Posted

by Liz Ryan

Dear Liz,

I started a new job two weeks ago and it’s going great. I wanted to share my interviewing experience with you because it was the first time I’ve job-hunted since I started reading your columns.

It really hit home this time that I get to decide which company and which manager to work for. I’m not cocky but I know I have some skills that a lot of employers can use.

I had seven different opportunities in my pipeline but three of them were basically bogus.

I had a call with a headhunter about an opportunity but he never got back to me so I wrote that one off. I had four serious possibilities.

I made a list of four questions that I planned to ask each of the four employers:

1. Why should I take this job (if you offer it to me) over other opportunities I’m considering?

2. What is the story of this job — was there a person in the role before, or is it a new position? If there was someone in the job, where are they now? If it’s a new position, why was it created?

3. What is your expectation regarding a “good day’s work?” When does your workday start and end, and what are your expectations around communication or extra work outside of working hours?

4. What is your company’s layoff history, if any?

I thought these were four reasonable questions that any job-seeker would ask if they felt confident enough to ask them.

I asked all four employers my questions. In two of the situations, I had “screening” interviews with either the internal recruiter or an HR person, so I asked those people my four questions.

In the other two cases there was no screening interview. My first interview was with my hiring manager, so I asked them my questions. Neither of the hiring managers had any problem with my four questions and both of them had great answers.

One of the two “screeners” I met was very  young. She works in HR. She is not the HR Manager. She was taken aback by my questions. She asked me “Do you have any questions?” and I asked Question Number One (“why should I work for you instead of another employer?”)

She shut her mouth and didn’t have a word to say.

It was awkward!

Finally she said “I think it’s a great company,” so I followed up and asked her “Why’s that?”

She was definitely ill at ease, but she did her best and then the interview was over. She introduced me to the hiring manager.

I asked him my four questions also, and he had pretty good answers. He didn’t look like he was put out by my questions but I never heard from that company again.

The most interesting case was the other company that put me through a “screening” interview with their internal recruiter.

We can call her Nancy. Nancy is the Staffing Manager for the company. At the end of our interview she asked me if I had any questions.

I said “Yes, I have four of them” and she smiled. I asked her the first question. Immediately her body language changed. She reacted very negatively to my first question, and very quickly!

Nancy said “I wouldn’t worry about whether to work for us or for someone else. We haven’t made you an offer yet!”

I said “For sure, this is my first interview, but if you do make me an offer and I have other job offers, why should I come and work for you?”

She said “Let’s deal with that if you get that far.” It was incredible, because I really got to see the bureaucratic fear that you always write about.

Nancy asks people all day long “Why should we hire you?” That was the second question she asked me. But she’s not comfortable with people asking her the very same question in reverse.

Believe it or not, I got a job offer from Nancy’s company and both of the companies where I met the hiring manager in my first interview. I had a hard time choosing between those two offers.

I never really gave Nancy’s company serious consideration, mainly because the old-school attitude that Nancy showed me runs through the whole organization.

I learned everything I needed to know about that organization in the first interview!

Thanks for all you do Liz –

Yours,

Gaylen

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