“If I had a million dollars put into my savings account and I didn’t have to work anymore, what incentive would I have to work for your company?”
Wow. What a bold interview question; I agree! I honestly believe that only someone who is practically guaranteed to get the job should ask a question like that or unless you won the lottery the night before. 🙂
This got me thinking however, are you asking the right interview questions to your interviewer?
When I was in corporate recruiting, I had at least 4-5 interviews every day and at each interview, I heard the same interview questions.
- Can you describe the day-to-day activities of this job?
- How do you get promoted here?
- What is the vacation policy?
- What are the hours or What is overtime like?
Are you screaming, “WHAT?!” right now? I did; every single time I heard those interview questions. It was like nails on a chalkboard for me. Why? Because they tell you nothing about the job or company and they tell me all you care about is money.
Here are the answers to the above interview questions, in case you were wondering.
- Yes. You will work hard every day.
- Work Hard.
- If you work hard, you can take some time off.
- You will be working hard, and working a lot.
No, those were not the real answers I gave, but that was what I was saying in my head the whole time.
Now great… you used up all your time to ask interview questions and what did you learn? Nothing! Worthless questions and now the interviewer thinks much less of you than they did 5 minutes ago.
While I am not advocating for asking the original interview question, I am however advocating you to ask thought-provoking questions where you will actually learn something new OR questions where you make the interviewer sell you on taking the job.
Every person I encounter believes that an interview is one-sided. The company/interviewer has the job and you need it, but that’s just simply not true. The company needs you to do the job and the interviewer wants to stop interviewing candidates. In most cases, you have the upper-hand in interviews. Use that to you advantage, don’t be afraid.
Here are some thought-provoking interview questions you can ask an interviewer.
- Do you have any hesitations about my background?
- How much guidance is made available to individuals in developing career goals?
- How will the success of the person in this position be measured?
- What commonalities do you find in your top performers?
- What do expect me accomplish in my first 30/60/90 days?
- Describe your company’s culture.
Now, of course, there are hundreds of more interview questions you can ask and they are all dependent on your unique interview. The point is…don’t ask questions during an interview just for the sake of asking questions. Ask interview questions that will be thought-provoking and that you will actually learn something from.
While the first few moments of any interview are its most crucial, the last few are arguably more important. This is the last thing the interviewer will remember about you.
Will their opinion come from your great questions or bad questions you asked? You have the power to control your interview destiny! Carpe Diem!
Good luck!
