Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Interviewing Your Boss?
First time accepted submitter Uzuri writes "I'm soon going to have the experience of interviewing an individual to be my direct supervisor. I have in mind several things to ask already, especially since I also have the strange position of working as a technical person in a non-technical office and want to be able to be certain that the interviewee understands exactly what that means without coming off as hostile or condescending. What sort of questions would you ask/have you asked the person who was to be your boss? What sort of tells would you look for? What's out of bounds?"
Will you fire me?
Give them an example of situations and ask how they would react. I would choose the biggest mistake that I've made at my current job, and the biggest accomplishment. Their reaction will tell them if you want to work with them supervising you or not. You needn't tell them that this is what you personally did, but you know what an appropriate response to the situation should be and can contrast it to what the actual response was at the time.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
"On a scale of one to ten, are you a douchebag?"
I'm a software dev, and I could do a decent evaluation for anyone from architect down to data-entry, but I don't know that there's anything in my background or skill set that would mark me as being especially able to evaluate a manager based on their day to day duties.
That being said, what I could look for that's important for my manager to have that affects MY day to day duties - which is going to be the minority of what they do - is awareness of the technical processes, awareness of technical limitations, and a reasonable shot from the hip estimate of costs and risk they think a given task will require.
I have had managers who have asked me to get a remote server with no external access email us when they or their internet connection goes down. I've had folks who don't understand that if I push a change of a major subsystem directly into production after working on it for only a few hours, it could very well take down all customers. In many cases, these folks won't be able to justify or even consider the costs for refactors, or for separate test environments, but it's a little late after they've told their boss's boss they'll hit the deadline and now you're on the hook for it.
Beyond those things, just check to see if his management style gels with how your company like to work. Some folks like teams, some like seclusion. Some managers are hands on, some are hands off. Some like rigid project plans, others prefer desk drive-bys. Make sure that their style is good for your company, and for you.
Reject any management candidate who has job-hopping in their history. If they spent less than 2 years or so in their last three positions and the companies they worked for are still around, odds are good there's a reason behind all that shuffling, and it indicates that said manager never really got to know his or her team that well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Don't hire your boss, find a different job! The idea that someone is qualified to hire their own superior is so asinine that it could only come out of a corporate red-tape nightmare so awful it is doomed to an epic fail. If the company had any idea about how to manage whatsoever then they would either have someone higher-up the ladder do the hiring or move someone qualified up from within. Run! Run now! Run fast!
In converse, I'd say if you aren't qualified to interview a potential future manager, you have some serious deficiencies in life skills. This practice is against the status-quo of corporate red tape practices. Also in direct contradiction to your statement, I'd say that always having people higher up the ladder do the interviewing is one of the causes of hiring bad managers, and having direct reports participate in the process is part of a good solution the problem.
In my previous position, I wasn't on the committee, per se, but gave an operational tour to each candidate and tried to explain what we did and our job functions. One candidate didn't seem to pay much attention and was eliminated because he wanted too much money. Another candidate thought he knew more than I did about our operations since he had glanced at our website and walked around the building before the interview. The third candidate was able to understand what I was saying to him and asked good questions about what we did. This casual back and forth was helpful in assessing his demeanor and grasp of technology. He was a manager, so he wasn't actively managing servers and such, but knew what I was talking about and not just buzzwords. I was able to recommend him to the committee and I left his department seven years later with a good reference. Things that stand out to me about people, especially managers: proper dress, profanity during the conversation, excessive sarcasm, and any hints of poor anger management. I may be old school, but I want a manager that doesn't yell or swear at me during our interactions and isn't sarcastic.