell them ... NOW

You have one more chance to bring out any of your key strengths that may differentiate you from the competition. You can ask the employer a question relating to your value-adding strength, and follow up with your evidence that you have something to offer.

For example, let's say you're interviewing for a position that requires working with customers, and from your preparation you have some good examples ready of how you can resolve customer complaints or requests for refunds. If you haven't been able to work this into the interview up until that point, you could ask:

Since I'd be working closely with customers in this position, I imagine that I'd occasionally deal with a customer who isn't entirely satisfied with the product or service they've received from us. I have some good experience in that area, and I was wondering how you handle these situations when they do come up.

Unless the interviewer says something like "No that never happens" you'll be able to follow up with the example(s) that you have ready of how you've successfully handled these circumstances before or a thoughtful discussion of how you would handle them.

You can do this with any important aspect of the job that you've identified as one of your strengths list that hasn't been addressed in the interview -- ask a question about it, and follow up with your evidence that you possess that ability.

Don't ask questions to make the interviewer look bad

While tradition makes it acceptable for interviewers to ask questions that make you squirm, the interviewer will not be pleased if you turn the tables on them.

It's pretty simple to come up with some deep, probing questions that the interviewer would probably not be able to answer very well. Some people try to ask these kind of questions to impress the interviewer with how bright and insightful they are.

It doesn't work. Instead of being awed by your brilliance, the interviewer will be left thinking you're just another arrogant know-it-all. Of course, you want the employer to think you're bright and insightful, but you don't communicate those traits by trying to speak over their heads. A condescending attitude has never won a job offer.

Should you ask about salary if this point has not been raised?

There's an old saying in sales that you should never discuss price before establishing value. Until the prospective buyer is convinced that you can provide something they want, the question of price is irrelevant. It can only scare them away.

Ideally, you'd love to wait until the employer decides that they must have you before the subject of salary is brought up. You'll never be in a better bargaining position than if you can first get them salivating over the prospect of having you join their team first.

Now, it's quite likely that the employer will never be quite that excited by you, no matter how brilliant and skilled you are. But if they're going to choose to give you an offer (the question of salary is irrelevant otherwise) they will come closest to feeling this way once they've had a chance to evaluate what they have to choose from and begin to see you as standing out from the pack. They probably won't reach the "we really want this person" stage until all the interviews are finished.

This means that you wouldn't want to bring up salary questions in the initial interview. In fact, you should try not to discuss it until you've received a job offer or have some indication that you're their first choice.

If you're going to run up a lot of expenses or be required to devote a considerable amount of time on the selection process, then it might be best to find out quickly if there is at least a possibility of a match.

In most situations, though, it is best not to discuss salary until as late in the selection process as possible. This gives you time to present the value you offer to the employer, and lets you gain an understanding of the requirements of the position so you can determine what you consider to be an acceptable salary.