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What Questions Should a Prospective Employee Ask?
Mortimer.CA writes "Even though things aren't great in the economy, it's prudent to plan ahead to when things (hopefully) pick up. In light of that, I'd like to update a previously asked question in case things have changed over the last four years: What do you ask every new (prospective) employer? When you're sitting in the interview room after they've finished grilling you, there's usually an opportunity to reciprocate. There will be some niche questions for specializations (sys admin, programming, PM, QA, etc.), but there are some generic ones that come to mind, such as: what is the (official) dress code?"
Similarly, what questions should you avoid? Read on for the rest of Mortimer.CA's thoughts.
He continues with these suggestions:
"What about my resume caught your eye? What hardware/software am I expected to use at my desktop (e-mail, OS, editor, source control, etc.)? Are there team lunches or get-togethers? What are your goals for the next six months, one year, three years? What ticket/issue tracking system do you use? Do you have separate build/stage/QA/etc. environments? How do you keep track of documentation? What are your full names (so I can Google them)? What are the typical hours of the team members? Those are some of the ones I've thought of after some digging around. Are there the generic ones that you ask? What are some question for various niches? (e.g., for sysadmins: what config mgmt software do you use?)"
"What about my resume caught your eye? What hardware/software am I expected to use at my desktop (e-mail, OS, editor, source control, etc.)? Are there team lunches or get-togethers? What are your goals for the next six months, one year, three years? What ticket/issue tracking system do you use? Do you have separate build/stage/QA/etc. environments? How do you keep track of documentation? What are your full names (so I can Google them)? What are the typical hours of the team members? Those are some of the ones I've thought of after some digging around. Are there the generic ones that you ask? What are some question for various niches? (e.g., for sysadmins: what config mgmt software do you use?)"
Do you have manditory drug testing?
"I've worked in England and the policy on assault is pretty strict there. If you hit somone, immediate dismissal. What's your policy here? [cracks knuckles]"
Legendary question in by a candidate for a job in Sweden.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Where do we eat?
If you want to know how much overtime you're going to work, and how family-friendly a workplace is, find out what the demographics of the company are. If you are single, you may find that an overly family-oriented workplace is going to put extra pressure on you to stay late due to parents needing to take time off to be with their family (doctor visits, holidays, etc). On the other hand, if you have a family, a family-friendly workplace may afford you more time to spend with your family.
Another good question is to ask your interviewer how many times a week he talks to customers. It will give you a good idea of how insulated you will be from customers, and that can give you an idea of whether you want the job or not. A non-customer centric position will probably be slower in promotion, but much lower pressure. A customer centric position will be higher pressure, but the opportunity for professional growth (even if all you want to be is a developer) is enormous.
There are only two occasions when asking about average employee working hours is appropriate:
1) When you will be contracting with the company and will be charging them an hourly rate with the possibility of overtime
2) You don't really care about getting the job
If you ask in the first situation, you are simply being professional. You want to be able to accurately estimate the amount you will be charging them. It just makes sense, especially since it will end up costing them more to keep you later.
If you ask in the second situation, you are simply lazy and unwilling to be a "team player".
I often ask what are the actual (real) work hours. In my experience, a contract with an IT company at a programming job, states a basic outline of the work hours that are demanded of you (09:00-18:00, for example). Most of the time these work hours are just formal and not actual, since these types of jobs are very demanding (the needs of meeting goals and dead-lines). The kinds of hours that you'll be working may differ from the ones stated in contract. This information is quite important if you have some kind of routine - if you study part time, for example.
It is the universe that makes fun of us all.
I got a new job about 10 months ago.. during the interview, I asked about their benefits, and was told they were "pretty standard". Now, I learn how dishonest they were... health insurance is $850/month for family plan, and we only get 4 vacation days off a year (and only 5 paid holidays). No certification reimbursement, and they want to be able to call me on my personal cell phone after-hours. Lesson learned: get DETAILS.
Just how [in]competent is the management here?
Asking follow-up questions tied to the things the interviewer just spoke on (job responsibilities, organizational policies, challenges, etc.) will win you huge points because it shows you were listening, and you are interested in their organization. Asking questions about benefits, promotions, dress code, and other ephemera will signal to the interviewer that you may only be interested in drawing a paycheck, not being part of a group solving problems and working together. If you want generic questions to ask all employers, consider questions like "Who are your competitors?" or "What specifically in my CV/resume interested you?" The goal of the interview is to get the offer, and the best way to get the offer is to demonstrate an interest in the organization you are interviewing with, an understanding of the industry they are in, and at some level the challenges they face in the current market. As for the dress code question, you dress for your first day just like you dressed for your interview, unless told otherwise, and on the first day your new boss/HR/co-worker will tell you how to dress for the second day. Asking about dress code during the interview will send up a red flag that you may be someone that will challenge the dress code at some point down the line, that would be a strike against you.
Ken
The best questions are almost certainly those that are specific to the employer and the job which they might hire you for. These are excellent because they show that you've taken an actual interest in what they are doing and may have something to contribute to the overall team in the first 6 months or so. Which isn't to say that the other questions (e.g., generic "what are employment conditions like on the ground" checks) aren't good, but if the boss-to-be thinks you care, it's a big way to stand out for the better.
Or at least that technique has consistently worked for me so far, and people who ask such things do stand out when you're on the interview panel. Too many people just do generic applications for jobs and don't seem to care what they actually end up doing...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
So that i don't dirty my lips when i kiss them!
I now have to ask, "Does the company have sufficient funds to meet payroll for the next year?"
No, that makes it sound like you already don't like the job you haven't even been offered yet. Instead, ask about career paths, ask where your co-workers came from (internal new-hires, transfers/promotions, etc.), and where former group members are now. Asking how often people get promoted makes you sound like a civil servant "wannabe", probably not your best interview tactic.
Ken
'Can I see an example of your code or documentation?'
If they don't keep documentation or their code tends to be messy and undocumented then you're going to spend half your time trying to figure stuff out rather than doing productive (and thus interesting) work. If a company's business is in a complex field (finance for instance) and the code/system has built up over many years there is a fair chance that both will be pretty incomprehensible to start with and if they haven't got reasonably documentation the your job is going to be harder and there is a chance that you'll never feel you full have a grasp on *everything* that is going on.
Apart from that, it will show that you give a damn about documentation and are organised.
Assuming I get through the first round or two, my questions are like these:
What is your culture like?
What do you like about working for (insert company name)?
(If it is a division of a large company) How heavy is the hand of Corporate on your day to day?
What keeps you up at night?
Usually by this point I am as much looking to be sold by the company. I am a product manager and usually seek similar roles. Things like culture, openness, empowerment, etc are usually covered in earlier interviews.
I should also add that I usually spend a fair amount of time researching a company before I even interview. Research their annual reports, investor page, read the SEC filings, look for analyst comments (on public companies), understand their market space, competition, etc. So usually much of this has come across already.
Oh yeah, one more: Do you use SAP? (god, how I have that frickin' program)
Geoff
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
If asked like: "What is your education and training policy for employees?" and "Will additional education be reflected in job position, if my job performance is satisfying, or is promotion generally based on seniority?"
or something like that. And a critical one for me: "What is you policy on flexible hours" (or whatever you call in in the US - is it OK I get to work later (or earlier) and then leave later (or earlier)).
What hardware/software am I expected to use at my desktop (e-mail, OS, editor, source control, etc.)?
This (certainly the email and source-control bits) is an excellent question to ask -- not so much because of what the answer as such, but because of your interviewers' reaction to giving the answer. If the interviewers frown or are apologetic about the answers, then that's a big clue that the IT department is run for its own convenience rather than the users' convenience.
For instance, if the email system in use is Outlook, ask if they have IMAP or SIMAP turned on, to enable non-Exchange clients. If the answer is no, then you know that uniformity gets enforced over convenience. You also know that nobody in the company uses any external mailing lists (such as the GCC or Linux kernel lists), as there's no way of posting to those from Exchange without looking like a fool.
If your interviewers sound cross or apologetic when describing the source-control system -- in other words, if the source-control system was dictated by IT without engineering buy-in -- then decline the job. Even if it were theoretically possible to do work in such a company, the excess overhead due to dealing with bureaucracy would make it an inefficient use of your time.
The absolute best answer you could get here is the one a VP of engineering whom I once worked for gave to a compiler vendor whose products we didn't want. "Can't you enforce tooling?", they asked him. "No," he said, "we don't tell Babe Ruth how to hold his bat."
Peter
1. Health plan - even here in Canada, I consider this important. Even routine dental and prescriptions (not to mentioned uncovered specialists like chiropractors and podiatrists) can cost a fantastic amount of money. Everywhere I've worked for recently had copies of the policy documentation available for interviewees.
2. Overtime policy - This generally doesn't vary much due to have a legislated minimum here (1.5x pay past 8 hours a day (or 12 if that's your schedule) or 40 hours per week), but it's always good to know.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Ask your interviewers how long they've been with the company, and why do they stay? The second one is more important if you're in a current "hot" field where people jump ship quite a bit. It tends to give a little more insight into the corporate culture and those you'll be working with, in my experiences.
You want your question to demonstrate your ability to do the job as well as allow you to assess your future bosses and coworkers. So technical questions like "What version control system do you use?" or "What kind of backup system would I be expected to maintain?" are good for talking to technically-oriented managers. For non-technical managers, some good questions might be "How does my work get tested before getting sent out to the users?" and "How are project schedules determined, and what approaches are typically used to keep projects on schedule?".
I am officially gone from
Red M&M.. Blue M&M.. They all end up the same colour in the end.
Go home and shave your giant head of smell with your bad self
I recently returned to school to complete my degree and was able to hear a very intresting presentation from one of the instructors last year. Being that I have applied for many jobs in the past year (and currently working full-time while going to school in the evening), a lot of these made sense. Here are some of the points I found most interesting to take into account during an interview.
- There are only two things that the employer wants to know during the interview: "Can you do the job?" and "Are you going to cause trouble?". The information on your resume will answer the first. Your answers and attitude during the interview will answer the second.
- During the interview, focus on proving you are able to do the job and that you will not cause trouble. Trouble would be absenteeism, incompatibility with co-workers, etc. Keep your personal life personal and your special interests and hobbies to yourself unless they directly pertain to the job. If you interests require you to take time off from work, that should come up during the negotiation period and not during the interview. Also, do not bring up money, pay, vacation, training, "team lunches or get-togethers", hours, or other trivial items. This should all be addressed after the job offer has been extended, while you negotiate, and before you start.
- Once the employer has gone through the process of interviewing all of the candidates and decided that you are the best candidate, you should have already prepared a list of priorities for what you want. If you need six weeks of paid vacation per year, if you need to make a certain salary, or if you need to work a certain schedule, that is all negotiable at this point before the job is accepted. For all of the effort they have put into posting a job opening, sorting through all of the applications, spending all that time interviewing, and somehow still decided that you are the best candidate, it is not in the employer's best interest to start the whole process over because you want six weeks of vacation time instead of the normal four. Everything is negotiable.
- If you are asked during the interview how much you are expecting to make at the new position, a correct answer is "I earn $XXXX at my current job and I am certain you will be fair, but I would like to lean more about the company". It does not ignore the question, but it does not put either party in a tight spot or make either party feel guilty. Again, pay is part of negotiation and not part of the interview.
- One item that should be addressed during the interview is asking about company culture: military (directives from management), team (groups work together to solve problems), competitive (individuals work "against" each other), artistic (try to create the best product), etc.
- Another item that should be asked is what the interviewer sees in the job. Each interview may give a different answer from HR, the department head, the department manager, and the team leader. Taking each of those into account will give a better impression of what is expected.
- I suspect that developers and other specialized positions would want to know what type of systems would be used and the development tools required. This, however, should already be answered to the employer by what is listed on the resume. If the tools required are not listed there and the candidate was still being considered, the tools must not matter very much to the employer and they may be willing to offer training on that system. I am not sure asking about what type of hardware, email, ticket tracking, system environment (Dev/QA/UAT/Prod), or documentation system would be used, since those are basically universal and two companies with the same system may use them in different ways and a new hire will need to become oriented with how the company wants to handle details. Also, if questions about dress code, hours worked, overtime availability, weekend catch-up time, or anything else not normally covered in an interview are important to you, s
"Mostly harmless."
Yeah euphemistic questions FTW.
I like: "What's the staff turnover rate like? How about in the dept I'd be joining?"
If the staff turnover is high, it's often not a good sign. Poor management or hiring practices, and often you'd be picking up the pieces. This doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't join them, but if the turnover is high, the package better be better - haggle if necessary - esp if they know that now you know their environment "isn't better than industry average" based on the employee turnover rate.
In fact, the Bank Regulator in my country considers high staff turnover a significant negative when doing audits of banks.
Maybe not that, but "What keeps you up at night?" - obviously not asking about scary movies or a noisy neighbor, but about issues within the organization. I have found that this way of asking the question (as opposed to "What are the biggest problems?") seems pretty disarming and I've heard prospective employers divulge more than they probably originally wanted to.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
What if the answer is an overly active sex life and a lack of commitment to one particular women?
The only question I can think of is,
"Are you hiring?"
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Pull a stunt like that and you'd strike out if I was interviewing you. To each their own, but fer christ sakes it is an email client not your main development tool!
Once you start asking religious questions like the ones in your post, you start to look like a person who will be very difficult to work with. After all, if you have major demands for extremely minor things like your email client, what kinds of demands are you going to asking for when it comes to actually doing your job?
What if the answer is an overly active sex life and a lack of commitment to one particular women?
Then you've just made a new friend\wingman "giggity giggity goo, alright". You should then follow up with questions about company health care coverage for illegitimate children. Don't judge us! Swingers are people too!
The reason most companies ask isn't to stiff you, but to make sure you aren't expecting way more then what they are budgeted for. They don't want to get to negotiations and find out that you were expecting $150k a year when they only had a budget for $90k. If the company is worth its salt, they probably also want to know that you aren't asking for $45k and the market rate is $90k--after all, what is wrong with you at those low prices?
The trick to not pigeon holing yourself is to give them a ballpark. That is all they need--you to put them at ease that they aren't gonna get sticker shock when they hire you.
Give yourself a range of like $20k or so. Make sure that you span the range so that what you really want is somewhere in the lower end of the quote. For example, if you want $90k, make it $85->$100k. Just make sure that the low end is really and truly the absolute minimum you'd accept and the upper bound isn't a huge stretch for your skills and the market rate.
They ask "what is your salary requirements?" You reply "I was hoping for market rate, so ballpark about $80k -> 100k. Obviously that number might be more or less depending on things like my position, hours, benefits. Sound about right?". Now you still have a lot of negotiating power and they don't have to worry that when they want to hire you and need to negotiate salary you aren't gonna ask for $150k.
I once interviewed for a non-profit who asked what my salary requirements were and I said "about $70->$90k" and he immediately shot back "unfortunately we are budgeted for around $55k". With that, we both knew this wasn't gonna work so we didn't bother wasting more time.
That is my strategy. Your mileage may vary.
I like: "What's the staff turnover rate like? How about in the dept I'd be joining?"
Yes, though personally I tend to be more direct than euphemistic: "How many people have left the company/department in the past year? Why did they leave?"
The thing about "dangerous" questions like these, and asking about realistic working hours, and asking about IP clauses in the contract, is that good employers will usually be more than happy to have chance to explain why they're not like the bad employers. Most will enthusiastically tell you that they have low staff turnover. In terms of copyrights, particularly at the young companies looking for good people, I've had a senior interviewer tell me immediately that he himself had got the contract adjusted to clarify that, and it certainly wouldn't be a problem. For working hours, I've had a much wider range of answers, but usually pretty honest.
I have never, to my knowledge, missed out on an offer that I would have accepted because I asked such questions. I may have lost at least two offers, but in both cases I already knew I wouldn't accept anyway after evasive or outright damning answers to the working hours question, so the question served its purpose.
Clearly YMMV, particularly if you're desperate for a job or if you're happy working for corporate behemoths that tend to have less flexibility in their contracts (and whose HR people may black flag anyone who asks too many questions).
The other thing I always like to ask, though it's probably best to leave it until after the first interview, is to see a sample of their code and documentation. Just as they can tell a lot about me from my solution to a coding problem, so I can tell a lot about them by seeing what kind of code they actually write. I have never been refused this request, though most places ask you to wait until the next visit, so it might be worth mentioning it in advance if you're going back for a second interview and know it's likely to be the last one.
My experience is that once you're past any HR goons and you're dealing with techie folks you might actually be working with, good people will be quite enthusiastic to show you something they consider good code and happy to accommodate your request. It puts them on familiar territory, and makes for a more interesting (and memorable) interview for them than the other ten they've done this week. As a convenient side effect, as well as giving you chance to see their code, it also gives them a chance to show off and creates an atmosphere of fellowship and professional respect--a good discussion about their code can make them start to think of you as one of them before you've even left the interview.
Again, I'm not aware that I've ever missed out on an offer I would have accepted because of asking this question, though again there have been a couple of places whose offers I would probably have turned down if I'd received them after seeing the sort of code I'd be working with.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
MSN Careers has an article titled You Said What?! - 43 Things Actually Said in Job Interviews.
Yeah, everyone can be stupid in an interview. Learn and laugh from their mistakes so you don't make one.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
This is the worst advice I've seen on Slashdot. I'm a hiring manager. I conduct several interviews per week. It is a terrible red flag if someone does not have any questions. It demonstrates a lack of curiosity and empowerment. I need to hire curious people who will find and solve interesting problems for the business. The questions the candidate asks are a means to deciding if the he or she has what it takes.
Instead of asking how often people are promoted, I ask what percentage of their management comes from people promoted within the company. I think it mitigates the idea that you're just using a position as a stepping stone while still getting you the answer you want.
Plus, I think it's important to know that there's a good possibility that your manager was at one point capable of doing the job you're applying for. Honestly, knowing my potential manager doesn't have unrealistic expectations is a lot more important to me than hypotheticals about whether I'm getting his job when he moves up or on.
If I'm set up for failure, I'm not going to get his job either way. Effective schmoozers might, but I'm not one of them.
-- It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
I once interviewed for a non-profit who asked what my salary requirements were and I said "about $70->$90k" and he immediately shot back "unfortunately we are budgeted for around $55k". With that, we both knew this wasn't gonna work so we didn't bother wasting more time.
That is an excellent example of a successful first interview, and one that a job hunter should be prepared for. A good follow-up would be
"Okay, then, I see we don't have a match on this position, but we do have a few minutes remaining for this interview. Are you aware of any positions that are available either with your institution or through your associations with colleagues in other institutions that match my resume and salary requirements?" That is, be prepared for the interview to terminate early because of an obvious bad fit, and be ready to try to turn it into a networking opportunity. The best outcome would be the interviewer saying that "You might try the Foo Foundation. John Smith-- a fellow in their HR Dept-- and I collaborated on designing this job announcement and a similar one that Foo is about publish. You can use my name in your cover letter and ask John to give me a call. If you give me permission to do so, I can tell him that we interviewed you and might have hired you if we had a larger budget to work with."
The chances of this kind of thing happening are pretty small. But they are zero-- nothing, nada, zip-- if you aren't prepared to shift a dead-ended interview into a networking opportunity.
Will
in interviewing or being interviewed.
Your expression "the interview" reveals this.
Most non-entry level positions are filled by a process involving multiple interviews of multiple candidates over a period of days or weeks, often involving a pool or team of interviewers and a set of candidates that have made it past the initial filters. One of those filters being "the interview" that you have experienced.
Those candidates that pass the initial filters get further probing, meet more of the current staff, and eventually this results in offers for some and opportunities for them to counter.
There's no way a company making an offer is putting you "on the spot". When they do make an offer, the opportunity to ask the questions you so value becomes available. They say we offer $$$. They also offer XXX PTO, such and such working hours, etc. All of this is part of their offer package and subject to discussion and negotiation from the moment the offer is made until an agreement is reached, not before.
If such questions are so important to you that you must have the answers upfront, just send an email to the HR department before you send in your resume. Doing so will save both of us a lot of time and trouble.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Red pigment is made from insects. I never ate another red M&M in my life.
Who cares? They're not endangered--eat up!
I made another comment on here already, along these lines.... but I'll re-iterate anyway.
I've definitely had interviews where, by the end, I really had no useful questions that came to mind -- simply because after an hour of so of "back and forth" about the company and the job requirements, plus a tour that let me see things ranging from the dress code to the environment employees were working in, there wasn't much left to ask.
To me, saying "I think you've answered all of my questions right now, but I'll definitely follow up with you if I think of anything else." is a perfectly honest and legitimate answer. Certainly looks better than trying to make up some silly question you really wouldn't have asked otherwise, but are trying to throw out there just so the employer can check-off his list that "Yep, they asked me something."
Rather than "red flagging" a person for not having a question at the end of the interview, I think you'd be wise to ask them questions DURING said interview to determine their problem-solving capabilities. (EG. Ask them to tell you about 1 or 2 situations in previous jobs where they encountered a puzzling problem, and how they went about solving it.)
Best question I know is: What is your long term strategy for growth?
You'll get a wide range of responses and it reflects a LOT about how they treat their employees. If they talk much about cost savings, you know from the start your very position will be under periodic scrutiny. If they talk about outsourcing, you know that your job may not be secure, depending on what you do. If they talk about serving the customers and meeting their needs, you know any extra effort you take to serve the customer will be valued.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
If you expect to be in and gone in one year, ask for salary on the high end of the scale. If not, try to pick a range that won't see you the first to go at the first round of layoffs.
Remember, some positions are hired on pure speculation - the BDM is "90% sure we're going to get this contract so we have to ramp up". This sort of position is a wee bit volatile, and far too common for comfort. You'll need a bit extra at the end to finance the next job hunt, so don't live too high in the meantime.
Other questions: "What happened to my predecessor?" - If you have no "predecessor" then the job is a new opening. Follow that bit of data with "How is the job funded?" These are the sort of questions that can be hugely useful, as well as make a decent impression. If you don't like the answers, back out with a smile - if the job isn't backed with a good business case, it's waste of everybody's time to proceed further.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear