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.
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.