Interviewers encourage interviewees to ask questions. And people holding presentations are asking for questions. Also people in general seem to like it if you ask questions about them. But not all of them. How do I choose good questions to ask in an interview, after a talk or with a person, especially when the interview answered all of my obvious question, as did the talk?
Have you already decided you want the job? “Based on this interview and the information I have given you, what do you see as my strengths compared to other candidates?” Same question for weaknesses but think about not highlighting them unless you are pretty sure you can defeat them by addressing them. One way to ask about them would be to ask something more leading, like “what are you unsure about, where you would like to hear more from me about the topic?”
Are you really just thinking about the job, where you already have adequate employment? Then ask about what matters to you in a job.
Listening to a talk for fun or learning? I think contextualized questions about application of ideas are good to bring the abstract down to the concrete and sometime reveal more. So, you might start a question with, “I am a ___ and in that work I see a lot of ___ . How do you think your idea of ___ applies to a ___ where ___ is usually the case?” I think the key there is not to focus on the introduction. Most people like to talk about themselves, so it is easy to fall into that trap and forget about asking a question.
I had a job interview earlier today for a job that I’ve already decided that I want. Having recently read this post, I tried the “what do you see as my strengths” question in the field. I don’t think it went well. It seemed like a very thinly veiled attempt at making them say positive things about me and I suspect the interviewing panel was smart enough to realize this. The result, to my perception, was that I came off as the kind of person who would attempt to deploy cheap petty psychological tricks. Rather than calling me on this, the interviewers played along and said some nice things about me, but I feel like it left a bad impression on them that I asked them to do so in such a transparent way.
I am posting to warn others to consider the possibility of this outcome before deploying this tactic.
UPDATE (7 November 2014) - I was offered the job today. Not sure what effect, if any, this interview tactic had, but I feel like I should at least disclose this result for posterity.
Definitely a good thing to look up beforehand. I might recommend the Manager Tools interviewing series. The key point is that even this point of the interview is NOT about you learning anything. The entire interview is you selling yourself. There’s a view about that “you’re interviewing them too,” and you should hope you’re competing against other candidates who think that.
Anyway, bit of a tangent as that wasn’t specifically about just job interviews, but nonetheless the interviewing series addresses that insanely well. Probably want a link I think it’s www.manager-tools.com.
The “you’re interviewing them too” line is absolutely true if you are in a competitive market and are not desperate for a job. If you are unemployed, your best strategy is to get any job in your field, work there for a few months, then start hunting for another job. If you have a job and skills the market values (and thus expect to be able to get multiple job offers in the course of a few months), you can afford to be selective. This means you should not take a job offer unless it’s an improvement from your last job, and it’s enough of an improvement that you it’s worth it to stop searching. There is a post somewhere on LessWrong about the decision theory on how long you should look on an open ended issue like this, I believe with marriage as the subject, but “don’t take a job that sounds like it would grind your soul to dust” is a good starting point, as is “never take a pay cut, or a non-significant pay increase”. Switching jobs is a pain, and you can’t do it too often.
Getting back to the point, in an interview you should ask three main kinds of questions: questions that make you seem smart, questions that you show you were paying attentions, and questions that you actually want to know the answer to. If you can do two or all three at once, great. A good stock question is “Can you walk me through what a typical day in this position is like?”, because it’s rarely answered earlier and it’s good to know. It’s amazing how often people will talk about a job in generalities and not say, e.g., whether you are going to be sitting in a chair pressing buttons all day or whether you’re going to be traveling, attending meetings, washing beakers, whatever. “How big a team will I be working with?” is another one, because again it sounds like you care about the particulars of the job, which you should if you’re going to be working there for months or years. You should be able to get two or three relevant questions in your specialty too to trot out.
Finally, don’t wait until the end of an interview to ask questions. It’s best if you have a conversation, not a monologue. Don’t interrupt, but if there’s a break in the interview ask about something that you want to know about. You might find you have no questions left at the end—just tell the truth, that you already asked everything you wanted to know.
Source: I have a job. I also know quite a few people who are part of the process from the employer end.
Interviewers encourage interviewees to ask questions. And people holding presentations are asking for questions. Also people in general seem to like it if you ask questions about them. But not all of them. How do I choose good questions to ask in an interview, after a talk or with a person, especially when the interview answered all of my obvious question, as did the talk?
I think it depends on your goals.
Have you already decided you want the job? “Based on this interview and the information I have given you, what do you see as my strengths compared to other candidates?” Same question for weaknesses but think about not highlighting them unless you are pretty sure you can defeat them by addressing them. One way to ask about them would be to ask something more leading, like “what are you unsure about, where you would like to hear more from me about the topic?”
Are you really just thinking about the job, where you already have adequate employment? Then ask about what matters to you in a job.
Listening to a talk for fun or learning? I think contextualized questions about application of ideas are good to bring the abstract down to the concrete and sometime reveal more. So, you might start a question with, “I am a ___ and in that work I see a lot of ___ . How do you think your idea of ___ applies to a ___ where ___ is usually the case?” I think the key there is not to focus on the introduction. Most people like to talk about themselves, so it is easy to fall into that trap and forget about asking a question.
I had a job interview earlier today for a job that I’ve already decided that I want. Having recently read this post, I tried the “what do you see as my strengths” question in the field. I don’t think it went well. It seemed like a very thinly veiled attempt at making them say positive things about me and I suspect the interviewing panel was smart enough to realize this. The result, to my perception, was that I came off as the kind of person who would attempt to deploy cheap petty psychological tricks. Rather than calling me on this, the interviewers played along and said some nice things about me, but I feel like it left a bad impression on them that I asked them to do so in such a transparent way.
I am posting to warn others to consider the possibility of this outcome before deploying this tactic.
UPDATE (7 November 2014) - I was offered the job today. Not sure what effect, if any, this interview tactic had, but I feel like I should at least disclose this result for posterity.
Definitely a good thing to look up beforehand. I might recommend the Manager Tools interviewing series. The key point is that even this point of the interview is NOT about you learning anything. The entire interview is you selling yourself. There’s a view about that “you’re interviewing them too,” and you should hope you’re competing against other candidates who think that.
Anyway, bit of a tangent as that wasn’t specifically about just job interviews, but nonetheless the interviewing series addresses that insanely well. Probably want a link I think it’s www.manager-tools.com.
The “you’re interviewing them too” line is absolutely true if you are in a competitive market and are not desperate for a job. If you are unemployed, your best strategy is to get any job in your field, work there for a few months, then start hunting for another job. If you have a job and skills the market values (and thus expect to be able to get multiple job offers in the course of a few months), you can afford to be selective. This means you should not take a job offer unless it’s an improvement from your last job, and it’s enough of an improvement that you it’s worth it to stop searching. There is a post somewhere on LessWrong about the decision theory on how long you should look on an open ended issue like this, I believe with marriage as the subject, but “don’t take a job that sounds like it would grind your soul to dust” is a good starting point, as is “never take a pay cut, or a non-significant pay increase”. Switching jobs is a pain, and you can’t do it too often.
Getting back to the point, in an interview you should ask three main kinds of questions: questions that make you seem smart, questions that you show you were paying attentions, and questions that you actually want to know the answer to. If you can do two or all three at once, great. A good stock question is “Can you walk me through what a typical day in this position is like?”, because it’s rarely answered earlier and it’s good to know. It’s amazing how often people will talk about a job in generalities and not say, e.g., whether you are going to be sitting in a chair pressing buttons all day or whether you’re going to be traveling, attending meetings, washing beakers, whatever. “How big a team will I be working with?” is another one, because again it sounds like you care about the particulars of the job, which you should if you’re going to be working there for months or years. You should be able to get two or three relevant questions in your specialty too to trot out.
Finally, don’t wait until the end of an interview to ask questions. It’s best if you have a conversation, not a monologue. Don’t interrupt, but if there’s a break in the interview ask about something that you want to know about. You might find you have no questions left at the end—just tell the truth, that you already asked everything you wanted to know.
Source: I have a job. I also know quite a few people who are part of the process from the employer end.