FYI Candidates – March 2008
How to Ask Your Potential Employer Insightful Questions
By Orrick Nepomuceno, CPC
When you are going on interviews, do you realize that you are not the only one being interviewed? If you look at the situation and handle it correctly, then you should also be interviewing the company. Believe it or not, if you are a good candidate, then that company and/or interviewer is just as nervous about the impression they are able to make on you as you are of your impression on them.
Being as though this is the case, you need to take advantage of it. Sitting quietly waiting for your questions to be fed to you rather than engaging in insightful dialect is a mistake, pure and simple. You want to ask insightful questions for two reasons:
- Determine whether or not YOU think there is a match between the corporate culture and operations of the organization
- Display to the interviewer that you are interested enough to take the time to research and think through these things.
Why do I emphasize ‘insightful?’ This term means an “instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, esp. through intuitive understanding.” (Dictionary.com) How impressive do you think you’ll be if you can lob these types of questions to a potential employer? See my blog, Know Thy Company for tips on how and why to research the companies with which you are interviewing.
Here are some you should consider asking that I feel qualify as insightful questions:
- “So, you would be my immediate supervisor? How would you describe your management style?”
- “I know that ABC and 123 companies are both major competitors of your company. How would you describe the competitive environment?”
- “If I were to be asked to join the organization, is there a defined career ladder and could you explain that to me?”
- “I’ve read a bit about the company president, Ms. Macom. Can you define her style of leadership as well as the overall executive management style of leadership?”
- “As of late, are there any major obstacles that the company/department is facing that are preventing it from accomplishing its goals?”
- “How have the organization’s goals/mission changed, if any, over the last three to five years?’
The difference between these questions and the other, more typical questions should be clear. To ask insightful questions, you really have to: 1) know your information about the company, and 2) have a keen understanding about the culture that you want to find in a company and how you can add value to that company. For me, I am not real comfortable working for an organization that has changed its overall goals more than once in the last three to five years, so by asking that question, I am telling the employer that I am apprehending the true nature of a ‘thing’—their company.
Orrick Nepomuceno, CPC is Vice President of Development at Dick Wray Executive Search. He is also author of Hitchhiker In The Corner Office: Avoid The Hiring Potholes So Your Employees Don’t Hit The Road! If you liked this article, check out Orrick’s newest blog – Restaurant & Foodservice Blog.