Questions you should ask your interviewer
talentzoo.com
talentzoo.com
Answers to questions about work/life balance like, "What time do people usually come in and leave?", "Do coworkers hang out outside of work?", etc. differ greatly between companies.
For internships, knowing the scope of your internship and the level of responsibility is a must.
Questions about workflow are also crucial. Where do new ideas for products come from? If I have an idea what's the process for getting it implemented?
And if you can't think of anything else, just ask what they think you should know about the company. Maybe you don't know what you don't know!
You shouldn't feel like you're walking a fine line between looking disinterested for not asking questions and looking entitled for asking them. Even if you bombed the interview (and who hasn't), asking questions about the company will give you more information for comparison at the companies whose interviews you succeed at. And if you have multiple rounds of interviews, feel free to ask the same question to multiple people to get differing opinions.
The company you go to is going to be part of your life for a long time, educate yourself about work environments just like you educate yourself about your field.
At least at MSFT, we were not allowed to answer this question. These rates can also be deceptive at face value, as you really want to know the breakdown between good attrition (fired a poor performer) and bad attrition (somebody they wanted to keep left).
Zero is also not a good answer, as it means that either they never fire anybody -- and you get to work alongside non-performers who make the same money as you -- or they fail to encourage significant enough personal growth that people occasionally outgrow their position faster than the company can make them a new one for them. Both are very, very bad situations. Well, unless you're just trying to cash a check.
“How many clients has the company added in the past year?”
I would prefer trying to assess growth rates outside the interview. In many cases, you should be able to get an idea some other way. This question shows lack of initiative. And, in many cases, the interviewer may not even be permitted to answer it.
“What has the employee turnover rate been over the past 24 months?”
Too much focus on the negative. You don't like when they ask, "Why did you only stay with Company X for 3 months?" They'll feel the same way.
“What’s the company’s policy on work/life balance?”
You might as well say, "I intend to deliver 40 hours of my time for 40 hours of pay. If you need extra help, ask someone else. Big turnoff.
“What kind of tools are provided to help me do my job?”
Better: "What kinds of things do you need me to do to help the company achieve its goals.
“In the first 60 to 90 days, what’s my first priority?”
Actually, this is a great question. It can paint a good picture of your life and shows that you're ready to get to work.
“Are employees required to sign a non-compete contract?”
By asking this, you are identifying yourself as a problem. If someone asked me this question, the first thing I would think would be, "What is he up to and what is my risk?"
For technology companies, just assume that the answer to this question is "Yes" and sign it.
When interviewing someone else, I appreciate good questions. They show interest and possibility. But I get a bit concerned when too many questions are of the variety of "What's in it for me?"
I think it's always a better idea to present yourself with President Kennedy's attitude: "Ask not what the company can do for you, ask what you can do for the company." Find a way to present yourself that way while still learning everything you need to know.
What's wrong with that? If I'm being hired on with a salary, that's my expectation. They can ask me to work extra, but they can also pay me to do that.
I've been under the assumption that by going on salary, you pretty much forfeit your right to get paid more(forget bonuses for a moment) if you work more hours. Conversely, you will still get paid for 40 hours of work even if the week is slow and you only really needed to do, say, 36.
Investment bankers work 60+ hrs/wk and make $200K a year and get massive bonuses. Most of them are mercenaries who will go wherever they can get the best comp, because what they're selling is the opportunity for the bank to generate profit from their ideas/network whatever. (Please try to read the previous without getting wound around the axle about financiers moral value.)
So, to the extent that you view yourself in the business of "selling value I create," then a few things follow... 1) you'll want highly measurable criteria for success, 2) you'll want comp that is highly meritocratic, and 3) and hours worked don't matter much at all.
Clearly, this post was geared to people who view themselves as being in the business of selling their time, not their value.
Your rebuttal however feels very much from the company's perspective.
If the company squirms or is concerned because they're asked questions like this, I think it's actually worrying. Companies will ask why you stayed at a company for a short period of time. Asking about tools is a good way to evaluate how easy it would be to get things done: if a company won't spend an extra $2k on a new computer of your choice, it's not a good sign. Asking about work/life balance is the same thing: you won't get a definite answer but you should get a glimpse of if you'll be asked to travel across the country at the last minute on your daughter's birthday or not.
In the end, you won't get completely truthful answers but the way they are answered will give you hints. (and to be fair, interviewees also embellish their answers)
Asking "what's in it for me?" seems a fair question. Generally, the feeling is that the risk is on the company's part, but as an employee you might be wasting your time, your opportunities and later you'll have to explain why you worked for only three months at a company.
No no no no... I agree with the general tone of your post Edward, but strongly disagree with this. Anyone working in a field they have any possibility of working in again should never sign something that will complicate that. And the same with ownership of IP developed on personal time.
Once a company has made the decision to hire you they are invested in you. If you can't get them to bend on amending the contract don't sign it. Starting your own company is stressful enough without the possibility for an ex-employer to take legal action. Add that to the fact that people are much less likely to start a business in a field totally unrelated to what they currently do, and you have something that is entrepreneurial suicide.
That said, overly restrictive non-competes tend to be unenforceable, but I agree you don't want the hassle of a legal fight even if you ultimately prevail.
In practice I no one cared what their phone goons did after they left, but I suspect it was applied to everyone they hired, either directly or through outsourcing (like I was).
In fact, after the outsourcer lost the contract several of the people I worked with immediately went to do phone support for Samsung or Motorola (all three were in the same building).
But for a professional developer/engineer position for with minimum severance it's completely unreasonable. It's like asking a lawyer to not practice law for a year after leaving a firm, or a doctor not to practice medicine for two years after leaving a partnership. That's your bread & butter, how you feed your children, and the idea of asking someone in that situation not to ply their hard-earned skills in their trade is nuts.
The only exception would be, and I personally agreed to this at my first job after graduating from college, is if the company provided an extensive training program that taught you all the skills you know. My first company provided three months all-day classroom/lab training while paying us full wages, then an additional three months of mixed OTJ and classroom/training. I was Econ grad and they taught us app development, and then asked us to sign a 1-year NCA that started on the date our training officially ended. They just wanted to make sure they didn't make a huge investment training people (and paying them full salary during training) who would then jump over to a competitor right afterwards, which was totally reasonable.
Later, another company asked me to sign an NCA that would go into effect my last day of work with them, but offered no training, professional development, or year-long severance. I and another new developer sat down with the CEO and explained the above, and she cancelled the whole program after realizing our side of it, which was very cool of her.
So yeah, it depends on the situation, type of employee, etc.
I recommend asking to exclude any ideas developed on personal time OR not formally documented or manifested in specs or code.
You don't want to be worried that if you have a conversation with a colleague about some problem which sparks an idea for a product that just the vague idea becomes company property.
Any of your ethereal ideas that your employer doesn't execute on should never be at risk of getting claimed later if you decide to do something with them. Get that in writing before you start.
They're important data, though. Probably best to wait until you've got an offer in hand.
The candidate has the most power in the hiring process between the moment they have received an offer and before they have given a decision. The company at that point has invested a lot of time and money into the process and you are their number 1 choice.
This would be the best time to ask any "iffy" questions or to push back on any of the points they brought up which you had issues with.
I ask because these questions all would have thrown up a red flag at my previous company, where within 2 months I found myself trying to run a very specific old version of Eclipse (so they wouldn't have to pay for the non-free version of a plugin) on a 10 year old desktop (with a keyboard and mouse I bought myself), on completely unreasonable schedules, embarrassed to leave before 10pm, with no programmers left that I could ask any questions, and at least mildly concerned about whether the non-compete agreement would prevent me from taking another job in Japan.
Being terrible at interviews as I am, I failed to ask enough questions for fear of leaving the kind of bad impression you describe, since I saw myself as having few alternatives as a fresh grad in a bad economy, and convinced myself that the offer was a pretty good deal. There must be a way to at least get some indication that a company isn't going to make me beg for scraps without coming off as unhireable.
> You don't like when they ask, "Why did you only stay with Company X for 3 months?" They'll feel the same way.
Actually I do like it when they ask. It gives me a chance to explain my position. Heaven forbid somebody's feelings get hurt.
> This question shows lack of initiative
How does a question about the company's business show lack of initiative? It shows the candidate is at least thinking about the bigger picture and future.
> just assume that the answer to this question is "Yes" and sign it.
Honestly, I cannot believe you are saying this seriously. Never, never, never just sign something.
>Ask not what the company can do for you, ask what you can do for the company.
When you are interviewing someone, are you really following your own advice and thinking "What can I do for this candidate?" while ignoring your own company? I sincerely doubt it. The whole reason you are looking to hire is to get a ROI on the person.
I say all these as someone who has asked tough questions of my interview, been hired and then been told "we hired you because we liked the questions you asked of us during the interview."
Standard answer is Yes, which is fair because it protects the company from you hanging around for a month and then moving straight to their competitors. Non-compete prevents that by requiring a cooling off period of (typically) two years.
A more interesting question is if you are allowed to work on your own projects. It seems like an obvious question, but in some countries it is not. For example, EA (Electronic Arts) is in Canada and they explicitly told me at the interview that everything that I ever code while employed with them would belong to EA. And then added that I shouldn't really have time for personal projects if I am to work for EA diligently... at which point I collected my dropped jaw from the floor and left.
"Why do you like to work for this company?"
"What's the thing you like least about your job?"I like to ask what they like most about their work, which gives them a chance to talk about their job, the company, others in the company (usually), and their role.
Because that's not a warning sign at all! boggles
Most people of course answer this question in the same way an interviewee does when asked 'Why did you leave your last position?'. Nobody will ever answer 'that jerk across the hall, I can't STAND that guy'. They will answer something that gives some insight into the company culture. I don't think it's a coincidence, for instance, that easily half the people at Google I've put this question to have answered something along the lines of 'management chaos/confusion', 'the tendency for two internal projects to be competing with each other without even knowing about it', etc.
I should have added the followup to my first question is what they like most. Both can be very informative, of course, and following up with that helps put them at ease for the rest of the interview, since many interviewers aren't expecting a question like this one. But it's really worth it. An interview isn't just to answer 'will you hire me', it also must answer 'will I enjoy working here'. The second is much more important to me.
It's perfectly normal to have things about your job you don't like. What's so bad about talking about them?
What's all this fear about the boss knowing you have issues with the job? Everyone, repeat, everyone has some issue, however minor, with a job. Owners, managers, etc. already know this. It's not something to hide unless you're working in a really sucky place that can't handle any level of dissent. And in that case you should probably think seriously about leaving (unless you like that kind of thing).
Wanna know what my answer is to most candidates who ask me about something I don't like about my job? The bureaucracy. We are in a highly regulated industry and it can take an annoying amount of time and paperwork to complete some tasks and it gets tedious and frustrating at times. There, I said it. Believe me when I say that the people I work for are well aware of this problem.
"What would you like to change for better in your company ?" Followed by "Do you have any ideas how to achieve that ?"
This shouldn't sound scary as max(sorted(issues, key=severity)). It allows the interviewer to be honest and mention the worst thing. Be suspicious if they say "I wish we had a nice mountain view." ;-). And nothing like "I would like to earn 10x more", that's essentially a "three wishes" kind of response, too easy.
But, asking a bunch of overly aggressive questions will earn a candidate a "might not play well with others" footnote on my evaluation. The questions in the article are great. Getting confrontational when you're supposed to be making a good impression is a bit of a warning flag.
My advice: Use your questions to make sure you understand what kind of work you'll be doing. Use them to understand the team dynamic. Carefully use them to understand if the company has a reasonable business plan. Don't be a jerk and ask a lot of confrontational or trick questions.
Can you give examples of these kinds of questions that you've been asked in the past? I'm imagining a question like "You think you can kick my ass in arm-wrestling?" to be one but I'm sure you have different thoughts on it :)
Just in general, be respectful. If you disagree with an answer, ask a clarifying question or move on. Don't tell me in the middle of an interview that out whole approach is wrong, especially when it's on a fairly subjective matter. We're doing the interview to learn about each other, not to convince each other about development philosophies. If you don't understand that there's a time and a place for disagreement, it's a warning sign to me (not saying disagreement is bad, but there are times when it's much more appropriate than others).
Although it may not appear so to folks straight out of college or who have been unemployed for a while, the goal of the interview is not to find a job. The goal is to find a job that's right for you. The job will dominate your life. You'll spend more time there than on any other single activity except sleeping. You'll time your friends, your family, your vacations around this job. For something that's that big a deal, you want to know what you're getting into.
So going in with a set of things you want to know about the environment is good; use those things to start conversations. Asking a canned list of questions and pausing for the response won't do much, even if it's your own personalized canned list. Listen to the responses. Ask follow-up questions. Know what you value, and respectfully try to find out if they value the same things. Bring up your curiosity at any appropriate place during the interview; you don't have to wait until the end.
That curiosity, that commitment to finding the right environment is what will impress interviewers, not the mere act of asking questions.
On the other hand, unless you really don't care about having a life outside of work, it's probably better to get rejected by the kind of companies who will reject you for asking the question.
If you just ask a question about whether they do unit testing, you'll get a suitably vague and chirpy response, but specifics will normally get you a clearer answer - usually starting with a few seconds of embarrassed shuffling in their seat while they wrack their brains :>
If they don't do any language puzzles or ask you hard questions, then either a) run screaming or b) use that as an excuse to ask a hard language question.
Now, if you have, e.g., C++ and Python on your resume and I ask you to compare how easy/difficult it is to do a certain operation using either language, that can give me insight into your experience using them. Just asking what your most/least favorite language feature is doesn't.
ps, why would you ask an interviewer a language question?
try:
my_dict['foo'].append(result[1])
except IndexError, KeyError:
my_dict['foo'] = [result[0]]
I think there's a danger that a candidate might appear confrontational if they bombard the interviewer / interviewers with a list of questions that they're unprepared for.
The goal of the interview is to find out if the candidate is a good fit. Focus on that (common) goal - ask questions to that help you assess the problem in a way that's as pragmatic as possible. After all, it's in both of your interests to find out whether an appointment is likely to realistically work.
“Are employees required to sign a non-compete contract?”
Really? Why do you need to ask this question (as opposed to just looking at the contract)? Asking this at the interview stage only makes it look like you are interested in going somewhere else (BEFORE) you even have this job...