how many questions can you ask in a job interview?

by Alison Green on February 26, 2013

A reader writes:

My question is about … questions. How many are OK to ask in an interview while being respectful of time? I usually try to squeeze in as many as I can while monitoring how much time my interviewer seems to have available for questioning (usually allowed at the end).

I have asked as many as 5-6 before, but I usually have more — and not necessarily about pay/benefits, which may not take as much time to answer, but aspects of the work and organizational culture that can take longer for the interviewer to answer. I find that even if I have other contact(s) at the organization who I can learn from and have researched the organization online, I still like to ask the interviewer some of the same information to get a second viewpoint, which makes the number of potential questions to ask very long. Is there a good rule of thumb?

Some of this depends on what stage you’re at. If it’s an initial phone screen, they have less time and are going to expect fewer questions than if it’s an in-person interview. Generally in phone interviews, most candidates ask fewer than five questions. In an in-person interview, when it’s closer to the final stages, you might have many more than that.

The key thing is what type of questions you’re asking, more than it is the number. If you ask 12 questions and they’re all thoughtful queries and clearly things that could impact your level of interest in the job, I’m not going to have a problem with that; I’m going to appreciate that you’re trying to figure out if this is the right role for you. But if you ask three questions and none of them seem designed to help you understand key things about the job and the workplace, I’m going to wonder why you’re wasting my time. And that’s a good marker to use here: Is the question something that will determine your level of interest in the job?

(For instance, I always wonder about this when a candidates only asks, say, three questions, and one of those questions is something highly unlikely to impact their interest in the job, like “How did you come to work here?” — which for some reason is a semi-popular question for candidates to ask their interviewer. Really, this is one-third of what you want to know to help you decide if this is a job you want?)

Now, it’s certainly possible that we might not have time for all 12 of your questions, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to get answers to them at some point, if you continue in the process. So you might start with a smaller number, but remain alert to the interviewer’s cues about how much time she has. If you’re getting the vibe that she wants you to wrap it up, it’s fine to say, “I do have more questions that I’d want to ask if we move forward, but I want to be respectful of your time, so I’ll hold them for now.” You can also just ask: “I have a ton of questions for you, but I’m not sure how much time we have. I can ask a few of them now, and hold the others for later if we move forward, if you prefer?”

And if you’ve had an interview and didn’t get some important questions answered, and they call you to come in for another interview, and you’d really like your questions answered first so that you don’t waste your time interviewing if the answers aren’t to your liking, then it’s totally okay to say: “I’d love to come in and talk to you again. Before I do, there are two things that are really important to me that I’d love to find out before I take up any more of your time.” But you’d only do this if their answers might make you turn down the second interview; otherwise, you’d just hold your questions for the in-person meeting. (If you do this with idle curiosity things, it’s going to be annoying.)

And if you get offered a job before having had all your questions answered, it’s completely fine to say that you still have some questions about the job and ask to set up a time to have them answered (or ask them on the spot, if it seems like that kind of conversation).

The main thing to know is that no good employer would want you to take a job that you hadn’t had a chance to ask all your significant questions about, even though it might need to happen in a different conversation. And if an employer seems to be expecting you to take a job without getting all your questions answered, consider it a danger sign.

You may also like:
{ 28 comments }

my coworker keeps butting into my new employee training

by Alison Green on February 26, 2013

A reader writes:

My manager specifically tasked me with training a new employee who is transitioning from one career to the same position I hold. I created a very detailed orientation packet that my manager approved.

The problem is that my coworker (a peer in the same role) seems to have decided that training the new person is her responsibility — or at least one she is sharing with me. She is an excellent employee, but hasn’t even been in the role a year. In fact, she hasn’t even been out of college for a year. In double fact, I trained her when she started.

Today she was giving not exactly correct information and talking about things well outside her role and well outside what a new employee needs to know on day one. She was also hindering me from reviewing the new person’s orientation packet, which includes important stuff that needed signing. She wouldn’t leave the two of us alone until I explicitly asked her to. At the end of the day, she told the new employee (who has more work experience than she has even been alive) that it would be ok to go home, as though giving permission.

How should I address this? As my manager rarely works with us directly, my manager has never witnessed this behavior, so I’m afraid that mentioning it would seem like tattling or complaining. And I’m afraid it might send the wrong impression to the new employee if I start off our relationship by warning that my coworker isn’t necessarily the best source of information. I also hesitate to confront my coworker, as previous attempts have been ineffective and met with defensiveness, and in all cases my manager had to back up what I was saying before she would listen.

You need to be direct with your coworker. She may not realize that you’ve been specifically tasked with training the new employee and may assume it’s a group responsibility, or she may just be oblivious about how stuff works. Either way, your first step is to be direct with her.

Say something like, “Hey, Jane asked me to train Bob, and I have a plan that I’m following for that. I don’t want to confuse or overwhelm her by having her get different info from two different people, or in an order that won’t make sense for the plan I’ve created, so please don’t do a separate training thing with her.”

And don’t be shy about being direct with her in situations like the one where she wouldn’t leave the two of you alone. You eventually did directly tell her to leave, but don’t feel like you need to drag that out. If she comes over to the two of you while you’re in training, you don’t need to let her just hang out there. Stop your conversation with the new employee and ask your coworker what she needs — making it clear that it’s not going to be a training conversation of three. If she says she just thought she’d join to help the new employee say, “Oh, no thank you. We’re all set.”

If the problem continues after you’ve been direct, then at that point, you might need to talk to your manager and ask her to explicitly call your coworker off. That’s not tattling or complaining — that’s alerting your manager to something that’s impeding your effectiveness and potentially impacting the training of your new employee. And once you’ve tried what’s in your power to try and the problem still exists, then someone with more authority needs to step in.

You may also like:
{ 51 comments }

my boss isn’t compassionate about my sick leave

by Alison Green on February 26, 2013

A reader writes:

I was hospitalized last week with a fever of life-threatening proportions (103 F) and was advised by my doctor to seek emergency room care immediately. Before I left the house, I contacted my boss and two of my coworkers who usually cover for me when I am on vacation and told them the situation. It did not occur to me in my illness-induced stupor to set up an away message on email or contact anyone else; I thought — wrongly — that in this emergency situation, my boss would take care of things while I was hospitalized and would take the necessary actions and contact the necessary people to inform them of my absence.

After I was admitted, I called HR to arrange for FMLA, since I had no idea when I would be released and I would be able to come back to work. I did this because in the past, my boss has not been understanding about legitimate medical issues I’ve had, and I wanted to cover myself and my job. Each morning while I was in the hospital, I phoned into the office to inform my boss that I was still in the hospital, so she knew where I was. I have been diagnosed with highly infectious flu and received several courses of strong antibiotics that have left me weak and exhausted.

When I was finally released from the hospital and opened my email, it was clear that she did not do any informing except when absolutely necessary — when she was called out by cc from one of our off-campus bosses, demanding to know where I was and why I was not returning emails. She must have then at that time told these bosses, because soon after I got a personal email from one boss apologizing profusely and saying had he had known I was ill, he would not have flown off the handle, etc. If she hadn’t been cc’ed, my guess is she would have hung me out to dry — figuring after I came back from my illness I would pick up the work where I left off, and not offering to ask other employees to pitch in during this emergency.

I have already burned all of my sick leave and am now in the red. The latest is my boss basically threatened to take me off a business trip that won’t happen for 2 weeks. I expect to feel a lot better within 1 week and it seems strange to me that while she couldn’t care less than my emails and work were not being done while I was in the hospital, now she wants to take me out of a major part of my job, when she hasn’t even seen how I am. I am still weak but now I feel like I have to show up to work, no matter how bad I feel, in order to defend myself and not her take me off this trip. I am already stressing about the work I have to do when I return. I have asked many times in the past for other’s help but I am always refused this assistance from other employees in the department because they are “too busy” and am instead offered her help to “re-prioritize.” There’s a reason why I am organized and given a lot of high-level tasks — because I can multi-task and can prioritize tasks myself. Unfortunately this has led to my being overworked and always counted on.

No one likes to be ill. But when I am, my boss makes me feel like a criminal. I am unfortunately in a position where I cannot afford to be choosy with jobs — I have to stick with something that will offer comprehensive group health insurance, or else I would have gotten out of here a long time. Doubly unfortunate, I am positive my boss thinks she can treat me like this because she knows I cannot go anywhere. I haven’t said anything to HR about my boss’s previous mistreatment of me while I was on medical leave; one time my boss made my mother cry by demanding and shouting over the phone for when I would return to the office. This had the effect of making me very anxious, knowing that my boss is not concerned about my well-being but just the job getting done.

At the very least, am I allowed to insist that we play it by ear and I can determine whether or not I go on this trip in a couple days, not now? I do not want to get emotional during this discussion with her; it occurred to me while I was sickest that I might die. (I have a chronic illness with an impaired immune system.) I am however angry by what happened in my absence and wondering if now is the time to bring this up with HR. I am having trouble with this, as in January I requested a raise and after asking several times for an update, I have still seen no action and I do not want retaliation from my boss in the form of a denied raise. But at the same time, I don’t want her treating me like this to continue.

No, you can’t insist that you play it by ear and that you’ll determine in a few days whether or not you’ll go on the trip. Your boss is entitled to make that decision now — and that’s not unreasonable, since if you’re not going, she presumably needs to arrange for someone else to go or otherwise make other arrangements. You can certainly suggest doing it your way, but if she overrules you, that’s her prerogative.

I’d guess that she doesn’t want you to go because either (a) she wants you in the office to catch up on the work that you missed while you were out, and compared to that, the trip is no longer the best use of your time, and/or (b) she doesn’t want to risk you having to pull out of the trip at the last minute and instead wants to be able to plan with confidence now. Neither of these are unreasonable.

Nor is it necessarily unreasonable that she doesn’t assign other employees to assist you when you need help getting caught up on work and instead offers to help you re-prioritize. Frankly, offering to help you re-prioritize is exactly what she should be doing in this situation. That’s normal. In fact, it’s what good managers do.

Should she have had an away message set up on email for you while you were gone, and notified others you were out? Sure, yes. But the fact that she didn’t isn’t a crime — people get busy with their own things and don’t always think stuff like this through. When someone asked where you were, she explained. Again, not a crime, and pretty normal.

The only thing I see in your letter that seems like a problem is your reference to a time that your boss shouted at your mother over the phone to know when you’d return to the office. That’s obviously inappropriate and out of line.

But I have to wonder if you’re interpreting all the rest of her actions through the lens from that one incident (or a more general dislike of her), because all the other things you’re complaining about … well, they’re not big deals and they’re actually pretty reasonable.

(And sure, I realize that the shouting incident might be the tip of the iceberg and might indicate that there have been other similar incidents … but all I can go on is what you tell me and the fact that there are a lot of complaints here about pretty minor things.)

Really, what I’d recommend is putting aside your anger and seeing this as business, rather than something personal.  You may wish your manager were more compassionate, but … she’s not going to take the approach that you want her to take. That’s not who she is. She’s going to focus on the work that needs to get done, not on how you’re doing. A lot of bosses are like that to some extent — and even the ones who do care about you personally are generally still focused on ensuring the work gets done.

You may also like:
{ 360 comments }

tiny answer Tuesday — 7 short answers to 7 short questions

by Alison Green on February 26, 2013

It’s tiny answer Tuesday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. How to let clients know that coworker and I are married

I am a senior member of the leadership team in a small-ish firm. In about 3 months, I will be marrying another member of the leadership team, and I’m curious about “best practice” ways to handle the union. Our boss knows that we’re dating; we had lunch with him and the other leadership team member, after we had been dating and working together (on the same project) for quite a while. We did that to prove that we could work together professionally without letting our personal relationship become a distraction. We will probably let our boss know we are getting married — I envision either telling him just before or just after the wedding. My question is how to handle our clients once we are married.

As we are a small-ish firm, my partner and I are always involved in proposals for new clients and routinely participate in the client pitch meetings. When should we let potential clients know that two of the leads for their projects are a married couple?

Talk to your boss and ask him how he’d like this handled with clients, if at all. And stop waiting to tell him — it’s such big news that it’ll come across as awfully strange to wait until after the wedding to mention it, or even just to wait months after your engagement, especially in a small firm.

2. Can employer make me pay them back for a training if I leave soon afterwards?

I’m currently in the middle of an active job search that my employer is unaware of (for obvious reasons). In the meantime, I still plan to do my job as expected until something comes up. My company is currently in the process of switching our computer infrastructure and they want to pay to send me for some one-day training sessions that could be beneficial to this new system and, to be quite honest, any future employer. My concern is that an opportunity might come up soon after attending these training sessions, and should I accept, my company will have pretty much wasted its time and money with me. I’ve been with this organization for nearly seven years, I’m not under any contract, nor do I have a non-compete agreement hanging over my head. In the event that my company tries to make me pay back the cost of training, would they have any legal means to enforce me to do so or am I able to walk away knowing that they have to assume the risk that employees eventually leave?

They can’t make you pay back the cost of training, not unless you sign an agreement to that effect — which you haven’t done. Employees leave — it’s a normal cost of doing business. Employers can’t demand that you compensate them for expenses that they incurred in the normal course of doing business and having employees.

3. How to deal with a coworker who complained about me

I recently made the mistake of joking around with a coworker who I do not know well. I was wrong on a policy issue (I was given incorrect information when I trained, as were most people, I suppose, as most of the office makes the same mistake I did) and she must have taken my joking about the policy as malicious rather than what I had assumed was casual banter. At the time, I had no idea that was how she felt about the conversation. Afterward, she went over my head (by about three management levels) and complained about me, including twisting my words as if I was personally insulting one of our bosses (the person she brought it to). I had a sit-down with this boss, and I think all is cleared up. Boss seems to understand there was absolutely nothing malicious on my part and that the policy issue was an honest mistake.

My main concern now is what to do with this coworker. I’m bothered by her not coming to me first, as well as jumping chain of command and of course her misrepresentation of the interaction. Is this a case where I should just keep my distance at all costs, or is any kind of a direct conversation warranted? I do not currently have much interaction with her, but that has a good chance of changing in the future.

For what it’s worth, she also vented (gossiped) to various other coworkers, and was purportedly told what she was describing sounded nothing like me and she must have misunderstood. She was told that before going to Boss, which leads me to believe it was not merely a good-faith misunderstanding.

You could certainly approach her, say there’s been a misunderstanding, and try to clear it up. That’s what you’d do with normal people, after all, and in general it makes sense to treat people as if they’re normal and reasonable. But if you have reason to believe that this would make the situation worse, then it’s perfectly legitimate to just keep your distance from her going forward.

4. Asking for more information before covering your own interview travel expenses

I am finding myself in a position that requires travelling for interviews. As you can imagine, the expenses can add up. I have gone to several (after an initial Skype or phone interview) only to find that they have called in 10 or more people to interview – most of them locals. Is it unreasonable for me to ask if I am in the top three candidates in order to discern their seriousness regarding me as a candidate?

I wouldn’t necessarily demand to know if you’re in their top three candidates, but it’s completely reasonable to say something like, “I’m extremely interested in this job and happy to pay my own way out there if you think I’m likely to be a strong match. However, given the expense, could you give me an idea of how strong a candidate you think I am and how many people you’ll be interviewing overall?”

5. Following up about an unlisted job opening

A colleague of mine went to an education career fair and found out that a nearby district will have three openings in my field of interest next year. Knowing that this is my field of interest, she passed the names of the people she spoke with onto me. I went to apply for the jobs online only to find that they have not yet been publicly listed.

Realizing that this early notice could give me a definite edge, I found the email address of the individual my colleague spoke with from the company’s website and I sent this individual a very polite email explaining how I got his contact information and my interest in learning more about the soon-to-be opening positions. Based on what my colleague told me, the company is very eager to talk now with potential candidates. I gave them some basic information about my related qualities to help indicate both my related experience and my interest in the position, but I didn’t force my resume on them unasked for. Basically, I let them know how I received the information in the first place, gave them a bit about myself and my experience (to hopefully interest them), and expressed an interesting in learning more about the position and how the new planned changes will impact the business.

What is my next step here? How long should I wait without hearing anything before I take another step and get in touch again? I guess it’s a bit tricky because the jobs aren’t officially listed yet, but I know the exist — this was told directly from the director of HR to my colleague. I guess what I’m saying is that under normal circumstances, there would be some expected timeline of response, but this time, there is no official posting and I have no real guarantee that this person will even open my email.

You’ve expressed interest, and now the ball is in their court. I suppose you could follow up one time if you haven’t heard back in, say, two weeks … but I probably wouldn’t even do that. If they’re as eager to talk to candidates as you say, and if you’re a good match, you can assume they’ll reach out if they’re interested. And if that stuff isn’t true, then following up isn’t likely to change that.

They have your materials and your expression of interest. Now it’s up to them.

6. Sending an addendum to a cover letter

I recently sent a résumé, cover letter, and required writing sample into a great company for a position I’m extremely interested in. However, I’m a little worried my cover letter didn’t convey my passion for health, which was one of the requirements. The hiring manager emailed me to let me know they received my résumé and will contact potential candidates by next week. Would it be obnoxious to send her a quick email with a brief explanation of my passion for health? There’s nothing in her email or the job posting that says applicants shouldn’t contact the company, but I realize this may also come off as presumptuous. I know that I could speak to my passion during an interview, but I’m worried they may not even contact me without having described it in the cover letter.

You could certainly do that, yeah, but really that stuff belongs in the cover letter. You’d be sort of sending a second cover letter, which is mildly annoying. Not a deal-breaker, but annoying.

I realize that this doesn’t answer the question of whether you should or not, and that’s because I don’t know. It’s hard to say for sure without knowing what the original letter and your proposed email say. I guess I’m going to come down on the side of sending it, but … don’t make a habit of this.

7. Should I use a visual resume?

I’m looking for a new job in marketing. I updated my resume and prepared some paragraphs for the cover letter. Another thing I did was a visual resume. I have made a PowerPoint version of my resume with nice fonts and quality pictures on the background. I decided that this can help me to stand out among other candidates. So usually at the end of my cover letter, I add this paragraph: “You can find my resume in attachment. In case you would like to see its visual version please visit ____.”

The thing is that I’m not sure if this presentation will really bring me some points. I’m also afraid that it can prevent me and recruiter will not consider me as a serious candidate.

Yeah, that’s not how you stand out. You stand out by being well qualified for the job, having a track record of achievement that shows that, and writing an awesome cover letter. You don’t stand out — at least not in a good way — by suggesting that a busy hiring manager read your resume in two different forms.

You may also like:
{ 108 comments }

why are some job openings posted over and over for months?

by Alison Green on February 25, 2013

A reader writes:

I’m hoping you can shed some light on a growing concern of mine, and maybe all of us who are “pavement pounding.” I’ve been looking for a new gig for a while now, and notice at many of the larger name job search engines, many, many companies always seem to have the opening I’m looking for posted in rather frequent intervals. For example, the opportunity will appear for 3 weeks, then may—or may not—be taken off the site. Then about 2 or 3 months later, the same position is available again. These appearances happen in a variety of differing frequency and time intervals, and from the same groups of seemingly legitimate companies. Likewise, I’ll see an opportunity, from say 3 weeks ago, being posted as 6 hours old or even earlier. The job title I’m going for is highly competitive, and companies usually don’t staff an abundance of these positions, so their turnover rate is traditionally not all that high.

Call me skeptical, but I’m having an ever harder time believing that these companies are simply hiring (or firing) like gangbusters. And even more problematic, I’m not wanting to spend the 45 minutes applying on line for a job that I’m starting to believe isn’t really available even though it reads like it is. So my question is this: do companies continuously keep posting a now filled position that still appears on line as if its a newly-posted opportunity? I don’t want to start letting a skeptical, jaded attitude affect my enthusiasm to apply.

There are a whole bunch of explanations for this:

1. The company hasn’t filled the position yet, so keeps renewing the ads you’re seeing (since otherwise they’ll expire from the site or appear so old that they won’t get many applicants). They may not have filled it because their hiring stalled for some reason (like a decision-maker being away or busy with higher priorities, or it was put on hold while some sort of potential internal complication was worked out), or they might not have filled it because they didn’t feel they found the right candidate yet.

2. There’s more than one slot. A company might have 10 people in that job, so you might see it advertised repeatedly if they filled one slot three months ago but need to fill another one now.

3. They’re always interested in talking to good candidates. Some roles are hard enough to fill that companies are always interested in talking to potentially strong candidates, because if they find someone great, they’ll want to snatch them up, whether there’s a formal opening for the role right now or not.

4. They’re a staffing agency trying to build their database of candidates, and the job you saw advertised may or may not exist. (Although if you’re seeing specific company names, this probably isn’t the case.)

5. They can’t keep the position filled for some reason — they’re hiring badly, the manager is a nightmare to work for, they fire without much provocation, or who knows what.

It’s hard to tell which of these is the case from the outside, but if you apply for one of these jobs, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask about how long you’ve seen it advertised, and whether they’re hiring for multiple slots or whether they’ve had trouble finding the right person. And while there are plenty of possible legitimate reasons for what you’re seeing (see #1-3 above), you should also take it as a sign to keep your eyes open for possible problems (which you should always be doing anyway).

You may also like:
{ 52 comments }

is it time to close down college career centers?

by Alison Green on February 25, 2013

I recently got a letter from a senior in college asking if her cover letters were too focused on herself and not enough on the organizations she was applying to. She showed me a typical letter, which included the following (pieces redacted to protect her privacy):

“As a graduating senior double majoring in __ and __ at __ College, I am interested in pursuing a career focused on __. I believe that my experience researching __, combined with my internship, shows my commitment to social justice and grassroots action to combat __. This drive makes me an ideal candidate for the position of __.

My excellent communication and writing skills combined with my proficiency in analysis, research, and time management enable me to contribute to the goals of ……….. and importantly, afford me a tremendous opportunity to expand my own personal knowledge and skill set…”

I wrote back and told her this:

One problem is that you’re telling, not showing — “shows my commitment to social justice” … “makes me an ideal candidate…” … “enable me to contribute to the goals of”…

Let the employer draw those conclusions through the information you show them. Don’t tell them what it means; they decide that stuff.

Have you reviewed the cover letter section of my archives? That might help.

Here’s her response, which made my blood curdle on behalf of college students everywhere who are being poorly advised by their campus career centers, to the point of malpractice:

Thank you so much for your advice. I haven’t gotten a chance to look at your archives yet but I definitely will. I’m just confused about letting future employers draw conclusions. My career center always told me I have to tell the job how good I am and not let them infer anything since they could negatively infer. Was that an over-generalization?

What?!!

Campus career centers are notorious for giving out bad advice, but this is among the worst I’ve ever heard.

Do not tell the employer how good you are; they are going to decide that for themselves, not simply trust your assessment, and it makes candidates look overly cocky when they attempt to assert this kind of thing (and in the case of recent grads, naive — since most aren’t that good yet, and that’s normal).

Given the incredible amount of terrible advice coming from campus career centers — from telling students to “call to schedule an interview” to telling them to overnight their resume to “get the hiring manager’s attention” to recommending salesy interview answers instead of genuine ones — it really might be time to close down most of these charlatans.* Students would probably be better off if they were forced to find better sources of advice.

Health inspectors have the power to close restaurants that are endangering their customers. Someone should do the same here.

* And yes, I know there are some good ones. But when they’re such the exception to the rule…

You may also like:
{ 153 comments }

why you didn’t get hired

by Alison Green on February 25, 2013

You were perfect for the job and your interviewer seemed to love you – or so you thought. But you just found out that you didn’t get the job, and now you’re wondering why. Here are eight of the most common reasons you didn’t get hired.

1. You were qualified, but someone else was more qualified. In this job market, employers generally get flooded with well-qualified candidates, which means that an awful lot of qualified people are getting rejected. You might have been great, someone they’d have been thrilled to hire if Candidate B didn’t happen to be better for the role. It’s important to remember that getting a job isn’t just about being a great candidate — it’s about being the best candidate, and it’s impossible to know from the outside whether that will be you or not.

2. You weren’t as qualified as you thought you were. Job seekers often mis-assess their own match with a job, either because they don’t understand what the employer is really looking for or because they overestimate their own skills and experience.

3. You turned off the hiring manager in the interview. You might be qualified on paper, but that won’t matter if you blow the interview. And that could take one of dozens of forms: Maybe you seemed rude or arrogant, or you didn’t answer questions clearly, or you rarely made eye contact, or you seemed unprepared for the conversation.

4. You weren’t a culture fit. You might have all the qualifications an employer is looking for, but still not get hired because your working style would clash with the people with whom you’d be working. Remember, it’s not just a question of whether you have the skills to do the job; it’s also a question of fit for this particular position, with this particular boss, in this particular culture, and in this particular company.

5. You weren’t able to articulate why you’d excel at the job. If you aren’t able to make a strong, compelling case for why you’d be great at the job, the interviewer isn’t likely to put one together on her own. Interviewing successfully usually means laying out past experiences and skills that equip you to tackle the job, as well as a track record of doing well at work that uses those skills.

6. You were annoying. Constantly checking in for updates, pushing for an offer before the employer is ready, or calling with detailed questions about benefits before you even have an offer are all good ways to make a hiring manager think that you’ll be a pain to work with.

7. You didn’t seem enthusiastic about the job. Employers want to see that you’re excited about the job and engaged in discussing it. No one wants to hire someone who doesn’t seem especially interested in the opportunity.

8. You only seemed interested in what the job could do for you, not what you could offer the company. If all your questions focused on pay and benefits rather than the details or the work, and you seemed more interested in how quickly you’d be able to move up than in what you’d be doing every day in the role you were interviewing for, chances are good that the company chose to move forward with a candidate whose primary focus was doing the work well.

I originally published this at U.S. News & World Report.

You may also like:
{ 30 comments }

mini answer Monday — 7 short answers to 7 short questions

by Alison Green on February 25, 2013

It’s mini answer Monday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Interviewing a candidate with a horrible resume

My boss has asked me to interview a potential candidate, but the candidate has one of the worst resumes I have ever read. My boss already thinks her resume is “bland,” but feels obligated to interview her as she is the daughter of a friend. Based on the resume alone, I would never recommend her for hiring as there are too many grammatical errors and writing inconsistencies for someone who claims to have an “attention to detail” and for a job that has a strong writing component.

Am I obligated to let know her resume is horrible and where she could improve it? Any advice on what questions to ask someone who I don’t feel would do well or benefit the company?

Nope, you’re not obligated to let her know that, although if you have a rapport with her, you could certainly offer her advice. (However, since your boss is having you do this out of an obligation to a friend, she might be planning to use a bland, generic reason for the rejection and might not appreciate you making it clear that it’s probably based on something else.) As for how to interview you, ask her the same sorts of questions you’d ask anyone; there’s no need to do it any differently just because you know there’s a foregone conclusion.

2. Applying for a different role at a company you used to work for

I have a science degree that, apart from some volunteering and teaching, has been essentially languishing in a shoebox since I graduated a few years ago. I recently saw an ad posted by a local brewery, looking for lab technicians. I actually used to work for the brewery, for over three years, but in a different role: I was a line cook in their attached restaurant. I know lots of people who work there! This is an actual, real-life chance for me to network! Which, of course, I have no idea how to do. I’m Facebook friends with my old sous chef, who’s still working there, so earlier today I sent him a message asking if he knew anything about the opening, like who was in charge of hiring for the position and how best to contact them. Is this the right way to go about using my connections, or should I have left him alone and just applied through the proper channels and hoped my candidacy spoke for itself? I’m really clueless here.

No, that’s exactly right. Since you knew people there and even used to work there yourself, reach out to the people you know there and tell them you’re really interested in the opening and ask what the next best step would be. Don’t feel weird about this; it’s normal and people do it all the time. (In fact, what would be weird is if you just applied without contacting anyone you knew there or alluding to your previous experience there.)

3. Backing out of an internal move

A position opened on internal audit in my current company. I tried my luck and applied. I was hired, but a month before my start date, I realized that I don’t want to leave my present team. I already signed the offer. If I will back out, what will be the consequences?

It depends. If they’ve already hired a replacement for you in your current role, your current job may not be available to you anymore. If it is, they might let you stay in it, but I can’t imagine they’re going to be pleased. At a minimum, you’re looking at them being frustrated and not considering you for promotions in the future. It could potentially be more than that, but it’ll depend on the people involved and the reasons you give them for backing out.

4. Will a new manager take away my recent promotion?

Our department recently hired a new manager, and I’m wondering how this might change things and how, in general, a new manager steps in and evaluates the existing staff. As a bit of background, our old manager had been let go and as a result, our department Senior was put in charge of everything until a replacement could be found. He ended up being in charge for about 8 months, and during that time, he gave me the opportunity to try my hand in a position of higher responsibility.

I have been training in the new position for about 5 months now and I thoroughly enjoy it, but I’m afraid this will all go away when our new manager gets settled in. Out of everyone in the department, I am the person with the least amount of experience. I have only 2 years of experience (I am a recent college graduate in my mid twenties), whereas everyone else in the department has anywhere from 10, 15, to 20 years of experience.

Do you think it’s likely the new manager might demote me back to my old, lesser responsibilities based upon my experience? How do managers in this new position typically evaluate the staff? We had a luncheon where we all introduced ourselves, and he seemed a bit shocked when he discovered I was brought on with so little experience.

Sure, it’s possible, but it’s also possible that won’t happen and it doesn’t sound like you have any reason to think it will, so far.

If the new manager is good, he’ll take some time to assess how you’re doing in the new role and whether it makes sense to keep you there. If he’s not good, he’s more likely to make decisions based on other factors.

I’d recommend meeting with him and saying that you know it’s unusual for someone at your level to be in the role you’re at, and so you wanted to give him some background about how it came about and how you’ve been doing in the job. Don’t leave his decision to just “happen” to you; talk to him and let that become part of his viewpoint.

5. What skills can I obtain for these three jobs?

What skills that I can obtain on my own (not through school) would you consider assets in the job like HR manager or executive assistant or event planner? I think they might be similar to all of these jobs. I would love to make myself the most desirable candidate by upgrading/learning skills.

Those are three very different jobs. The last two both require extreme attention to detail, but aside from that, they don’t have a lot in common. If you’re very interested in each, I’d talk to people in each field and learn more about what they do, so you can narrow down what you’re interested in and what you could do to make yourself a stronger candidate.

6. Should I apply to these organizations again?

I had two interviews in two organizations that I like a lot. One was phone, one in person. With the first, I was asked a bunch of questions relating to my personal thoughts, and althought I felt it went okay, I didn’t get an in-person interview. With the other one, the interview was with a very tired/annoyed/bored supervisor. It wasn’t related to my answers; she was like that before I even approached her and the whole 50 minutes of the interview. I didn’t get hired, got a generic rejection email, thanked nicely, and that’s it.

Should I apply again if they hire again in the next months or a year? I believe they will remember me, since I have a unique background. You advise to add them on LinkedIn, but how would I know if maybe they just hated me?

There’s no reason to assume they hated you. Perfectly good candidates get rejected for jobs all the time simply because someone else was better. Unless you have direct evidence that they hated you, that would be an odd assumption to make. It’s fine to apply again in the future if they have another opening that you’d be a good fit for.

7. Was this interviewer trying to signal that I didn’t get the job?

This Wednesday was my second interview with a very large firm for the position of regional sales manager. I am up against another candidate, and I was told that this was the last step before a formal job offer. The interview was 2 hours long. Some parts went very well but there were some things that I found very bizarre. First, the hiring manager had told me that he previously worked with my “rival” candidate on a large RFQ. I found this very strange. Why would my potential new boss talk to me about the other candidate? Is he sending me a message or is this a case of divulging too much information?

Then at one point, the hiring manager saw that behind him was a “white board” with some meeting notes (gibberish) on it. He quickly got up and erased the board as if I was some spy. It did not make me feel like I was part of their group at that point. Did he purposely do this to send me a message?

At the end of the interview i got the “We will let you know either way. if you are not chosen, we will send you a letter.” Is this common practice in HR or did I receive the proverbial kiss of death? Am I overreacting?

You’re reading way too much into all of this. Who knows why he mentioned the other candidate, but it’s the kind of thing that someone could easily say without thinking too much about how it might come across to you. And the white-board erasing — again, who knows, but he’s not trying to send you coded messages, believe me.

In general, assume that interviewers are rarely trying to send coded messages. If they want to reject you, they’ll reject you. Typically they’re just flawed communicators just like the rest of us who don’t always have perfectly polished conversation.

You may also like:
{ 123 comments }

short answer Sunday — 6 short answers to 6 short questions

by Alison Green on February 24, 2013

It’s short answer Sunday — six short answers to six short questions. Here we go…

1. I missed an interview and didn’t call or email

I missed an interview due to illness, and because of my drug-induced stupor, I forgot to call or email (I was in no shape to do anything but not die). What should I do? I really wanted that job.

Ugh, that sucks. You should absolutely contact them ASAP to explain what happened, but they may or may not reschedule; they’re likely to think that if you can miss an interview without calling or emailing, you could do the same with a client meeting or something else important. But it’s worth contacting them to explain and apologize anyway, so that you’re not that guy who was a no-show for an interview and never followed up. Sorry about this.

2. Company won’t let me change office space

I’d like your take on this: I work in a large office where directors and VPs get an actual office with a door, the senior mangers get a large cube with work table, and the assistants share a cube space. I was hired a year ago as a senior manager and because of space issues was given the same workspace as an assistant. I took it in stride and didn’t complain. In time, when the appropriate space opened as an office was freed for a director, I asked to move and was given the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard. I was told that future moves were “frozen” even though the space remained empty for the past two weeks. Is this normal thing that happens at companies? Or is their way of letting me know how little they value me? I’m stumped.

It’s certainly possible that it indicates that they don’t value you much, but it’s more likely that it indicates that moves are currently frozen for some reason. Ask why, and when they expect that to change.

And meanwhile, look at other signs of how you’re valued: What kind of feedback do you get? What kind of assignments? Etc. Those are going to be more reliable indicators than whether they let you change office space.

3. Overcoming interview nerves

I graduated with my masters in December and have since been looking to transition out of my current field into a field more related to my education. I have had several interviews the past few months but I always seem to bomb them. I research the company, practice potential questions and know the job description inside and out, but I get so nervous that I can’t seem to form coherent sentences or answer the question completely. I am starting to get really discouraged and absolutely dread interviews. I am wondering if you have any advice for calming nerves,or at least looking like less of an idiot at interviews. Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks.

Yes! My free “how to prepare for an interview” guide has a whole section on dealing with interview nerves. You can get it here.

4. Working out a transition plan if you think you’re going to get fired

I was interested in your recent article on how to transition out a dud employee – someone who was trying hard but just not making it. I was particularly interested because I’ve been that dud employee. In my last job I was hired at the wrong level. I didn’t have enough industry-specific knowledge for the role, I ended up doing a lot of firefighting, and I just couldn’t do it.

It was a hellishly stressful situation, both because I could see that the end result was going to be me being out of a job, and because the job itself was dreadful. I never thought of asking for a transition plan, though – I hung on while despite rapidly declining mental health, trying to find a new job to move into.

Being helped out of this situation would have reduced the stress for everyone, possibly saved my sanity, and saved my former employer the enhanced pay off they eventually paid me to leave quietly. If you know that you’re in the wrong job and aren’t cutting it, would you recommend asking for a transition plan? If so, how should navigate the political minefield that is inevitably involved?

Sometimes — depending on what your manager is like. If she’s likely to use this as an excuse to get you to leave immediately, then perhaps not. But if your experience with her is that she’s reasonable and likely to be open to an idea that would let her avoid the unpleasant business of possibly having to fire you at some point, sometimes a candid conversation can be exactly what’s needed. I have some advice on how to do that and what to say in this very old post from 2007.

5. My boss won’t stop using me as an emotional crutch

I enjoy my job. I manage a team, and I’m proud of the work we do as a group. My one big issue is my own boss. He uses me as an emotional crutch, and while I like being in his confidence, I dislike hearing office gossip and feel the amount of time we spend talking is a waste. Most of the people he directly manages are in remote locations; I am the only one of his direct reports in head office. He has a lot of issues with his own boss and is coping with a lot of stress.

He comes into my office 4-5 times a day and sits down to talk, and sometimes won’t leave for an entire hour. Occasionally I make up fictitious meetings to move him along. Anytime he meets someone else in the organization he wants to review the discussion he had with that person with me. He also talks about how stressed he is and everything he dislikes about his job. I also find it despairing that he is very negative and is always pointing out what’s wrong with everything and never suggests solutions. How do I change this to a positive working relationship?

I doubt that you can. He sounds like a mess.

You can certainly make up more fictitious meetings to move him along, or tell him that you’re on deadline, or use all kinds of other excuses to get him out of your office, but ultimately you’re working for a boss who’s a bad manager. It’s possible that you could have an honest conversation with him and tell him that you’re uncomfortable hearing office gossip, and that you want to focus on the positive things about your job and your company, but will that solve the problem? Maybe, but more likely not. What you really need is a more competent boss.

6. What’s a strong hit rate for hires?

What would you consider to be a strong hit rate for hires? To get more specific, if we made ten hires this month, what should we reasonably expect in terms of performance of those ten hires a year from now? How many are still employed, high performers, are any on PIP’s, dismissal, etc.

I know this is a murky area but I’d love to hear from people about what they’d feel comfortable with.

It depends on how much energy you put into to ensuring that you’re hiring well — how thorough you are, how much you probe, and how much you have candidates do exercises that simulate the work before hiring them. If you put a lot of energy into all that — and if you have a high bar for assessing performance, which not everyone does — you might hope at least 7 will be some mix of great and pretty good, and 1-3 will have not worked out for various reasons. And if you didn’t put a lot of energy into hiring, then all bets are off — your number of people not meeting a high bar is almost certainly going to be greater.

You may also like:
{ 82 comments }

short answer Saturday — 6 short answers to 6 short questions

by Alison Green on February 23, 2013

It’s short answer Saturday — six short answers to six short questions. Here we go…

1. Explaining why I’m leaving a slow-paced company

I have been in the same position for the last 6 years. When I took the position the main reasons were that it was an interesting technology, and it was a less than 10-minute commute (vs 1.5 hr+ round trip for my previous position) and surprisingly flexible and family friendly for my field. However, I quickly learned there just isn’t enough work to go around. It is very much a culture where people sit back and don’t do much during the day. In addition to handling my usual responsibilities, I have done some “busy work” projects that relate to our technology. I’ve finished a master’s degree and a project management certification. I’ve read a lot of books using the kindle cloud reader.

I’ve carried out a back burner job search for a while and recently spoke with a recruiter about a position that looks like it could be a great fit — fascinating technology, dynamic/growing company, great location. This once again raises the issue that when I talk to recruiters or hiring managers, I feel at a loss for explaining my current work environment, and my lack of measurable achievements within it. I usually end up saying things like, “It’s a small company” and “It’s a niche product line” (both true) to explain why I’m looking for a change. Any tips for talking about my current work environment without sounding as negative as I often feel about it?

Your reasons for wanting to leave speak well for you — you want to do more work. Employers like that. I’d be honest about that rather than coming up with a cover story. Say something like, “It’s a very relaxed environment with a lot of downtime. I thrive on being busy, so I’m looking for a more fast-paced environment where I can juggle more than my current role allows.”

2. Asking for feedback after a phone interview

I know you recommend asking for feedback when you aren’t ultimately selected for a job. Would you also recommend doing this if you had an initial phone interview but didn’t get to the next step?

Sure, you can absolutely try that, especially if you had a rapport with the interviewer. Be aware that, as with any time you ask for feedback, some people won’t give it to you, just as a matter of course, but some will — and you won’t know who will and who won’t until you try.

3. Why is my old role suddenly paying so much more?

I recently accepted a new position within the same division of a state agency. It was my understanding that this was a promotion. The new position is highly specialized with a complete set of new duties and, thankfully, a pay raise. I viewed the advertisement for my old position and was shocked to find out that my successor will be getting nearly double my starting salary when I was in that position and significantly more than I’m getting now. My manager did tell me they were reclassifying the position higher, as it would no longer be entry level, so I was aware that would increase the pay. But over 30% more than I’m earning now seems excessive and unfair for a non-specialized position, performing the same job duties as I did before.

I’d like to know why a $20k pay increase is necessary when the duties of the job haven’t changed, only the classification. How do I receive a promotion, but get paid significantly less than the person filling my old position? Why was that increase an afforded to me when I was in that position? I’d like to talk to my manager or HR about lowering the pay grade for that position. Does this fall into the “life’s not fair, mind my own business” category or should I talk to my manager about it?

You can certainly ask what’s changing about the position that’s increasing the compensation so significantly, but you’d need to ask that out of genuine curiosity, not with an agenda to get the to change the pay grade — since the pay grade for a job that’s no longer yours is really none of your business, and you have no standing to push for them to change it. But if the position is less responsibility than you have now, and it’s going to pay more than you’re getting paid, you can certainly point that out and ask if your own pay grade should be reconsidered in light of that.

(Keep in mind, though, that’s it’s entirely possible that they’ve revamped the job in ways that make this make sense — and you wouldn’t necessarily be privy to that.)

4. What does unresponsiveness say about this hiring manager?

I had a great in-person interview two weeks ago, and was told I would hear something last week. I had not heard anything by late Friday, so I emailed the hiring manager to see where they were in the decision-making process. While I know that this point in the process often takes longer than originally thought for a number of reasons, I am miffed that she has yet to respond to my email at all! What does this say about her as a manager, if anything? Prior to this, she had been very communicative. It does make me think I’m out of the running. I am doing my best to put out of my mind, as you have stated…but as you can see, I’m definitely struggling with this.

It says that she’s like tons of other hiring managers out there, many of whom take far longer to respond to status update emails from candidates than those candidates would like. Some do that because they’re swamped with higher priority work, and some do it because they’re waiting until they have something to report. (And some do it because they’re rude and don’t plan to ever respond at all, but there’s no reason yet to think that’s the case here.) You can take issue with it, but you’re going to run into it with so many other interviewers that you’re better off accepting it and not letting it irk you.

You’re also better off putting this job out of your mind and moving on, so that you’re not agonizing over when you’ll hear something.

5. Doctor’s wife gets unfair treatment

I work at a dental office where the doctor’s wife is the office manager. She is never on time, always an hour or more late. She takes off multiple days at her own leasiure. In December, she took off the whole month but the first 4 days. There have been numerous occasions where she doesn’t come to work for days. When she is at work, I often find her on her iPad or iPhone, talking on the company’s phone to friends, gossiping, or casually checking emails. She has only been office manager for two years, and we as employees are not awarded with time off every pay period.

Is it okay for her to do these sorts of things just because she is the doctor’s wife? We are barely allowed to take days off without being disciplined or written up. It’s unfair to the rest of the staff for us to see our manager behave in such a manner where she believes she can do whatever she wants when she pleases. It actually bothers me to the point where I want to go file a complain for unequal employee benefits. Am I overreacting or is it normal for an office manager to have such privileges?

Assuming the doctor is the owner of the practice, he’s allowed to let his wife do all this if he wants to. It’s his practice; he can run it however he pleases (assuming he’s not violating any laws). It’s not illegal to give her benefits that the rest of you don’t get. It’s unfair, certainly, and I’m sure it’s frustrating … but there’s no law being broken here and thus no complaint to file. Your options are to accept that this is how the doctor runs his practice, or to look for other work. (If you do the latter, I would recommend looking for an office where the owner’s spouse doesn’t work there.)

6. Why do I have to interview with HR?

I had an initial phone interview for an executive administrative coordinator position with a recruiter for a large accounting firm (1,700 employees), followed by a computer skills test, then a face-to-face interview with the office manger of the four offices located in my area. I had not yet sent out a note reiterating my interest in the position to the office manager when the recruiter called me early the next morning to invite me to a final interview with the other two executives I will be assisting, plus a half-hour meeting with an HR manager. What is the purpose of meeting with the HR person if I haven’t been offered the position and I am not done with the interviewing process?

It could be that HR does their own interviews as part of the hiring process. (That would be lame if true, since hiring managers should do their own hiring, but it’s not unheard of). It could also be that the meeting is for HR to go over their benefits package (also common).

You may also like:
{ 77 comments }