More Questions to Ask at Interviews

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At every interview, employers asked job hunters whether they have any questions for them. Smart questions will communicate whether you will be a smart manager, director or executive within their organization. I’ve covered some questions in previous videos; here are more that I believe will help you create a great impression.

 

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I was on StumbleUpon and I stumbled into something that I thought was worthwhile sharing. It comes from topresume.com. I’m going to give them credit for this. .  The question is entitled, “13 Questions to Ask the Hiring Manager.”

I think the article is geared toward more senior professionals, but I’m going to curate the information Because I think it can be applied to people at many other levels as well.

Here are some of the questions for you and a manager level and above that you will find helpful when you are at the end of the interview and they say, “so, do you have any questions for us?”

1 of the things I’ve always encouraged people to ask is, “Please give me an idea of your expectations over the 1st 30, 60 and ninety days.” That’s a pretty predictable question because 1 of the things he wants to find out is how they are going to get you up and running, as well as what their expectations are over the 1st 3 months.

Then there’s another question I asked people to ask.  “Let’s say you hire me, and it’s a year from now.  I have adjusted a good job; I’ve done a spectacular job amongst the best that you’ve ever seen someone performing a role like this. What what I’ve accomplished during this year that would cause you to think that way?”

These are to the questions I encourage people to ask. Here are some from topresume.com:

“What is the history of this position?”  Let me add to that by having you ask By having you ask, “how did my predecessor in this position excel?” “How did they fall short?” You want to hear what the good points for so you can replicate them and where they were seen as being deficient, so you avoid that.

Here’s another one that I like.  “What about this position is important?  How does it serve leadership and direct reports?” I think this is a nice question because you always want to be in proximity to positions of authority and power.  If you are down the line so far That what you’re doing doesn’t matter and they can’t answer that question, that’s real good for you to know.

“How will you measure my success and what can I do to exceed your expectations?” This has slightly different language than my question; I like mine better, but I wanted to have you hear this alternative.

“What part of the position has the steepest learning curve? What can someone do to get up to speed quickly?”

“What are the expectations about managing workflow?” After all, in the day when it’s very common for firms to be operating 24 x 7 x 365, Do you have to personally maintain coverage or can you coordinate that?

“How is the feedback process structured here?”  You are going to live and die with that while managing your team and will be affected by it as well.

“What opportunities will I have to learn and grow?” 

Then, in the article, they start to suggest questions of the manager about their circumstances. I’m going to give you their questions and you draw your own conclusions about whether to ask them.

“What’s the most challenging part of your job? What’s your favorite part of it?”

“How did you get your role?” You’re trying to find out if they were hired from the outside or promoted internally.

“Do you have the tools and resources to do your job well?” Personally, I would feel awkward about asking that question. You’re asking someone who is considering hiring you whether they have adequate resources to do the job.

“Do you feel like your opinions count? (Do you think they are really going to say, ” no?”)” 

“Is there anything that I’ve said that would cause you to doubt that I would be a great fit for the role?”

I covered that in another video where I talk about questions that you could ask later on.

Whether you you use all these questions were not, I think a lot of them are very smart for you as a manager level and above To ask in order to figure out whether this is a role that makes sense for you.

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Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

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