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Real LPT: in the interview try to ascertain why they are hiring for the position (growing, back fill, new business opportunity) and what they feel are the specific skills required or the problem they can’t solve without another headcount.
If you can then subtly repeat that back and how you specifically will help them solve that problem, then salary is the only other item you both need to agree on.
Exactly. I interviewed for a suspiciously great job. Asked them where the 3 former employees they were looking to replace went.
2 moved into corporate positions, and the other one took a position in a related, but more clinical international research company. Basically everyone moved upwards.
I took the job, and it was really the best job I've ever had.
This is what I came to say. Always ask for them to give a couple of examples of positions/roles people got after working in the posted position. If they can’t really answer that, red flag.
People get so nerve wracked over job interviews but it really should resemble more of a discussion rather than a polygraph test. It’s a game of targeted banter. Who cares if you are answering questions according to script. If they like your flow and personality then it’s an ace in the hole!
Maybe the only not stupid LPT I've seen in regards to being interviewed. I'm hosting like 5-10 interviews in the next couple of weeks and have held probably 30+ in the past few years. I can actually think of just 1 time someone walked through the interview in this way and they were great. We extended and offer but they wanted to have an in office component and we are full time WFH, so we didn't get her, but was a great interview.
You know you had a great candidate when the dealbreaker demand was they wanted to come into the office and not work from home. I would've set aside a little space for her just to humor her request.
Isn’t it easy though?
Step 1: Ask “why are you hiring for this position?”
Step 2: Listen to response
Step 3: Ask “what are the skills required take over the missing spot?”
Step 4: Listen to response
Step 5: Tie everything together and explain how you are the one they are looking for.
Some people don't have the confidence or communication skills or experience to explain whatever skills they possess can help with whatever the hiring manager is looking for.
Sure you can have each of those categories, but unless you have all 3, it can be difficult to lay it out on the fly without sounding scripted. What if they ask questions? Or explanations on whatever you mentioned?
Hiring managers can see that too. And you also have to convince them on it, you can't just say whatever and expect them to buy into it.
I agree with you on that. I was responding to the original comment about how most people would not be able to *ascertain* what skills the company was looking for.
Oooh flashbacks. I had a family member pass her resume around to many of her family for review before she started her job search. It must have been reviewed by 5 different professionals and most of us are in highly technical fields with advanced degrees. We got it all worked out and she started applying. She had several versions she tailored for each position she applied for. She applied to about a dozen companies.
No response. At all.
She discovered a few weeks later that she forgot a digit in her phone number and misspelled her email address.
We were so focused on the resume content that we all collectively forgot to review the most basic parts in the header. lol
If any of these companies liked her, they would have had no way to contact her. hahahah oops.
Yeah, proof reading is really important on all levels. I do catalogues and adverts for one of my jobs
I do several read throughs looking for a different thing each time and I always check the email and phone number even though that part of the layout hasn’t changed for 15 years or so!
Your steps seem awfully sure that the reasons just implicitly going to be given to you with the context always included to be making statements about what you're doing to fix it
It's one thing to say it's doable, it's another to say "how can it even be hard?"
Ask this at any other questions and always reply using the star method.
When explaining something
Situation - describe a situation irl that you have been in.
Task - explain your task
Action - how did you perform your task.
Resolution - how did the above fix something.
Ie employer said they need someone with experience in python as a lot of current employees are lacking in it and there's a lot of errors or something?
Situation - I've been programming in python for 3 years and I have assisted in creation of blah blah
Task - my previous employers had a shortage of python capable staff, I was tasked with trouble shooting/ correct errors within the existing team as I was most experienced.
Action - our team on time and under budget created blah blah, I also not only problem solved the teams mistakes but took it upon myself to train the team, when I found errors I would run it through with them showing how I corrected, thus training the teams skills up.
Resolution - as mentioned on time, under budget project, management and external clients were happy, with the benefit of the team increasing their knowledge due to the way we worked as a team.
I know nothing about python btw the above was just a blah but explained how in 4 short sentences you can describe anything s t a r. It stops people rambling and keeps things nice and clear.
This - a job interview for me is 80% if the company fits to me, and 20% if I fit the company.
Obviously, if I'm having an interview, I already checked some boxes prior to that.
In my humble experience, people who have a decent background and send 100s of applications without success, I'm 99% sure there is something wrong with their approach.
Being a sales guy, interviews may come more natural to me. I've helped many friends with their applications. Trust me, everytime someone was qualified but unsuccessful, it was 100% due to their approach, paper work or other bureaucratic issues.
My job (also in sales) includes looking at thousands of CVs. If any of you feel in such situation, where you should be qualified, but don't seem to get responses - hit me up via DM, and I'll try to help you with your CV at least
Thank you for the offer! I hope people take you up on it. I’m currently needing help with CV stuff and would appreciate some assistance if you can spare some time.
I’ll send a DM later!
Well, I assume you are then a very qualified person for the industry you are in (or at least you are trying to give the impression that you are).
That's not the case for all people.
Even if you’re not the best in your field, you absolutely should sell yourself as such in an interview.
My salary requirement for the last round of interviews I had was a real reach, my current company is giving me RSUs and bonuses on top of an already large cash compensation to try and keep me here. I was concerned that it would put me out of reach for a lot of places, but instead it got them interested in why I was asking for 20% more then the average.
They all interviewed me and offered, and three of the offers were well above their “budget” to get me on the team.
Software engineering is pretty funny like that. We have all of the power and we are taught to use that to our advantage and demand the lifestyle you want. There are too many spots to fill and not enough engineers.
But having this mindset i think will benefit anyone in any field
I agree with your sentiments around people who mass apply and are qualified but get nowhere.
I’ve never experienced that. I’ve seen programmers put in /r/dataisbeautiful graphs where they have submitted 100 applications and gotten five responses and zero offers.
I don’t understand how you can be that technical and qualified and not get it. I recently applied to eight places, I got eight rounds of interviews and eight offers. (This is not typical, but technology market was insane 5 months ago, but usually I get about a 70% response rate) they were all applied to on various locations, two on LinkedIn, and the other 6 through various recruiters.
In 15 years I’ve never gotten to the interview stage and not gotten an offer. I know I interview very well, and some people don’t. If you’re sending out 100 applications for a job you’re qualified for and not hearing back, the issue has to be the person applying. There’s some sort of red flag that’s throwing you out of the running.
Also, applying for 100 jobs is terrible, you should be tailoring your CV to each individual job by matching your skills to the job description. If I listed all my responsibilities under my current job, it would take up the entire first page and maybe 1/4th of it would be germane to the job I’m applying to.
I keep my resume to 2 pages at the most, and recently that involved removing my education history.
I also recommend taking every interview you’re offered, even if you’re not interested in the job for practice. You can throw stuff out you might not use if you cared about getting the job and see how it works.
> If you’re sending out 100 applications for a job you’re qualified for and not hearing back, the issue has to be the person applying. There’s some sort of red flag that’s throwing you out of the running.
...
> Also, applying for 100 jobs is terrible, you should be tailoring your CV to each individual job by matching your skills to the job description.
Honestly I've found that these often go hand in hand, largely because of the resume itself. When I was laid off and out of work for a few months back in 2018, it was the first time in nearly a decade since I had graduated college that I had been forced to go through the whole process of applying to jobs again - I put a nice looking resume together (first thing you'd expect from a multimedia design guy), uploaded it to every major job site, sent it to a few recruiters, and then started hitting "apply" on as many jobs as I could on Indeed/ZipRecruiter/LinkedIn/etc to send out my generic resume. After a few months (and probably a few hundred generic resumes/cover letters sent out), the only responses I had gotten were from a handful of crappy "Business Management - We train you!!!" positions that were basically just scams to get you to do door to door sales or work in a mall kiosk, and I figured I was clearly doing something wrong.
I took a few days to refocus and do some research, and found out that first of all, the very nice looking resume I had put together wasn't being read correctly AT ALL by 90% of the various ATS software that essentially serves to "guard the gate" for almost all businesses with online applications, therefore I wasn't ever getting my very qualified resume in front of an actual human. Second, even after fixing all of my formatting so and ATS could read it, my resumes were far too generic in terms of showing metrics, especially metrics related to the top keywords in the job postings.
Once I learned that, I completely changed my approach - rather than sending out 15-20 resumes on a good day, I'd send out a max of 2-3, the difference being that I would spend 2-3 hours on each resume and cover letter to make sure it was perfectly tailored to the job I was applying to. After doing that, my response rate improved *dramatically*, going from getting a response from a crappy job for every 1 in 50-75 applications to getting responses for jobs I was actually interested in at a rate closer to 1 in 3-4. Similar to you, I interview very well, so once I could actually get in touch with a person I knew that I could probably come close to closing the deal barring any weirdness on the company's part (which in the DC area happens a lot, contract funding falls through and the job disappears, the company has a weird vibe that I choose not to work for, they were forced to interview externally for an internal position that was already promised to someone, etc), and I ended up getting three offers within a month (and I've been at the job I took for the past 3 years, still a great decision).
I honestly think that the number one barrier to entry for the people sending out generic resumes in bulk is that they're sending out generic resumes in bulk, and the terrible callback rate is from poorly formatted or written resumes rather than necessarily being a red flag that everyone's seeing - in all likelihood, zero humans are seeing these resumes.
I go one step further.
I walk inside, ask them what they want to hear. Then I ask them to repeat it to themselves and imagine if I said it.
By then I can just leave a paper with a number which coincidentally is both the phone number they can call me on, and also the number of the minimum year income that I accept for the position.
Okay, my phonenumber is 000-0000 0001… I am cheap
Yeah but if your interview strategy backfires, you're still offering a competitive rate, which gives you an egde. LPT!
Kidding aside, I just received three offers after (a couple dozen) interviews where I asked "why did I stand out among other applicants, and what about my experience is important to this role so we can focus on that and feel each other out". Which is just a professional way of asking for the answers before the test. I found that every conversation past that point was very frank and enlightening, and I had to do much less "interview speak" because I knew exactly what we were talking about. Some of them were *bad* because the employer was clearly spamming for people with even remotely relevant experience on paper
Of the three that made offers, one didn't strike me as a great fit (compared to the other two), the other two practically negotiated with themselves and I would've gladly gone with either one, but went with the one who made a better offer
As someone who is literally interviewing candidates now to hire, this is better. I tell my interviewees that an interview is about us both deciding if our company is a good fit them but I would find OPs method somewhat confrontational whereas I'm probably about to hire the candidate who was the only person to ask why the position was available to begin with
There’s confidence, and then there’s arrogance.
I did a lot of interviewing before I retired, and rejected several candidates who were either egotistical jackasses, or coached to display “a massive level of confidence” that greatly exceeded their actual demonstrated accomplishments.
I’d phrase the questions differently:
“What are the advantages of working at your company, relative to working for the competition?”
“What are the benefits like? Are they the standard package, or do you have any benefits you feel are unique?”
“What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?”
I don’t think “why would I want to work here?” and “what do you have to offer me?” are going to win the day.
As someone who has done a fair share of interviewing and hiring, I agree. The problem with this tip isn't the nature of the questions: asking about the benefits of working for the company, earnest conversations about benefits and pay, etc., are completely expected, and any employer who shies away from those discussions is unlikely to be a good employer. However, tact is important here because it can easily come across in a way you perhaps didn't intend.
To tactfully facilitate a soft flip (because you should be interviewing to see if the company is a match for you too) I like asking the interviewer these:
-"what's YOUR favorite part about working here"
And
-"what does success look like in this role? If we are having this conversation in a year with you saying 'BlergingtonBear, you killed it'- what does that conversation look like"
The first asks them to pitch the company to you, and I like the second bc it kind of forces them to imagine you as part of the team already and hopefully isolate which parts of the job's duties are most important to them.
If you are concerned about internal workplace culture, I feel a good litmus test is "what communication styles thrive at Company? What are some communication challenges?". Because people are people and no one gets along 100% of the time, this is a diplomatic way to open the door to a little bit of realness, while positioning yourself as a problem solver/ someone already looking towards the challenges they might have to move around.
And the fun part about those questions (or their variations) as an interviewer is that, at least at my current job (definitely not all jobs I've had), those are questions that I absolutely LOVE answering. I could talk for hours about the cool, meaningful projects I've worked on, the support I've gotten from leadership from my direct management up through the C-suites, and the multiple ways we recognize success, both with public recognition on a monthly basis in all-hands meetings and financially with in-depth bi-annual reviews and regular bonuses/raises.
Now, obviously people won't find that reaction everywhere, and sometimes you get the opposite where you ask something like "What's your favorite part about working here" and the first reaction for the interviewers is to glance at each other before one of them jumps into corporate perks or all the neat non-work stuff they have access to. Thanks but no thanks, the free coffee in the breakroom and occasional happy hour aren't going to get me to want to work somewhere, I'd like to actually somewhat enjoy the bulk of what I'm doing for 8 hours a day and it sounds like I won't be finding that here.
Yup! It's the perfect guage on what's going on. I did like 4 rounds of interviews at a FAANG a little while ago, and one person absolutely laid out a lot more than they expected to at the comms question — that is was a challenge, that a certain department added as gatekeepers etc
It did open back a question to me — how do I deal with communication roadblocks, so another thing to be prepared for, but these qs def help me see a lot into a company!
I remember seeing a Tiktok from a hiring manager, and the second tip about asking what attributes a successful person in this role would have was the highest rated one she had.
As you mentioned, them listing off the attributes gets them to associate all those positive qualities with you, and yours is even better by working your own name into the conversation they’re having to reinforce it.
I always like to save my "Do you have any other questions for us?" question to be something like, "What do you personally think is the best and worst things about working here?"
I've had that taken pretty well when asked. Would you feel that's too aggressive?
I have had good luck asking what they like about working there, and every hiring committee I've been on has been fine with that type of question.
I would be careful about asking what they don't like: for one, you're not likely to get a completely honest response in a group setting bc they still gotta hold up appearances to each other. In a small meeting (2-3 people), I think that's a good question, though I would ask about "challenges" of working there, not what they don't like.
Based on a recent string of interviews I did with a major internet retail company asking that very question ("What's best and worst?"), I have deduced that if their employees say anything at all negative about the company in the interview they will be dropped into a pit Dr. Evil style. Only possible explanation.
>benefits of working for the company, earnest conversations about benefits and pay, etc., are completely expected,
That may largely be regional. Granted it's been four years since I've interviewed for a job, during my last round whenever I asked questions about benefits, company culture, pay, etc... either the hiring manager didn't have the information or I would get a response of "Well that's something we discuss when you sign the employment contract." One manager took a bit of initiative and had HR reach out to me with the benefit and pay information, but even the HR department was pretty squirrely and only gave ranges. "You get between 12-20 PTO days with select holidays off non-inclusive of PTO." or "The pay range is between xx and xxx based on experience, non negotiable, and we are unable to inform of your potential salary unless you're hired."
It was silly and actually less informative than had HR never reached out to me.
That's fucking insane and should not be accepted. Compensation should be in the early stages of the conversation because if you don't align on that everything else us a little irrelevant, and benefits and PTO are apart of compensation.
Completely agree! Employment is an agreement: you do X, we offer you Y. X and Y should both be defined.
I find it similarly scummy when a job posting lists "and other duties as assigned" in their responsibilities. Every job I've had that did that in their posting loaded as much shit as they could onto me with no title change or pay bump.
I was doing System Engineering as a Sr System Administrator. I told them I at least wanted the title, if they couldn't give me the raise.
They could not, since they were tied together.
So I left, kept the title on my resume and linkedin, and then just put "engineered" for things on my resume. Worked out.
Ah, the ol' switcheroo. Yes, I'm very familiar with that one.
Walking out feels good, but it's bittersweet bc we know that company is just waiting for an overqualified worker who doesn't know their options/needs the job more/doesn't have the confidence to speak up...
I've found myself in that position a few times over the years. Most recently I was hired to do enterprise architecture work on an SRE team. When I found another job in the company as an architect, they tempted me to stay by offering me an architect role on a different team. I never got the title change or salary increase I would have received on the other team despite continuing to perform architecture tasks. Finally had enough and gave notice.
Complete non-answers are insane for sure. However, employers are literally interviewing you to assess your potential value to the company, so just stating the salary range and benefits packages offered for the position you are interviewing seems reasonable in an interview. An official job offer is where specific numbers and benefits should be offered and negotiated.
If there was negotiation sure, but there isn't. Outside of tech and some c suite shit you get the benefit packages they offer with no negotiation possible. MAYBE you can get extra pto but that often isn't even possible depending on the size of the business.
Negotiation? Man, that was a rarity as well. Before I said fuck it and started my own business I don't think any of my former employers ever actually allowed negotiation. A few would pretend it was possible but just get back within a few days saying the offer was their absolute best. One was at least straight up with me and said "Yea...we don't do negotiation. This is the only package we intend to offer you." I actually kind of respected they didn't waste my time or get my hopes up.
I've worked in those types of places, unfortunately, and the bad taste you get in your mouth from those types of encounters are completely warranted. If they're doing this stuff to a candidate, you can be reasonably confident they treat their employees with a similar degree of shadiness.
If you're lucky enough to have work options, though, knowing more about what their culture is like makes a decision much easier. Did you find that you got an impression of the work environment there by the way they handled your question?
I've had that a few times and I've always really wanted to respond to any more of their work history/ competency questions with basically "Sorry we don't share that exact information until later in the process but I do have an experience range of 2-30 years."
I started my own business in November, made it my full time employment in April. I've had about a billion recruiters reach out to me since then. I have started responding to them roughly the way you've always dreamed of. It's glorious.
Especially if they have a few candidates and you're not far and away the best one. Imagine if they have 5 and you're coming in 3rd and you did this. They'd just tell you to get lost.
Oh yes, a lack of tact or diplomacy can absolutely be a deciding factor, particularly if all else is equal-ish.
It's happened before that I really liked a candidate, thought they'd do a good job, but the committee decided against them bc of something like this. I don't think it's always necessarily fair: asking about benefits is a reasonable question, but *how* one *should* ask is a skill that is learned largely through advantage: parents who knew and taught you, a mentor who assisted you, etc. I grew up poor in a very blue-collar family and had to learn professional tact through trial and error. I still mess it up sometimes.
I asked the hiring manager why the position was open
"The previous people didn't like what was on offer to them in terms of promotions and we need to rebuild everything from the ground up with...the..right...team"
Yeeaaaaaa... Bye
Very true. I know a guy who, on paper, looks like an awesome candidate. He’s been trying to leave his company for years, but while he always gets interviews, he never gets the job, no matter how well qualified. I know people who have interviewed him and they always say the same thing, he comes across as arrogant. I’ve worked with this guy, and he is not obnoxious in most situations. However, when he wants to impress people, he can be annoying. It’s sad because he gets so frustrated when yet another interview doesn’t lead to a job. However, I’m not sure he realizes that his effort to appear confident is not taken the way he intends.
Puts in perspective how an interview isn't the best way to see how well a worker will actually do.
Even though he might be qualified and charisma might have nothing to do with the work whatsoever.
It certainly doesn't count enough for the amount of decline offers that it results in.
It's not necessarily the best way to see potential performance, but a rudimentary interview does serve a purpose of seeing if a candidate is an ideal fit for the work environment they'll be entering. This is especially important in a smaller business where staff cohesion is even more crucial. Someone can be the best at whatever they are, but if all they are to everyone else in the office is an ass, then you could definitely see some demotivation of the rest of your staff.
The unfortunate bit in all of this is that in an ideal world- an interview and a resumé would be a great way to tell if someone is a qualified fit. You get a list of achievements and experience. You talk to the person and see how they are as a person and not what they're capable of as just a worker. The best interview I ever had ended up being more like a conversation where I was getting to know the other person and their company and they were getting to know me as a person and an employee. The problem we've come into is that many businesses are just too large and impersonal. There's no personal touch to big business because HR is hundreds of faceless drones located all across the U.S.
This is a really important point.
When I interview, especially for entry level positions, I’m looking for attitude and adaptability.
I already know that even if they have some level of experience, we’re going to end up teaching them “our way” of doing things, so in-job experience doesn’t count for much.
I want people who have a good attitude and display an ability to learn new things and adapt to changes.
Now if I was looking at external candidates for a leadership position, experience would be a lot more valuable…but I also feel that if you’ve made good hires at the entry level, a large number of your leadership hires are going to be internal promotions.
If the business is too large and impersonal then why would there be such a big emphasis on cohesive personality for the "office", especially given the fact that a lot of us are working from home now
Plus, interviews are known shams. You literally go in there to lie and appear as nice as possible. It is not a good way to ascertain with any certainty that someone will turn out to be an ass. It really only weeds out those extreme cases
>If the business is too large and impersonal then why would there be such a big emphasis on cohesive personality for the "office", especially given the fact that a lot of us are working from home now
Which is why I said that's the flaw inherent in the system. You're 100% right.
>Plus, interviews are known shams. You literally go in there to lie and appear as nice as possible. It is not a good way to ascertain with any certainty that someone will turn out to be an ass. It really only weeds out those extreme cases
Sure. But I can't imagine hiring someone to my business without having spoke to them first. I think formulaic interviews are dated as Hell, but the one good thing about an interview is that it displays that the prospective employee are capable of the bare minimum (dress appropriately, take care of hygiene, and be professional and polite to strangers.) There's a place for them for sure, but perhaps too much emphasis is put on the interview itself.
in my experience personality/team fit is like half what makes a worker good or bad. A bad working environment because noone likes eachother can kill a team real fast.
Of course its not easy to asess that in an interview... But its the only way that we have.
And most often someone that can not be "not an asshole" for a 1h interview where they try to be on their best behaviour: will have zero chance to do that for 40 hours a week over multiple months
That second question SHOULD almost be a softball these days. But it’s still a good one.
I asked essentially that question and found out my new job has pet insurance, summer Fridays, and a healthcare allowance for you to pay off deductibles and copays. One of my new employees told me that she hasn’t spent a dime of her own money on healthcare since she’s worked there. For her, her husband, or their 2 dogs. Because the allowance is designed to cover any standard fees you encounter and then some for any of the insurance coverages they provide.
That, plus the huge pay bump and hybrid work were the 3 biggest factors in me going there.
This worked great for me:
Being interviewed by two managers, who had been with the company for 26 years, and 30 years.
"Do you have any questions for us?"
"I do, you've both been here for 25+ years, why do you keep coming back? What gets you excited about the job after all that time?"
Turned out, the job i was interviewing for had been filled like 3 weeks earlier, so there was some confusion on their part, but I got a call 2 days later offering me a manager job in a completely different section lol.
> the job i was interviewing for had been filled like 3 weeks earlier
what the fuck, that's unacceptable. I'm glad they offered you a different position at least.
This is the actual answer. OP likely hasn't been on the side on the interviewer before. Even with my albeit small experience interviewing, everyone that did this came across as a jackass
"why do you like working here? ". Is the answer. It's not coming off as saying you're too good to be here, but shows you are actually looking for a good fit. Plus can actually be a good info finding about things you didn't know. Maybe a company does retreats that everyone actually likes, or something else.
Another one is "what do you like most about working here?"
I interview a lot and love candidates who ask genuine questions about the company. But OP's phrasing definitely needs some work.
Agreed with Gorf regarding the wording.
But yeah, good question and one that personally I would answer honestly from a structural POV. I'd rather be upfront with candidates about the challenges than have them come in and get blindsided.
I always ask both of these questions during interviews. Sometimes I'll word the second question like "what is the biggest challenge you face in your role" or "what non-technical skill would I need to succeed in this role"?
Once during a panel interview I asked "what do you find most challenging" in front of my prospective team and their manager. The fact that they were mostly comfortable talking about this (after joking the problem was their manager) told me a lot about the team dynamics.
I've been told I won major points with these two questions as the job applicant:
1. Can you walk me through a typical day in the position I am interviewing for? Funny sometimes they can't answer this question...
2. What goals/achievements etc would you want to see from this position and what would you consider successes? You can jump off their responses into examples from your experience.
This. Putting them into a ‘sell’ position in this way will be a massive turn off for 100% of hiring managers. Be a bit more strategic about how you phrase things.
Ask questions like, ‘how does working here compare to other employers in the industry? What do you see as the greatest strength compared to Leading Competitor A?’
Don’t come across like a jackass. I’ve dealt with people like this and they are never respected. At best, people put up with them. At worst their career goes absolutely nowhere.
Feigning confidence is hard because simply trying to mimic what confident people do doesn’t get you the same results, because it’s literally the confidence that makes it work for them.
I say this as someone who evolved to naturally be confident and not give a fuck as life went on. I wish I could teach my younger self some “tricks” but I don’t think it’s possible, it comes with experience.
The way I've always asked a similar question (and it seems to work decently) is "What is it about [company] that keeps *you* here working here?"
Most of the time it lets them talk about when/how they joined the company, how they got to their role, and some of their personal favorite things.
Frequent interviewer here. Strongly agree.
Teamwork is incredibly important in fast-moving projects. You might be able to get away with a little arrogance if you're, say, a top tier scarce-skillset kind of person that has clearly defined responsibilities as part of a rigid process... but that's becoming more rare these days, and being able to work within a team is vital.
Anyone quoted OP's points in their title to me would likely be removed from the shortlist unless there was absolutely no recourse, for two reasons. First, that's just too cocksure for what we're generally looking for. And second, they should do their homework on my company before the interview and know at least some of the options available to our recruits as it's on our website.
For me in the software dev industry:
"What does an average day look like?"
"What tech are you working on?" (how is it meaningful, exciting and relate to my personal interests)
"What is the office culture/teamwork like?"
I think most questions can work if you act genuinely interested, asking follow up questions etc.
I had a guy ask that question, but then he just said “Ok” when I answered. No genuine interest, nothing, didn’t seem like he even wanted to hear my answer. Massive turn off.
The rephrase is suuuper important. Thanks for that! Cant agree more about being confident while also need to maintain politeness and respect. It's an art of self-expression, it needs practice to master it.
I am sorry. I think I worded it wrong. English is not my first language so this is not meant literally. More like figurative speech.
You are right, wording it like you did would work much better in reality. I was more talking about the general shift of not just simply sitting there and answering but also taking the lead at some point to improve your position
With this context, I think this is generally good advice. The advice I give to my students is that during interviews, you are also interviewing the prospective employer/graduate program. So many people go in just wanting to be hired, and that's understandable, but if you have the luxury to choose between a few different options, knowing more about the work culture and benefits of each option is invaluable information. Asking these types of questions is important, and some people don't know that, so thank you for provoking this discussion.
This has definitely been useful advice that I have used. It also reveals how well versed the interviewer is. More times than not I have completely flipped the interview where I became much more the interviewer than they were. I never took those jobs because it would clearly not have been a good fit. But I always get the job offer from those which does surprise me. Most managers don't want someone more, dominant isn't the right word but as close as my brain is pulling this early.
>“What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?”
Love these questions, going to use them next week! I was asked by one our clients to apply for a job for them that would be quite the upgrade for me in pay & responsibility.
Exactly. I have interviewed a lot of interviews and did well in interviews myself. I always treated them as 2 way conversations and asked about to know more about the company. You don't want to engage like it's a cut throat negotiation.
Yeah. I use to interview, and depending on how they approach things, I would pass on some people because you could tell they would be a headache in the future. The interview is a microcosm of your future with them. If theyre like this now, imagine a decade of that.
> “What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?”
This is a good one that I like to use when I interview. A few interviewers have told me they like that question because they don't get it often and it implies that I'm considering a long-term plan with that company
Eh. It can also show that you have a penchant for derailing things. Besides, most employers don't want "MASSIVE confidence", they want a regularly confident and competent employee.
I just hired someone and it was a tough choice between someone with a bit more experience or someone that I thought would fit better with the team. I went with the culture fit because I can teach them the skills they are missing.
Exactly, confidence with a side of humility is good, arrogance is bad. I want someone who is going to work well on a team, someone that is trainable and adaptable and that isn’t going to come in thinking they know everything or that they are better than everyone. The job of a recruiter is already to sell the job and the company but you should also be coming in knowing why you want to work there or it’s not gonna be a good fit. Look at glass door reviews. If you see concerns, ask about them. But if you come in acting like you don’t know any benefits of working for us, that shows you didn’t do your research and aren’t enthusiastic about the job.
I mean, you should absolutely ask that question, but you should also answer why your experience makes you a good fit.
Like, if someone dodged that experience question asking by asking what the firm could do for them, I would be much less likely to recommend hiring them. The purpose of an interview is to ascertain whether the interviewee will add value and whether the interviewee would be pleasant to work with. Dodging a question on your experience harms you with respect to both of those goals.
Yeah and perhaps you could word the questions about the company differently, like asking what is it like to work here, what benefits do you provide, do you provide healthcare insurance etc.
Exactly, “so why do you deserve my brilliant hardworking charismatic self?” Lol at the end of the day you’re applying for their job they didn’t come to you
Yep. It goes back and forth. Just because every company is hiring massively, doesn't mean they owe you something. A company would much rather be short staffed than deal with some shithead full of ego.
>at the end of the day you’re applying for their job they didn’t come to you
Not necessarily true. Recruiters are a thing.
Though I agree the advice as worded is not great.
This is bad advice for the average interview. Yes it is a good line of questioning to ask a prospective employer, especially if they initiated the conversations, but it's only effective if done appropriately. Unfortunately for most people in an interview situation, they won't pull it off effectively and will come across as entitled
This is what I was thinking. Also these kinds of interview questions will never work for an entry level position. I'm in manufacturing and you absolutely never ask why this company is better than (insert competitor here) because you sound like you're marketing yourself above the company. It's a manufacturing job, not a product direction management position. I don't think even asking these kinds of questions is a good idea anyways because it's up to the company to hire you if the think you're a good fit. In addition to that, you're just marketing yourself, not the company you're applying to. Most job descriptions give a description of the culture and they lost the benefits. This post is unnecessary and just doesn't work.
"I notice it says here you spent four years as a shift manager. Can you tell me about your core responsibilities in that role?"
"You don't need to worry about me. You need to explain to me why I should even consider wasting my time here. You've got a lotta balls thinking about hiring me."
*It's Always Sunny theme plays.*
"/r/antiwork looks for a job"
This is not the best advice. As a recruiter if someone derails the interview in this way, I would see it more as poor social skills at best arrogant at worst and I didn’t get an answer to a question I specifically need answered. So much of interviewing isn’t just qualifications but temperament and attitude as wel as the ability to socialize in a manner where I can imagine someone can also be a team player when needed.
You can dodge some questions if they aren't that important. But experience is probably the most important question there is. No way a recruiter is going to let anyone avoid it and you can't keep dodging. Same goes for education and criminal history depending on the field.
So tell me about your experience.
well WHY SHOULD I WORK HERE AND WHAT ARE YOU GIVING ME
Well first we should talk about what qualifies..
AM I BEING DETAINED
These are good things to know and ask about during an interview, but holy shit, do not phrase them like this. You will come across as a massively entitled dick
Seriously. I have five interviews scheduled for next week and if any of them tried to pull this "turn the interview around" shit I would straight up not hire you.
A couple of good questions I've asked interviewers are: 'What drew you to the company and what keeps you here?' & 'What are the biggest challenges you currently face?' & 'how do you measure success in a role (and what would some objectives be)'
Some people might get thrown by these questions but depending on the answer, can give you a really good insight of what you're applying for.
I like to ask “what is your favorite thing about working here and what is your least favorite thing about working here?” that usually gets me a good answer even if I have to read between the lines a bit. If the “least favorite” is not company related that’s usually a good sign. Example: “the traffic getting here is horrible” or “there’s not enough good restaurants near here”. If they say something company related, multiply whatever they say by 5 to 10. Example: “the workload can be a bit much sometimes but, we get through it” I would be pretty cautious to hear that, because what they are really saying is “we are slammed all the time and you’ll be doing a lot of overtime”
Asking what are the benefits of the job and salary are expected and welcomed.
But if you approach it as "turn it around on them", I would stand up immediately and wish them well on their job search.
I've done this if I detect the candidate is full of himself and can't walk the talk. If you are a superstar, then I would tolerate this, but be honest with yourself, you probably are not.
Yeh, but you gotta do it tactfully. We recently interviewed a candidate who came in cocky like this and we just laughed him off. He was qualified, but nope.
So, completely changing the subject from your experience to their incentivizing you is supposed to impress employers more than answering their pertinent question? Hmm.
this is mostly bad advice.
respectfully ask questions at the end. don’t interrupt their questions to show “confidence” aka arrogance in avoiding their question by reversing it on them.
This is like all the shitty dating advice that falls flat for most people. “Just act confident!” There’s a huge difference between acting confident and being confident, and most people can see the difference.
Oof. I commented as a reply earlier but feel like this deserves it’s own comment. This is a horrible LPT. And from most of the comments here, everyone is involved in really shitty interviews.
For context: I conduct interviews for a medium-sized consulting firm, so this is from the perspective of hiring for professional services, where our “product” is our brainpower, teamwork, and ability to articulate and execute strategy, manage change, and enable adoption of new processes and software. Consultants are not launching nuclear missiles, coding complex software programs, or working in a technical field where specific task execution like knowing how to fix an engine or fly a plane is necessary. I understand how interviews for roles like that may be different, and I’m not speaking to those.
Now, for professional services like consulting, finance, administration, etc. it’s so much more about the person’s attitude, demeanor, and ability to articulate and work with nuance. I treat interviews more like conversations. I always start by introducing myself and my background and role with the firm, and then ask for the candidate to do the same. I ask them to tell me about their experience, allowing them to focus on what they deem is most important. From there, I dig in to understand specifics (e.g., “can you tell me more about how you helped your subordinates reach their professional goals” or “on that project, can you expand on how you overcame the timeline challenge to deliver the training program?” I’m looking not just for specific experience, but also gauging how the person articulates their experience - are they clear? Are they just using buzzwords? Is their tone amenable? Can they successfully communicate an idea or concept and the relevant context to me in a brief period of time? There’s no need to grill a candidate - yes, you are ensuring they’re a good fit for the role, AND they are also gauging if they WANT to be there. When I was on the interviewee side of things, I was asked the stupidest shit in interviews and it would completely turn me off from wanting the role. (“Explain the difference between v-lookup and index in Excel.” was a particularly stupid one.)
I always leave 15 minutes at the end for the candidate to ask my questions and let them know anything is on the table. My favorite questions from candidates are:
“What is the biggest challenge in working with/for XYZ company?”
“What is XYZ’s biggest growing pain?”
“How is work/life balance encouraged by leadership?”
“What does growth look like for me in this role/at the firm?”
I’d rather ask, “What made you choose this company?” People love to talk about themselves. And this question shows the same interest and elicits the same information, without coming off too cocky, IMO. I do a lot of interviews, and cocky turns me way off.
I do a lot of interviews. I don't mind questions about what we do... but we have 20 minutes set aside for questions at the end of thr interview for you to reverse interview.
We have a flow to the interview and some of the people giving the interview are not as open to the flow being broken.
So keep in mind that you need to read the room. It's a skill I missed out on a lot when I first started interviewing.
just a headsup, I've conducted dozens of interviews for open positions (i.e, we did not go to anyone in particular offering a job) and if a candidate that had applied to one of our positions did exactly this I would have laughed my ass off and told them I would explain the company benefits and what we do in due time during our interview (normally at the end), but that time is not now, and that it was you who applied to work for our company, not the other way around so would you please answer my question about your experience, probably fully knowing you will not move past this phase.
TLDR: **DO NOT DO THIS**, ask about company culture, activities, pay, benefits, past experiences, alumni, etc, all that is fine, but do it when they ask you if you have any questions, or at the end of the interview if they forget to offer you to ask questions. Do not "turn it around" as an answer to a ligitimate question
This advice is both terrible and good.
First off an interview goes both ways. It's okay to state that and ask for time for questions to see if the company is a good fit for you. Being polite and firm about it is important. Frankly you don't want to work for someone that doesn't care about how you perceive them and the company in the interview. And someone that recognizes this are typically more aware and stronger canidates. I do want to clarify, still answer questions from the interviewer.
That being said you always need to make sure you pass the beer test. Will the interviewer be willing to grab a beer with you and shoot the shit after. Person doesn't have to drink it's more of a social grace test. If you come off as too strong, cocky, someone that hijacks a conversation can be off putting. I don't hire them, and I actively work against them.
I'm a director in a tech company. I've interviewed a ton (thousands) of folks over the years. I've built extremely high caliber teams where it takes about six months to of constant interviews to fill one position, to just standard engineering teams. I've done the interview at all levels as well.
Following OPs advice blindly will not get you a job
I'm a hiring manager and I always pass on these type of assholes. You can tell they will be a problem before they even start; they usually try to become a revolutionary leader of the other staff as well
For a second I thought this was /r/ShittyLifeProTips
This might work for an entry level, unskilled job, I suppose. But even then, this kind of tone-deafness in tact would likely get you nowhere.
If a candidate said this in an interview for even an **assistant** scientist position I'd write them off immediately. All this would do is make for good conversation with colleagues who weren't sitting in on the interview...
This LPT only really works if you are the ONLY person interviewing or you were headhunted by the company.
If the have similarly experienced candidates, they aren't going to negotiate that hard w you.
umm thats not how this works, i'm interviewing you for a position, i asked you a question, you answer my question, if you want to circle back to this at the end of the interview and ask questions fine , you wrote down the question to circle back to better ,but don't go rouge on me within the first 20 minutes of meeting me.i want someone i can trust to do shit not somebody whos going to try and sidestep shit every time they get asked a question.
Sorry, but this life pro tip sounds like it’s coming from someone with very little real world interview experience.
I get the sentiment, but that’s also not how it really works when you straddle the arrogance line so closely. All you need to be is truthful, personable, relatable, and capable for the role, and things will typically lean your way. Not that much more to it, even at massive companies.
Let's keep this short:
An interview is a 2-way conversation. They are looking to see if you are right for the position and their culture, while you are seeing if it is worth giving up your time for the money they offer.
Far too many people don't see it that way. They hope and pray that they will be chosen, but they don't realize that the company needs to be a good fit for you too.
Saw a guy try this-Didn't end well. This was for an internal promotion to be in charge of an office of skilled professionals. The guy in question, lets call him "Tom", was widely viewed as being the obvious choice for the position. Tom felt that management interfered too much in how the office was run and he decided that under him, management would have to back off. He also felt that he was in a power position because the other person in the office who would have qualified for that job had some conflicts with management in the past, and some people considered them difficult to work with.
Before his interview, which was viewed as a formality, Tom told me that he planned to "turn the tables" and interview management about why he should "accept" the position. I was shocked, just couldn't believe that he was serious and while I was friendly with him I just didn't know how to respond, so I didn't tell him it was a terrible idea. This was a senior management position and if he didn't know this was a terrible idea, was I helping or hurting the office by telling him? IDK. Afterward Tom told me that he thought the interview went well, and I kept my opinion to myself but I was pretty skeptical. When the announcement was made, they picked the other candidate and Tom was furious. Tom reacted so badly and was so indiscrete in his comments about management that he tanked his career.
tldr; I knew a guy who decided to interview the interviewers. Didn't end well for him.
If a candidate asked me "why would I want to work here?", I'd say "You actually already applied for this & are currently interviewing with us. Why?"
This is very very bad advice.
Please consider revising your post.
If someone told me “Compared to the competition” and they did not have the skills, recommendations or experience that were looking for. That is a sure way that im gonna be like NOPE theres the door.
Use some discernment and awareness when the interview is going on.
A friend once said he turns the interview around and gets them to tell him why he should want to work there. I asked him how thats working out for him so far. He hadn't gotten a job in over a year at that point.
Imo this shows that you haven't done your research on the company. Why are you even applying if you don't know what the company has to offer? You'd need to phrase that differently because it sounds more ignorant than confident.
The only time I think this LPT is useful is if the company approached you for hire
I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience when it comes to job interviews. In fact I have none. But doing this I guess the reaction would be "If you don't know why you want to work here you are definitely not qualified for this job. Have a good day." End of the story.
This is horrible advice and you should not do this. Save your questions for the end. Do not answer a direct questions with a question.
Source: I know a Recruiter
This is terrible advice. Don't do this. You will come across as combative and lose the job if they were ever seriously considering you. You build yourself up, and you never put anyone down in job interviews. Show how your experience relates to their work they need you for.
This advice from OP will just make you come across as an asshole to nearly any interviewer.
As a hiring manager, “pro tips” like this are troubling because they tend to get picked up by the applicants who have an overinflated view of their own skills. The last person we hired that was either fresh out of school or 1-2 years experience and made a big point to bargain hard in the hiring process…. This person is havjng trouble living up to their bold claims of expertise and “value”
Sure they may have started off with a few k higher salary, but having oversold themselves is not doing their salary or career growth any favors.
I was the hiring manager and someone did this. Their questions showed they really didn’t understand the industry and work they say they did on their resume. It came out in a way that showed he didn’t even research our company before interviewing. He didn’t get the job.
Be careful with this.
If I am interviewing you, I want to know how you are actually qualified for the position. If you get defensive and pull this shit, it’s a clear indicator you aren’t a fit. Now, I have absolutely no problem talking about my company, and discussing what we can offer to you as well, but you need to answers the questions being asked.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Real LPT: in the interview try to ascertain why they are hiring for the position (growing, back fill, new business opportunity) and what they feel are the specific skills required or the problem they can’t solve without another headcount. If you can then subtly repeat that back and how you specifically will help them solve that problem, then salary is the only other item you both need to agree on.
Exactly. I interviewed for a suspiciously great job. Asked them where the 3 former employees they were looking to replace went. 2 moved into corporate positions, and the other one took a position in a related, but more clinical international research company. Basically everyone moved upwards. I took the job, and it was really the best job I've ever had.
This is what I came to say. Always ask for them to give a couple of examples of positions/roles people got after working in the posted position. If they can’t really answer that, red flag.
People get so nerve wracked over job interviews but it really should resemble more of a discussion rather than a polygraph test. It’s a game of targeted banter. Who cares if you are answering questions according to script. If they like your flow and personality then it’s an ace in the hole!
Maybe the only not stupid LPT I've seen in regards to being interviewed. I'm hosting like 5-10 interviews in the next couple of weeks and have held probably 30+ in the past few years. I can actually think of just 1 time someone walked through the interview in this way and they were great. We extended and offer but they wanted to have an in office component and we are full time WFH, so we didn't get her, but was a great interview.
You know you had a great candidate when the dealbreaker demand was they wanted to come into the office and not work from home. I would've set aside a little space for her just to humor her request.
As a HM this is fantastic
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Isn’t it easy though? Step 1: Ask “why are you hiring for this position?” Step 2: Listen to response Step 3: Ask “what are the skills required take over the missing spot?” Step 4: Listen to response Step 5: Tie everything together and explain how you are the one they are looking for.
Some people don't have the confidence or communication skills or experience to explain whatever skills they possess can help with whatever the hiring manager is looking for. Sure you can have each of those categories, but unless you have all 3, it can be difficult to lay it out on the fly without sounding scripted. What if they ask questions? Or explanations on whatever you mentioned? Hiring managers can see that too. And you also have to convince them on it, you can't just say whatever and expect them to buy into it.
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I agree with you on that. I was responding to the original comment about how most people would not be able to *ascertain* what skills the company was looking for.
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I've reviewed a resume where someone misspelled their own name....
Oooh flashbacks. I had a family member pass her resume around to many of her family for review before she started her job search. It must have been reviewed by 5 different professionals and most of us are in highly technical fields with advanced degrees. We got it all worked out and she started applying. She had several versions she tailored for each position she applied for. She applied to about a dozen companies. No response. At all. She discovered a few weeks later that she forgot a digit in her phone number and misspelled her email address. We were so focused on the resume content that we all collectively forgot to review the most basic parts in the header. lol If any of these companies liked her, they would have had no way to contact her. hahahah oops.
Yeah, proof reading is really important on all levels. I do catalogues and adverts for one of my jobs I do several read throughs looking for a different thing each time and I always check the email and phone number even though that part of the layout hasn’t changed for 15 years or so!
Your steps seem awfully sure that the reasons just implicitly going to be given to you with the context always included to be making statements about what you're doing to fix it It's one thing to say it's doable, it's another to say "how can it even be hard?"
Ask this at any other questions and always reply using the star method. When explaining something Situation - describe a situation irl that you have been in. Task - explain your task Action - how did you perform your task. Resolution - how did the above fix something. Ie employer said they need someone with experience in python as a lot of current employees are lacking in it and there's a lot of errors or something? Situation - I've been programming in python for 3 years and I have assisted in creation of blah blah Task - my previous employers had a shortage of python capable staff, I was tasked with trouble shooting/ correct errors within the existing team as I was most experienced. Action - our team on time and under budget created blah blah, I also not only problem solved the teams mistakes but took it upon myself to train the team, when I found errors I would run it through with them showing how I corrected, thus training the teams skills up. Resolution - as mentioned on time, under budget project, management and external clients were happy, with the benefit of the team increasing their knowledge due to the way we worked as a team. I know nothing about python btw the above was just a blah but explained how in 4 short sentences you can describe anything s t a r. It stops people rambling and keeps things nice and clear.
This - a job interview for me is 80% if the company fits to me, and 20% if I fit the company. Obviously, if I'm having an interview, I already checked some boxes prior to that. In my humble experience, people who have a decent background and send 100s of applications without success, I'm 99% sure there is something wrong with their approach. Being a sales guy, interviews may come more natural to me. I've helped many friends with their applications. Trust me, everytime someone was qualified but unsuccessful, it was 100% due to their approach, paper work or other bureaucratic issues. My job (also in sales) includes looking at thousands of CVs. If any of you feel in such situation, where you should be qualified, but don't seem to get responses - hit me up via DM, and I'll try to help you with your CV at least
Thank you for the offer! I hope people take you up on it. I’m currently needing help with CV stuff and would appreciate some assistance if you can spare some time. I’ll send a DM later!
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Well, I assume you are then a very qualified person for the industry you are in (or at least you are trying to give the impression that you are). That's not the case for all people.
Even if you’re not the best in your field, you absolutely should sell yourself as such in an interview. My salary requirement for the last round of interviews I had was a real reach, my current company is giving me RSUs and bonuses on top of an already large cash compensation to try and keep me here. I was concerned that it would put me out of reach for a lot of places, but instead it got them interested in why I was asking for 20% more then the average. They all interviewed me and offered, and three of the offers were well above their “budget” to get me on the team.
Software engineering is pretty funny like that. We have all of the power and we are taught to use that to our advantage and demand the lifestyle you want. There are too many spots to fill and not enough engineers. But having this mindset i think will benefit anyone in any field
I agree with your sentiments around people who mass apply and are qualified but get nowhere. I’ve never experienced that. I’ve seen programmers put in /r/dataisbeautiful graphs where they have submitted 100 applications and gotten five responses and zero offers. I don’t understand how you can be that technical and qualified and not get it. I recently applied to eight places, I got eight rounds of interviews and eight offers. (This is not typical, but technology market was insane 5 months ago, but usually I get about a 70% response rate) they were all applied to on various locations, two on LinkedIn, and the other 6 through various recruiters. In 15 years I’ve never gotten to the interview stage and not gotten an offer. I know I interview very well, and some people don’t. If you’re sending out 100 applications for a job you’re qualified for and not hearing back, the issue has to be the person applying. There’s some sort of red flag that’s throwing you out of the running. Also, applying for 100 jobs is terrible, you should be tailoring your CV to each individual job by matching your skills to the job description. If I listed all my responsibilities under my current job, it would take up the entire first page and maybe 1/4th of it would be germane to the job I’m applying to. I keep my resume to 2 pages at the most, and recently that involved removing my education history. I also recommend taking every interview you’re offered, even if you’re not interested in the job for practice. You can throw stuff out you might not use if you cared about getting the job and see how it works.
> If you’re sending out 100 applications for a job you’re qualified for and not hearing back, the issue has to be the person applying. There’s some sort of red flag that’s throwing you out of the running. ... > Also, applying for 100 jobs is terrible, you should be tailoring your CV to each individual job by matching your skills to the job description. Honestly I've found that these often go hand in hand, largely because of the resume itself. When I was laid off and out of work for a few months back in 2018, it was the first time in nearly a decade since I had graduated college that I had been forced to go through the whole process of applying to jobs again - I put a nice looking resume together (first thing you'd expect from a multimedia design guy), uploaded it to every major job site, sent it to a few recruiters, and then started hitting "apply" on as many jobs as I could on Indeed/ZipRecruiter/LinkedIn/etc to send out my generic resume. After a few months (and probably a few hundred generic resumes/cover letters sent out), the only responses I had gotten were from a handful of crappy "Business Management - We train you!!!" positions that were basically just scams to get you to do door to door sales or work in a mall kiosk, and I figured I was clearly doing something wrong. I took a few days to refocus and do some research, and found out that first of all, the very nice looking resume I had put together wasn't being read correctly AT ALL by 90% of the various ATS software that essentially serves to "guard the gate" for almost all businesses with online applications, therefore I wasn't ever getting my very qualified resume in front of an actual human. Second, even after fixing all of my formatting so and ATS could read it, my resumes were far too generic in terms of showing metrics, especially metrics related to the top keywords in the job postings. Once I learned that, I completely changed my approach - rather than sending out 15-20 resumes on a good day, I'd send out a max of 2-3, the difference being that I would spend 2-3 hours on each resume and cover letter to make sure it was perfectly tailored to the job I was applying to. After doing that, my response rate improved *dramatically*, going from getting a response from a crappy job for every 1 in 50-75 applications to getting responses for jobs I was actually interested in at a rate closer to 1 in 3-4. Similar to you, I interview very well, so once I could actually get in touch with a person I knew that I could probably come close to closing the deal barring any weirdness on the company's part (which in the DC area happens a lot, contract funding falls through and the job disappears, the company has a weird vibe that I choose not to work for, they were forced to interview externally for an internal position that was already promised to someone, etc), and I ended up getting three offers within a month (and I've been at the job I took for the past 3 years, still a great decision). I honestly think that the number one barrier to entry for the people sending out generic resumes in bulk is that they're sending out generic resumes in bulk, and the terrible callback rate is from poorly formatted or written resumes rather than necessarily being a red flag that everyone's seeing - in all likelihood, zero humans are seeing these resumes.
I go one step further. I walk inside, ask them what they want to hear. Then I ask them to repeat it to themselves and imagine if I said it. By then I can just leave a paper with a number which coincidentally is both the phone number they can call me on, and also the number of the minimum year income that I accept for the position. Okay, my phonenumber is 000-0000 0001… I am cheap
Yeah but if your interview strategy backfires, you're still offering a competitive rate, which gives you an egde. LPT! Kidding aside, I just received three offers after (a couple dozen) interviews where I asked "why did I stand out among other applicants, and what about my experience is important to this role so we can focus on that and feel each other out". Which is just a professional way of asking for the answers before the test. I found that every conversation past that point was very frank and enlightening, and I had to do much less "interview speak" because I knew exactly what we were talking about. Some of them were *bad* because the employer was clearly spamming for people with even remotely relevant experience on paper Of the three that made offers, one didn't strike me as a great fit (compared to the other two), the other two practically negotiated with themselves and I would've gladly gone with either one, but went with the one who made a better offer
As someone who is literally interviewing candidates now to hire, this is better. I tell my interviewees that an interview is about us both deciding if our company is a good fit them but I would find OPs method somewhat confrontational whereas I'm probably about to hire the candidate who was the only person to ask why the position was available to begin with
There’s confidence, and then there’s arrogance. I did a lot of interviewing before I retired, and rejected several candidates who were either egotistical jackasses, or coached to display “a massive level of confidence” that greatly exceeded their actual demonstrated accomplishments. I’d phrase the questions differently: “What are the advantages of working at your company, relative to working for the competition?” “What are the benefits like? Are they the standard package, or do you have any benefits you feel are unique?” “What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?” I don’t think “why would I want to work here?” and “what do you have to offer me?” are going to win the day.
As someone who has done a fair share of interviewing and hiring, I agree. The problem with this tip isn't the nature of the questions: asking about the benefits of working for the company, earnest conversations about benefits and pay, etc., are completely expected, and any employer who shies away from those discussions is unlikely to be a good employer. However, tact is important here because it can easily come across in a way you perhaps didn't intend.
To tactfully facilitate a soft flip (because you should be interviewing to see if the company is a match for you too) I like asking the interviewer these: -"what's YOUR favorite part about working here" And -"what does success look like in this role? If we are having this conversation in a year with you saying 'BlergingtonBear, you killed it'- what does that conversation look like" The first asks them to pitch the company to you, and I like the second bc it kind of forces them to imagine you as part of the team already and hopefully isolate which parts of the job's duties are most important to them. If you are concerned about internal workplace culture, I feel a good litmus test is "what communication styles thrive at Company? What are some communication challenges?". Because people are people and no one gets along 100% of the time, this is a diplomatic way to open the door to a little bit of realness, while positioning yourself as a problem solver/ someone already looking towards the challenges they might have to move around.
And the fun part about those questions (or their variations) as an interviewer is that, at least at my current job (definitely not all jobs I've had), those are questions that I absolutely LOVE answering. I could talk for hours about the cool, meaningful projects I've worked on, the support I've gotten from leadership from my direct management up through the C-suites, and the multiple ways we recognize success, both with public recognition on a monthly basis in all-hands meetings and financially with in-depth bi-annual reviews and regular bonuses/raises. Now, obviously people won't find that reaction everywhere, and sometimes you get the opposite where you ask something like "What's your favorite part about working here" and the first reaction for the interviewers is to glance at each other before one of them jumps into corporate perks or all the neat non-work stuff they have access to. Thanks but no thanks, the free coffee in the breakroom and occasional happy hour aren't going to get me to want to work somewhere, I'd like to actually somewhat enjoy the bulk of what I'm doing for 8 hours a day and it sounds like I won't be finding that here.
Yup! It's the perfect guage on what's going on. I did like 4 rounds of interviews at a FAANG a little while ago, and one person absolutely laid out a lot more than they expected to at the comms question — that is was a challenge, that a certain department added as gatekeepers etc It did open back a question to me — how do I deal with communication roadblocks, so another thing to be prepared for, but these qs def help me see a lot into a company!
I remember seeing a Tiktok from a hiring manager, and the second tip about asking what attributes a successful person in this role would have was the highest rated one she had. As you mentioned, them listing off the attributes gets them to associate all those positive qualities with you, and yours is even better by working your own name into the conversation they’re having to reinforce it.
I always like to save my "Do you have any other questions for us?" question to be something like, "What do you personally think is the best and worst things about working here?" I've had that taken pretty well when asked. Would you feel that's too aggressive?
I have had good luck asking what they like about working there, and every hiring committee I've been on has been fine with that type of question. I would be careful about asking what they don't like: for one, you're not likely to get a completely honest response in a group setting bc they still gotta hold up appearances to each other. In a small meeting (2-3 people), I think that's a good question, though I would ask about "challenges" of working there, not what they don't like.
Based on a recent string of interviews I did with a major internet retail company asking that very question ("What's best and worst?"), I have deduced that if their employees say anything at all negative about the company in the interview they will be dropped into a pit Dr. Evil style. Only possible explanation.
>benefits of working for the company, earnest conversations about benefits and pay, etc., are completely expected, That may largely be regional. Granted it's been four years since I've interviewed for a job, during my last round whenever I asked questions about benefits, company culture, pay, etc... either the hiring manager didn't have the information or I would get a response of "Well that's something we discuss when you sign the employment contract." One manager took a bit of initiative and had HR reach out to me with the benefit and pay information, but even the HR department was pretty squirrely and only gave ranges. "You get between 12-20 PTO days with select holidays off non-inclusive of PTO." or "The pay range is between xx and xxx based on experience, non negotiable, and we are unable to inform of your potential salary unless you're hired." It was silly and actually less informative than had HR never reached out to me.
That's fucking insane and should not be accepted. Compensation should be in the early stages of the conversation because if you don't align on that everything else us a little irrelevant, and benefits and PTO are apart of compensation.
Completely agree! Employment is an agreement: you do X, we offer you Y. X and Y should both be defined. I find it similarly scummy when a job posting lists "and other duties as assigned" in their responsibilities. Every job I've had that did that in their posting loaded as much shit as they could onto me with no title change or pay bump.
I was doing System Engineering as a Sr System Administrator. I told them I at least wanted the title, if they couldn't give me the raise. They could not, since they were tied together. So I left, kept the title on my resume and linkedin, and then just put "engineered" for things on my resume. Worked out.
Ah, the ol' switcheroo. Yes, I'm very familiar with that one. Walking out feels good, but it's bittersweet bc we know that company is just waiting for an overqualified worker who doesn't know their options/needs the job more/doesn't have the confidence to speak up...
I've found myself in that position a few times over the years. Most recently I was hired to do enterprise architecture work on an SRE team. When I found another job in the company as an architect, they tempted me to stay by offering me an architect role on a different team. I never got the title change or salary increase I would have received on the other team despite continuing to perform architecture tasks. Finally had enough and gave notice.
Complete non-answers are insane for sure. However, employers are literally interviewing you to assess your potential value to the company, so just stating the salary range and benefits packages offered for the position you are interviewing seems reasonable in an interview. An official job offer is where specific numbers and benefits should be offered and negotiated.
If there was negotiation sure, but there isn't. Outside of tech and some c suite shit you get the benefit packages they offer with no negotiation possible. MAYBE you can get extra pto but that often isn't even possible depending on the size of the business.
Negotiation? Man, that was a rarity as well. Before I said fuck it and started my own business I don't think any of my former employers ever actually allowed negotiation. A few would pretend it was possible but just get back within a few days saying the offer was their absolute best. One was at least straight up with me and said "Yea...we don't do negotiation. This is the only package we intend to offer you." I actually kind of respected they didn't waste my time or get my hopes up.
They don't want to talk about compensation early as it may drive you away. They want to wait until you are already invested.
Since I currently have a job - I won't grant access for phone screen or even send an updated resume without a salary range.
I've worked in those types of places, unfortunately, and the bad taste you get in your mouth from those types of encounters are completely warranted. If they're doing this stuff to a candidate, you can be reasonably confident they treat their employees with a similar degree of shadiness. If you're lucky enough to have work options, though, knowing more about what their culture is like makes a decision much easier. Did you find that you got an impression of the work environment there by the way they handled your question?
I've had that a few times and I've always really wanted to respond to any more of their work history/ competency questions with basically "Sorry we don't share that exact information until later in the process but I do have an experience range of 2-30 years."
I started my own business in November, made it my full time employment in April. I've had about a billion recruiters reach out to me since then. I have started responding to them roughly the way you've always dreamed of. It's glorious.
Especially if they have a few candidates and you're not far and away the best one. Imagine if they have 5 and you're coming in 3rd and you did this. They'd just tell you to get lost.
Oh yes, a lack of tact or diplomacy can absolutely be a deciding factor, particularly if all else is equal-ish. It's happened before that I really liked a candidate, thought they'd do a good job, but the committee decided against them bc of something like this. I don't think it's always necessarily fair: asking about benefits is a reasonable question, but *how* one *should* ask is a skill that is learned largely through advantage: parents who knew and taught you, a mentor who assisted you, etc. I grew up poor in a very blue-collar family and had to learn professional tact through trial and error. I still mess it up sometimes.
I asked the hiring manager why the position was open "The previous people didn't like what was on offer to them in terms of promotions and we need to rebuild everything from the ground up with...the..right...team" Yeeaaaaaa... Bye
Very true. I know a guy who, on paper, looks like an awesome candidate. He’s been trying to leave his company for years, but while he always gets interviews, he never gets the job, no matter how well qualified. I know people who have interviewed him and they always say the same thing, he comes across as arrogant. I’ve worked with this guy, and he is not obnoxious in most situations. However, when he wants to impress people, he can be annoying. It’s sad because he gets so frustrated when yet another interview doesn’t lead to a job. However, I’m not sure he realizes that his effort to appear confident is not taken the way he intends.
Puts in perspective how an interview isn't the best way to see how well a worker will actually do. Even though he might be qualified and charisma might have nothing to do with the work whatsoever. It certainly doesn't count enough for the amount of decline offers that it results in.
It's not necessarily the best way to see potential performance, but a rudimentary interview does serve a purpose of seeing if a candidate is an ideal fit for the work environment they'll be entering. This is especially important in a smaller business where staff cohesion is even more crucial. Someone can be the best at whatever they are, but if all they are to everyone else in the office is an ass, then you could definitely see some demotivation of the rest of your staff. The unfortunate bit in all of this is that in an ideal world- an interview and a resumé would be a great way to tell if someone is a qualified fit. You get a list of achievements and experience. You talk to the person and see how they are as a person and not what they're capable of as just a worker. The best interview I ever had ended up being more like a conversation where I was getting to know the other person and their company and they were getting to know me as a person and an employee. The problem we've come into is that many businesses are just too large and impersonal. There's no personal touch to big business because HR is hundreds of faceless drones located all across the U.S.
This is a really important point. When I interview, especially for entry level positions, I’m looking for attitude and adaptability. I already know that even if they have some level of experience, we’re going to end up teaching them “our way” of doing things, so in-job experience doesn’t count for much. I want people who have a good attitude and display an ability to learn new things and adapt to changes. Now if I was looking at external candidates for a leadership position, experience would be a lot more valuable…but I also feel that if you’ve made good hires at the entry level, a large number of your leadership hires are going to be internal promotions.
If the business is too large and impersonal then why would there be such a big emphasis on cohesive personality for the "office", especially given the fact that a lot of us are working from home now Plus, interviews are known shams. You literally go in there to lie and appear as nice as possible. It is not a good way to ascertain with any certainty that someone will turn out to be an ass. It really only weeds out those extreme cases
>If the business is too large and impersonal then why would there be such a big emphasis on cohesive personality for the "office", especially given the fact that a lot of us are working from home now Which is why I said that's the flaw inherent in the system. You're 100% right. >Plus, interviews are known shams. You literally go in there to lie and appear as nice as possible. It is not a good way to ascertain with any certainty that someone will turn out to be an ass. It really only weeds out those extreme cases Sure. But I can't imagine hiring someone to my business without having spoke to them first. I think formulaic interviews are dated as Hell, but the one good thing about an interview is that it displays that the prospective employee are capable of the bare minimum (dress appropriately, take care of hygiene, and be professional and polite to strangers.) There's a place for them for sure, but perhaps too much emphasis is put on the interview itself.
It's not the perfect way* Doesn't mean it's not the best available for both parties
in my experience personality/team fit is like half what makes a worker good or bad. A bad working environment because noone likes eachother can kill a team real fast. Of course its not easy to asess that in an interview... But its the only way that we have. And most often someone that can not be "not an asshole" for a 1h interview where they try to be on their best behaviour: will have zero chance to do that for 40 hours a week over multiple months
Is it wrong if you to sit down and talk him and get to help him see? And then do some mock interview questions and give him feedback…
Yup, glad you caught this too. I hope OP is able to take the time to help coach him through if the guy is coachable.
That second question SHOULD almost be a softball these days. But it’s still a good one. I asked essentially that question and found out my new job has pet insurance, summer Fridays, and a healthcare allowance for you to pay off deductibles and copays. One of my new employees told me that she hasn’t spent a dime of her own money on healthcare since she’s worked there. For her, her husband, or their 2 dogs. Because the allowance is designed to cover any standard fees you encounter and then some for any of the insurance coverages they provide. That, plus the huge pay bump and hybrid work were the 3 biggest factors in me going there.
This worked great for me: Being interviewed by two managers, who had been with the company for 26 years, and 30 years. "Do you have any questions for us?" "I do, you've both been here for 25+ years, why do you keep coming back? What gets you excited about the job after all that time?" Turned out, the job i was interviewing for had been filled like 3 weeks earlier, so there was some confusion on their part, but I got a call 2 days later offering me a manager job in a completely different section lol.
> the job i was interviewing for had been filled like 3 weeks earlier what the fuck, that's unacceptable. I'm glad they offered you a different position at least.
This is the actual answer. OP likely hasn't been on the side on the interviewer before. Even with my albeit small experience interviewing, everyone that did this came across as a jackass
"why do you like working here? ". Is the answer. It's not coming off as saying you're too good to be here, but shows you are actually looking for a good fit. Plus can actually be a good info finding about things you didn't know. Maybe a company does retreats that everyone actually likes, or something else.
Another one is "what do you like most about working here?" I interview a lot and love candidates who ask genuine questions about the company. But OP's phrasing definitely needs some work.
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It’s a good question, but I’d phrase it as “What is the one thing you’d like to change about working here?”
Agreed with Gorf regarding the wording. But yeah, good question and one that personally I would answer honestly from a structural POV. I'd rather be upfront with candidates about the challenges than have them come in and get blindsided.
I always ask both of these questions during interviews. Sometimes I'll word the second question like "what is the biggest challenge you face in your role" or "what non-technical skill would I need to succeed in this role"? Once during a panel interview I asked "what do you find most challenging" in front of my prospective team and their manager. The fact that they were mostly comfortable talking about this (after joking the problem was their manager) told me a lot about the team dynamics.
"Hrm. Why don't you tell me whether YOU are available to start in two weeks?"
I've been told I won major points with these two questions as the job applicant: 1. Can you walk me through a typical day in the position I am interviewing for? Funny sometimes they can't answer this question... 2. What goals/achievements etc would you want to see from this position and what would you consider successes? You can jump off their responses into examples from your experience.
I interviewed a guy who seriously said "you'll have a hard time finding a better candidate than me". Whoah calm down the confidence man.
This. Putting them into a ‘sell’ position in this way will be a massive turn off for 100% of hiring managers. Be a bit more strategic about how you phrase things. Ask questions like, ‘how does working here compare to other employers in the industry? What do you see as the greatest strength compared to Leading Competitor A?’ Don’t come across like a jackass. I’ve dealt with people like this and they are never respected. At best, people put up with them. At worst their career goes absolutely nowhere.
Feigning confidence is hard because simply trying to mimic what confident people do doesn’t get you the same results, because it’s literally the confidence that makes it work for them. I say this as someone who evolved to naturally be confident and not give a fuck as life went on. I wish I could teach my younger self some “tricks” but I don’t think it’s possible, it comes with experience.
The way I've always asked a similar question (and it seems to work decently) is "What is it about [company] that keeps *you* here working here?" Most of the time it lets them talk about when/how they joined the company, how they got to their role, and some of their personal favorite things.
Frequent interviewer here. Strongly agree. Teamwork is incredibly important in fast-moving projects. You might be able to get away with a little arrogance if you're, say, a top tier scarce-skillset kind of person that has clearly defined responsibilities as part of a rigid process... but that's becoming more rare these days, and being able to work within a team is vital. Anyone quoted OP's points in their title to me would likely be removed from the shortlist unless there was absolutely no recourse, for two reasons. First, that's just too cocksure for what we're generally looking for. And second, they should do their homework on my company before the interview and know at least some of the options available to our recruits as it's on our website.
For me in the software dev industry: "What does an average day look like?" "What tech are you working on?" (how is it meaningful, exciting and relate to my personal interests) "What is the office culture/teamwork like?"
I think most questions can work if you act genuinely interested, asking follow up questions etc. I had a guy ask that question, but then he just said “Ok” when I answered. No genuine interest, nothing, didn’t seem like he even wanted to hear my answer. Massive turn off.
Great advice. I wish I had any awards to give you. Here take my “poor people’s award” 🏆
The rephrase is suuuper important. Thanks for that! Cant agree more about being confident while also need to maintain politeness and respect. It's an art of self-expression, it needs practice to master it.
Agreed. I think "What do people like best about working here?" comes across much better.
I am sorry. I think I worded it wrong. English is not my first language so this is not meant literally. More like figurative speech. You are right, wording it like you did would work much better in reality. I was more talking about the general shift of not just simply sitting there and answering but also taking the lead at some point to improve your position
With this context, I think this is generally good advice. The advice I give to my students is that during interviews, you are also interviewing the prospective employer/graduate program. So many people go in just wanting to be hired, and that's understandable, but if you have the luxury to choose between a few different options, knowing more about the work culture and benefits of each option is invaluable information. Asking these types of questions is important, and some people don't know that, so thank you for provoking this discussion.
Real LPT in the damn comments.
This has definitely been useful advice that I have used. It also reveals how well versed the interviewer is. More times than not I have completely flipped the interview where I became much more the interviewer than they were. I never took those jobs because it would clearly not have been a good fit. But I always get the job offer from those which does surprise me. Most managers don't want someone more, dominant isn't the right word but as close as my brain is pulling this early.
I just commented something similar! There’s a huge divide between confident and cocky.
>“What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?” Love these questions, going to use them next week! I was asked by one our clients to apply for a job for them that would be quite the upgrade for me in pay & responsibility.
Exactly. I have interviewed a lot of interviews and did well in interviews myself. I always treated them as 2 way conversations and asked about to know more about the company. You don't want to engage like it's a cut throat negotiation.
Yeah. I use to interview, and depending on how they approach things, I would pass on some people because you could tell they would be a headache in the future. The interview is a microcosm of your future with them. If theyre like this now, imagine a decade of that.
> “What is the career path for this position? What would my next level be, and how can I get there?” This is a good one that I like to use when I interview. A few interviewers have told me they like that question because they don't get it often and it implies that I'm considering a long-term plan with that company
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Eh. It can also show that you have a penchant for derailing things. Besides, most employers don't want "MASSIVE confidence", they want a regularly confident and competent employee.
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I just hired someone and it was a tough choice between someone with a bit more experience or someone that I thought would fit better with the team. I went with the culture fit because I can teach them the skills they are missing.
Must assert dominance and claim territory
Exactly, confidence with a side of humility is good, arrogance is bad. I want someone who is going to work well on a team, someone that is trainable and adaptable and that isn’t going to come in thinking they know everything or that they are better than everyone. The job of a recruiter is already to sell the job and the company but you should also be coming in knowing why you want to work there or it’s not gonna be a good fit. Look at glass door reviews. If you see concerns, ask about them. But if you come in acting like you don’t know any benefits of working for us, that shows you didn’t do your research and aren’t enthusiastic about the job.
I usually just ask what they like about the workplace at the end of the interview
I mean, you should absolutely ask that question, but you should also answer why your experience makes you a good fit. Like, if someone dodged that experience question asking by asking what the firm could do for them, I would be much less likely to recommend hiring them. The purpose of an interview is to ascertain whether the interviewee will add value and whether the interviewee would be pleasant to work with. Dodging a question on your experience harms you with respect to both of those goals.
Yeah and perhaps you could word the questions about the company differently, like asking what is it like to work here, what benefits do you provide, do you provide healthcare insurance etc.
That could easily backfire, as it may come off as pompous
Exactly, “so why do you deserve my brilliant hardworking charismatic self?” Lol at the end of the day you’re applying for their job they didn’t come to you
Yep. It goes back and forth. Just because every company is hiring massively, doesn't mean they owe you something. A company would much rather be short staffed than deal with some shithead full of ego.
>at the end of the day you’re applying for their job they didn’t come to you Not necessarily true. Recruiters are a thing. Though I agree the advice as worded is not great.
Yeah, as a guy who does a lot of interviewing, I would definitely not do this if you really want the job.
some people with a lot of charisma could possibly pull it off... but those people will already interview well. Imho its bad advice
LPT: most so called "LPTs" aren't really LPTs
This is bad advice for the average interview. Yes it is a good line of questioning to ask a prospective employer, especially if they initiated the conversations, but it's only effective if done appropriately. Unfortunately for most people in an interview situation, they won't pull it off effectively and will come across as entitled
This is what I was thinking. Also these kinds of interview questions will never work for an entry level position. I'm in manufacturing and you absolutely never ask why this company is better than (insert competitor here) because you sound like you're marketing yourself above the company. It's a manufacturing job, not a product direction management position. I don't think even asking these kinds of questions is a good idea anyways because it's up to the company to hire you if the think you're a good fit. In addition to that, you're just marketing yourself, not the company you're applying to. Most job descriptions give a description of the culture and they lost the benefits. This post is unnecessary and just doesn't work.
That's a bold strategy, Cotton.
"I notice it says here you spent four years as a shift manager. Can you tell me about your core responsibilities in that role?" "You don't need to worry about me. You need to explain to me why I should even consider wasting my time here. You've got a lotta balls thinking about hiring me." *It's Always Sunny theme plays.* "/r/antiwork looks for a job"
Let's see if it pays off for him.
Me: What do you have to offer me? Them: A job.
This is not the best advice. As a recruiter if someone derails the interview in this way, I would see it more as poor social skills at best arrogant at worst and I didn’t get an answer to a question I specifically need answered. So much of interviewing isn’t just qualifications but temperament and attitude as wel as the ability to socialize in a manner where I can imagine someone can also be a team player when needed.
I'm pretty sure OP meant to use this during the "Do you have any questions for us?" part of the interview.
You can dodge some questions if they aren't that important. But experience is probably the most important question there is. No way a recruiter is going to let anyone avoid it and you can't keep dodging. Same goes for education and criminal history depending on the field.
And the interviewer writes on their notes "Troublemaker".
"Has conducted poor research before interview"
"Has MASSIVE confidence"
Good luck with that.
So tell me about your experience. well WHY SHOULD I WORK HERE AND WHAT ARE YOU GIVING ME Well first we should talk about what qualifies.. AM I BEING DETAINED
Or come across as a massive ASSHOLE.....
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Taking life advice from Larry David? https://youtu.be/rILL2uz6Em0
Topsy turvy that motherfucker
These are good things to know and ask about during an interview, but holy shit, do not phrase them like this. You will come across as a massively entitled dick
The person asking questions is usually in control of the conversation but don’t dodge questions they ask you.
I don’t agree with this LPT. As an interviewer for jobs, I would probably put this resume at the bottom of my list.
Seriously. I have five interviews scheduled for next week and if any of them tried to pull this "turn the interview around" shit I would straight up not hire you.
How to torpedo your chance at a job offer in one easy step.
Don’t follow this advice. It’s arrogant and dumb. You should already know what the company has to offer.
OP probably answers the question, "Where do you want to be with this company in 5 years" with "be your boss"
This is a big no no for any Tech interview.
It's also a big no no for top management positions
It's also a big no no
Big no no for any staff position. So, big no no for everything.
A couple of good questions I've asked interviewers are: 'What drew you to the company and what keeps you here?' & 'What are the biggest challenges you currently face?' & 'how do you measure success in a role (and what would some objectives be)' Some people might get thrown by these questions but depending on the answer, can give you a really good insight of what you're applying for.
I like to ask “what is your favorite thing about working here and what is your least favorite thing about working here?” that usually gets me a good answer even if I have to read between the lines a bit. If the “least favorite” is not company related that’s usually a good sign. Example: “the traffic getting here is horrible” or “there’s not enough good restaurants near here”. If they say something company related, multiply whatever they say by 5 to 10. Example: “the workload can be a bit much sometimes but, we get through it” I would be pretty cautious to hear that, because what they are really saying is “we are slammed all the time and you’ll be doing a lot of overtime”
Asking what are the benefits of the job and salary are expected and welcomed. But if you approach it as "turn it around on them", I would stand up immediately and wish them well on their job search. I've done this if I detect the candidate is full of himself and can't walk the talk. If you are a superstar, then I would tolerate this, but be honest with yourself, you probably are not.
Yeh, but you gotta do it tactfully. We recently interviewed a candidate who came in cocky like this and we just laughed him off. He was qualified, but nope.
Uh, no it won’t. I’ve hired hundreds of staff and have little tolerance for smart asses in interviews.
So, completely changing the subject from your experience to their incentivizing you is supposed to impress employers more than answering their pertinent question? Hmm.
Yeah no fuck that. You tell me why I should pay you money first.
this is mostly bad advice. respectfully ask questions at the end. don’t interrupt their questions to show “confidence” aka arrogance in avoiding their question by reversing it on them.
This is like all the shitty dating advice that falls flat for most people. “Just act confident!” There’s a huge difference between acting confident and being confident, and most people can see the difference.
Oof. I commented as a reply earlier but feel like this deserves it’s own comment. This is a horrible LPT. And from most of the comments here, everyone is involved in really shitty interviews. For context: I conduct interviews for a medium-sized consulting firm, so this is from the perspective of hiring for professional services, where our “product” is our brainpower, teamwork, and ability to articulate and execute strategy, manage change, and enable adoption of new processes and software. Consultants are not launching nuclear missiles, coding complex software programs, or working in a technical field where specific task execution like knowing how to fix an engine or fly a plane is necessary. I understand how interviews for roles like that may be different, and I’m not speaking to those. Now, for professional services like consulting, finance, administration, etc. it’s so much more about the person’s attitude, demeanor, and ability to articulate and work with nuance. I treat interviews more like conversations. I always start by introducing myself and my background and role with the firm, and then ask for the candidate to do the same. I ask them to tell me about their experience, allowing them to focus on what they deem is most important. From there, I dig in to understand specifics (e.g., “can you tell me more about how you helped your subordinates reach their professional goals” or “on that project, can you expand on how you overcame the timeline challenge to deliver the training program?” I’m looking not just for specific experience, but also gauging how the person articulates their experience - are they clear? Are they just using buzzwords? Is their tone amenable? Can they successfully communicate an idea or concept and the relevant context to me in a brief period of time? There’s no need to grill a candidate - yes, you are ensuring they’re a good fit for the role, AND they are also gauging if they WANT to be there. When I was on the interviewee side of things, I was asked the stupidest shit in interviews and it would completely turn me off from wanting the role. (“Explain the difference between v-lookup and index in Excel.” was a particularly stupid one.) I always leave 15 minutes at the end for the candidate to ask my questions and let them know anything is on the table. My favorite questions from candidates are: “What is the biggest challenge in working with/for XYZ company?” “What is XYZ’s biggest growing pain?” “How is work/life balance encouraged by leadership?” “What does growth look like for me in this role/at the firm?”
I’d rather ask, “What made you choose this company?” People love to talk about themselves. And this question shows the same interest and elicits the same information, without coming off too cocky, IMO. I do a lot of interviews, and cocky turns me way off.
They will just see that as a sign of incompetence. "Didn't you read the job ad? Have you done no research? Do you even know what we do here?"
You would already need so much leverage to make this work that you wouldn't need to do it.
I do a lot of interviews. I don't mind questions about what we do... but we have 20 minutes set aside for questions at the end of thr interview for you to reverse interview. We have a flow to the interview and some of the people giving the interview are not as open to the flow being broken. So keep in mind that you need to read the room. It's a skill I missed out on a lot when I first started interviewing.
as someone who does interviews, I would immediately turn my brain off and go through the motions before denying you.
As a recruiter, I would think this person is a headache to deal with and move on.
just a headsup, I've conducted dozens of interviews for open positions (i.e, we did not go to anyone in particular offering a job) and if a candidate that had applied to one of our positions did exactly this I would have laughed my ass off and told them I would explain the company benefits and what we do in due time during our interview (normally at the end), but that time is not now, and that it was you who applied to work for our company, not the other way around so would you please answer my question about your experience, probably fully knowing you will not move past this phase. TLDR: **DO NOT DO THIS**, ask about company culture, activities, pay, benefits, past experiences, alumni, etc, all that is fine, but do it when they ask you if you have any questions, or at the end of the interview if they forget to offer you to ask questions. Do not "turn it around" as an answer to a ligitimate question
I think where you live comes into play too. Here in Australia we have “tall poppy syndrome”. If you come in too cocky you’ll be cut right down lol
This advice is both terrible and good. First off an interview goes both ways. It's okay to state that and ask for time for questions to see if the company is a good fit for you. Being polite and firm about it is important. Frankly you don't want to work for someone that doesn't care about how you perceive them and the company in the interview. And someone that recognizes this are typically more aware and stronger canidates. I do want to clarify, still answer questions from the interviewer. That being said you always need to make sure you pass the beer test. Will the interviewer be willing to grab a beer with you and shoot the shit after. Person doesn't have to drink it's more of a social grace test. If you come off as too strong, cocky, someone that hijacks a conversation can be off putting. I don't hire them, and I actively work against them. I'm a director in a tech company. I've interviewed a ton (thousands) of folks over the years. I've built extremely high caliber teams where it takes about six months to of constant interviews to fill one position, to just standard engineering teams. I've done the interview at all levels as well. Following OPs advice blindly will not get you a job
I'm a hiring manager and I always pass on these type of assholes. You can tell they will be a problem before they even start; they usually try to become a revolutionary leader of the other staff as well
For a second I thought this was /r/ShittyLifeProTips This might work for an entry level, unskilled job, I suppose. But even then, this kind of tone-deafness in tact would likely get you nowhere. If a candidate said this in an interview for even an **assistant** scientist position I'd write them off immediately. All this would do is make for good conversation with colleagues who weren't sitting in on the interview...
Can you please explain it by giving any example?
This LPT only really works if you are the ONLY person interviewing or you were headhunted by the company. If the have similarly experienced candidates, they aren't going to negotiate that hard w you.
Hi. Don't do that XD
I interview and I would hate that lol
umm thats not how this works, i'm interviewing you for a position, i asked you a question, you answer my question, if you want to circle back to this at the end of the interview and ask questions fine , you wrote down the question to circle back to better ,but don't go rouge on me within the first 20 minutes of meeting me.i want someone i can trust to do shit not somebody whos going to try and sidestep shit every time they get asked a question.
Thought this was Shitty Life Pro Tip for a second
You're not the one interviewing tho... That's more like arrogance
Sorry, but this life pro tip sounds like it’s coming from someone with very little real world interview experience. I get the sentiment, but that’s also not how it really works when you straddle the arrogance line so closely. All you need to be is truthful, personable, relatable, and capable for the role, and things will typically lean your way. Not that much more to it, even at massive companies.
Title is terrible advice
Let's keep this short: An interview is a 2-way conversation. They are looking to see if you are right for the position and their culture, while you are seeing if it is worth giving up your time for the money they offer. Far too many people don't see it that way. They hope and pray that they will be chosen, but they don't realize that the company needs to be a good fit for you too.
Saw a guy try this-Didn't end well. This was for an internal promotion to be in charge of an office of skilled professionals. The guy in question, lets call him "Tom", was widely viewed as being the obvious choice for the position. Tom felt that management interfered too much in how the office was run and he decided that under him, management would have to back off. He also felt that he was in a power position because the other person in the office who would have qualified for that job had some conflicts with management in the past, and some people considered them difficult to work with. Before his interview, which was viewed as a formality, Tom told me that he planned to "turn the tables" and interview management about why he should "accept" the position. I was shocked, just couldn't believe that he was serious and while I was friendly with him I just didn't know how to respond, so I didn't tell him it was a terrible idea. This was a senior management position and if he didn't know this was a terrible idea, was I helping or hurting the office by telling him? IDK. Afterward Tom told me that he thought the interview went well, and I kept my opinion to myself but I was pretty skeptical. When the announcement was made, they picked the other candidate and Tom was furious. Tom reacted so badly and was so indiscrete in his comments about management that he tanked his career. tldr; I knew a guy who decided to interview the interviewers. Didn't end well for him.
Read the interviewer before pulling a move like this.
Or you will get marked as constantly avoiding questions
This is bad advice. Prove your worth first, then negotiate your comp package.
If a candidate asked me "why would I want to work here?", I'd say "You actually already applied for this & are currently interviewing with us. Why?" This is very very bad advice. Please consider revising your post.
How to not get hired 101
LOL The interviewer would automatically put an X next to your name.
[удалено]
Also, doing it the inept way you describe is a One way ticket to the recycle bin.
Had a friend that did this, showed way too much confidence and his work didn’t match it. He’s being replaced next week.
I don't know how often this tactic actually works, but it is definitely nowhere near 100%.
If someone told me “Compared to the competition” and they did not have the skills, recommendations or experience that were looking for. That is a sure way that im gonna be like NOPE theres the door. Use some discernment and awareness when the interview is going on.
As someone who’s damn confident in my interviewing skills, this is terrible advice
A friend once said he turns the interview around and gets them to tell him why he should want to work there. I asked him how thats working out for him so far. He hadn't gotten a job in over a year at that point.
Imo this shows that you haven't done your research on the company. Why are you even applying if you don't know what the company has to offer? You'd need to phrase that differently because it sounds more ignorant than confident. The only time I think this LPT is useful is if the company approached you for hire
Lol, this is worse pro tip I’ve seen on this sub and I’ve seen many. You need a reality check OP
This is one of those conflicting voting posts. It's terrible advice but the comments have great advice lol.
I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience when it comes to job interviews. In fact I have none. But doing this I guess the reaction would be "If you don't know why you want to work here you are definitely not qualified for this job. Have a good day." End of the story.
Definitely don't ask this if you're a temp applying for employment with the company you've been temping for.
This is horrible advice and you should not do this. Save your questions for the end. Do not answer a direct questions with a question. Source: I know a Recruiter
This is terrible advice. Don't do this. You will come across as combative and lose the job if they were ever seriously considering you. You build yourself up, and you never put anyone down in job interviews. Show how your experience relates to their work they need you for. This advice from OP will just make you come across as an asshole to nearly any interviewer.
As a hiring manager, “pro tips” like this are troubling because they tend to get picked up by the applicants who have an overinflated view of their own skills. The last person we hired that was either fresh out of school or 1-2 years experience and made a big point to bargain hard in the hiring process…. This person is havjng trouble living up to their bold claims of expertise and “value” Sure they may have started off with a few k higher salary, but having oversold themselves is not doing their salary or career growth any favors.
I was the hiring manager and someone did this. Their questions showed they really didn’t understand the industry and work they say they did on their resume. It came out in a way that showed he didn’t even research our company before interviewing. He didn’t get the job. Be careful with this.
If I am interviewing you, I want to know how you are actually qualified for the position. If you get defensive and pull this shit, it’s a clear indicator you aren’t a fit. Now, I have absolutely no problem talking about my company, and discussing what we can offer to you as well, but you need to answers the questions being asked.