Interviewing the Interviewer
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
—Ernest Hemingway
People love to talk about themselves and are moved when you care enough to listen intently. People also respect someone with the courage to ask questions, without arrogance, but with genuine curiosity. That’s why this next phase is so crucial: you’re going to interview the interviewer.
Prepare a minimum of two questions—preferably four or five—that you can ask the hiring manager.
Don’t ask questions for which you should already know the answers. Base questions on things that are relevant to the team or position you’re going for, and make sure the questions will elicit a positive response.
Insider Secret #6:
A manager wants to see that you have the courage to politely turn the tables on him to probe and extract information.
This is your time to demonstrate a depth of expertise or knowledge that may go deeper in probing the manager’s mind and help begin to create solutions for him. Good managers will admire a great thought process and problem-solving ability. You want him to see you as intelligent, especially if you’re working within the engineering field, as a technical person, or have a PhD.
The following are some examples of questions for your interviewer:
Those are some great questions to ask a hiring manager, because if the answers relate to things you’ve done or are interested in, you can also show a desire to help spearhead a project as a way of preclosing the interviewer. Also notice that these are all positive questions that will make the manager excited, thinking about his own successes and those of his team or company.
This manager will remember the emotional state in which you leave him. Don’t go down the negative news tunnel unless he brings it up first. You don’t want to open the door by asking something like, “Tell me about people who failed and why?” You don’t want failure, or people who have failed, to be any part of your interview process, or be associated with a manager’s thinking about you. If the manager brings up a negative topic, respond as briefly and neutrally as possible and move on.
Take your time during this phase. Ask questions about aspects of the job you’re truly interested in and get the answers. Don’t interrupt; instead focus, listen, and maintain eye contact. Make the interviewer feel you’re present and that you’re a good listener.
The manager will respect the fact that you have some questions about the company, rather than just walking in and saying, “Hey this place is great, I’ll take it!” It makes you look discerning, with good judgment. It also implies that you have options, something else which makes you a more desirable candidate.
I’m not suggesting you play “hard to get” at your interview, or come across as arrogant. That’s a mistake I often see. Rather than coming across as competitive in a healthy way, arrogance communicates the attitude, “I’m the best thing in the world and they need me.” Not a good approach. Some people who don’t have any results try to play that card, and it usually doesn’t work out well.
Asking intelligent questions implies that you know before you show up who the interview is with—another reason to do your homework. What has the interviewer done that’s special? Has this person been a top performer? If you don’t have the information, find it. Top companies want to see that you’ve put in the energy and the research, that you’ve made the phone calls and gone on the Internet. It’s not always easy, but keep in mind, compared to the amount of time you spent in school and in your career thus far, another three hours to prepare for an interview is really nothing. Even if it takes ten hours, being ready is worth it. This next step in your career could be the most critical one that you’ll take this decade.
You begin to preclose an interview when you turn around one of the answers to your interview questions to ask the manager how your skills can benefit some of the needs the company has now. When the interviewer makes a correlation between your skills and the needs of the company and begins to see it happening, then you’ve begun to preclose. Here’s an example:
You: I have shared some of my strong skills and we have agreed on their value. Where would you put me first in your organization if I was to start today?
Interviewer: I think your tech skills with the Cloud could really help with our upcoming implementations. I would put you with Margie and have you sit through our software and progress evaluation meetings with her.
Building your preclose around three or four solid facts about your results, process, and relationships is like putting anchors in the manager’s nervous system around these important attributes. The perfect preclose focuses on your results, reminds the interviewer how you picked up those skills, and makes him or her think about your potential to teach those skills to a team. “Given that I helped achieve a 90 percent acceptance rate among the retail division for our new POP systems by revamping the training protocols, how do you see me contributing to the rollout of your new POP terminals in the fall?”
Like everything else, you want to practice your precloses and your interview questions with someone else many times over. Next chapter: closing time!
Interviewing the Interviewer Worksheet: