What Questions Should a Prospective Employee Ask? 569
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's for lunch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Asking about hours (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Virtual "+1, best answer yet" from me.
In a similar vein, ask about the policy on flexible working (i.e. a compressed or extended working week), and home working. That should give you a good indication of whether you're working for people who want to see results, or just to see you at your desk.
Re:Asking about hours (Score:1, Insightful)
If you ask in the second situation, you are simply lazy and unwilling to be a "team player".
Maybe in crazy world. We all have to negotiate a salary, which is worth nothing if you don't know if you have to work five or fifty hours for it per month.
Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
I now have to ask, "Does the company have sufficient funds to meet payroll for the next year?"
Re:How often do people get promoted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asking about hours (Score:5, Insightful)
And a virtual "-1, bullshit" to counter my virtual +1 above.
I always ask about the "real working hours" for salaried jobs. Always, barring my very first job (games development, ho ho), which is why I do it now. It doesn't have to come across as lazy - you can spin it as wanting to make an informed decision about whether you're happy committing to the working culture.
If you don't get a job simply because you asked that question, then they were probably planning to work you like a galley slave anyway. Unless that was your goal - and it may be, I was that dumb going into my first job - then you just dodged the bullet.
A typical day (Score:3, Insightful)
One that I've always fallen back on when "do you have any questions for us?" time comes up is something along the lines of "Can you describe a typical day in the life of someone doing my job?". If they're honest, it generally gives me a feel for a typical day, how much time is spent in meetings, doing documentation, when people come in/leave, etc. I then lead them through things like "how much time do I spend doing change tickets/incident tickets? How much time is spent dealing with email/phone calls/walkups? How much time is spent on call?"
While these questions won't generally alter opinion of the job, it does tell me much more about the "how" as opposed to the general interview "what" and "why". Ultimately the quality of life part of the job is more important than the work, at least, as I grow older and move to more senior (ie: non-helpdesk/NOC) positions. Not hating being at work, being fufilled, challenged and treated with respect is more important at this point than simply advancing or resume building. To find out about the "quality of life" is generally the bent of my questions.
Good searching!
Re:COnsider how it comes across (Score:5, Insightful)
"The goal of the interview is to get the offer"
It is not, unless you really want *any* job they could offer (flipping burgers included). If that's not the case, the goal of the interview is not to get the offer but to get the offer *if* it fits both parties. If you can naturally get the questions you are interested in rised during the interview, good, if not, directly question them shows professionality and that you are really interested on the job, not only the paycheck.
Re:How often do people get promoted (Score:5, Insightful)
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)).
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two I consider important (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What are your internet usage rules here? (Score:2, Insightful)
What are your internet usage rules here?... Like bandwidth caps 'n stuff?
Might as well walk in and say, "I plan to surf the web all day and work in my spare time!" ;)
Re:Asking about hours (Score:5, Insightful)
If you ask in the second situation, you are simply lazy and unwilling to be a "team player".
Maybe in crazy world. We all have to negotiate a salary, which is worth nothing if you don't know if you have to work five or fifty hours for it per month.
Absolutely true - this is a valid question to ask, after you have entered the salary negotiations phase and not before.
Basic rule (Score:5, Insightful)
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?".
Re:Asking about hours (Score:4, Insightful)
If you ask in the second situation, you are simply lazy and unwilling to be a "team player".
That seems very strange to me. I have asked about the length of the typical work week at every interview I have ever had. And my lifetime average is about .50 (I get a job offer from about half of my interviews). And I am not a contractor...I have interviewed for salaried positions only.
It is all in the presentation; and how you present yourself will be a function of how you view yourself, the employer, and your potential relationship. If you expect that every employer wants to exploit you and that by asking this you will automatically be sending him a red flag that you cannot be exploited, and therefore that you will not get the job.....or if you see yourself as being basically powerless and the interview is your chance to beg for a job from someone who doesn't really need you but could be convinced to hire you anyway (but only if you are willing to work all the time).....then you have screwed yourself from the get-go.
Remember, employers need employees too, and the successful ones are (quite often) the ones who have managed to retain and motivate talent. Such employers understand the need for work/life balance, and don't want to drive their talent to burn-out (having that happen a few times gets expensive, fast). You are not a selfish bastard for wanting a salary that fits the position's value in the market, your talent level, and the workload. Nor are you a lazy bastard for wanting to have a life outside of work. If you think that asking about salary/workload makes you appear as such, then you need to adjust your self-image. If you think all employers see you this way, then you need to adjust your world-view.
There are some asshole employers, of course. They will try to convince you that there are no jobs available in which you can get away with working less than 60 hours a week, and it goes up from there at crunch time. Also, "salaried" means "you work two jobs, both for me, and only get paid for one, and you like it that way." If the questions you ask reveal that the potential employer is one of these, move on.
The simple fact is....it makes no sense to enter into a relationship if you don't know what the expectations are. Asking what the workload is, and how much it pays, is a simply getting the basic facts. The only concern is timing...if you ask these questions right away it makes you look like a job-hopper, which makes you a risky investment. If you wait till the second interview to ask, it makes it look like you decided that you like the company itself, and are serious about wanting to work there, and are getting the necessary facts. Just do it with the proper professional attitude and any employer worth working for will respond in kind.
CMM (Score:1, Insightful)
What level of the Capability Maturity Model would your organisation reach?
Some probable answers:
Personally I would prefer 2., but YMMV.
Euphemisms (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Common wisdom holds that questions around pay, overtime pay policy, 401k, vacation, sick time, etc -- basically "HR stuff" -- should be avoided in first round technical interviews.
Compensation is usually THE DECIDED factor when most people are looking for a job. When I'm interviewing for a position I always ask about compensation, work hours and company policy on PTO and flex time. I've also been in the position where I have interviewed candidates for positions and have always had at the very least 'ballpark' compensation numbers as well as PTO policies.
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:2, Insightful)
Try the Joel Test (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:COnsider how it comes across (Score:5, Insightful)
I've conducted dozens of programmer interviews, and I totally disagree. The point of the interview is not to get a job, it's to allow both parties a chance to see if this pairing will work. If I can tell that a prospective employee is just concerned with getting hired, that's a huge red flag. I want to hire someone passionate about the same things that my team is passionate about, someone who will have a good sense of humor when we're both still there at 2 AM, and, of course, someone who has the skills required.
The vast majority of candidates, when they get to the "Do you have any questions for us?" bit, just clam up. "Uh, no, not really." Oh? You're about to commit 40+ hours a week to working for me, and you can't think of anything you'd like to get reassurance on before that happens? I think of this part of the interview as a critical thinking test. You're about to be thrown into a new project; what are the important questions to ask?
Sticking to the job is fine; there are a lot of questions that are good to ask there, but I view going outside the job, to questions about fit, demographics, team structure and interaction, etc as a sign of experience. You've got a lot less to worry about from the guy who asks if his cynical style will be a problem than from the guy who doesn't. Questions about fit show me that you know what it takes to make you happy, which is great. We can check to see if our culture matches, if not, no hard feelings. I work in video games, so the attitude might be a bit different; every company says you should be excited about your work, but most people here actually are, and if you're not it's often a problem. The more people like that we can weed out, the better.
As an interviewer, I love the questions the interviewee asks. As parent poster implies, they tell you a lot about what the candidate thinks is important. Questions that focus solely on job function, ignoring job environment, show someone inexperienced or uninterested. If the questions show that the candidate is trying to find a good fit, a place where he can be himself and excel, that's the guy that gets the thumbs up.
Re:Euphemisms (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah, don't be silly, during the interview, you ask what ever questions will make you look good in the eyes of the employer. Try and gauge what your interviewer deems important and ask those questions whether you want the answers or not.
If you really want to know what is going on with the company ask other existing and ex employees outside of the job interview process and try to get the dirt on what is really going on. Don't come off smug or having an inflated opinion of yourself by asking the wrong questions, better to have a couple of job offers and make your choice after successful interviews.
You should know what the company is like and what it is about well before you turn up to the interview, so that when you talk to them, when you answer their questions and when they give you the opportunity to ask them questions, you adjust your communications to gain a positive outcome.
Career Builder (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really think much of that kind of stuff, but if it works, it works.
LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if there are lots of family people there it is a workplace that values work-life balance? This doesn't always mean dumping crap on the single people.
There are plenty of bosses who will regard exploiting their single employees' weekends and evenings as an excellent alternative to hiring enough staff to get the job done in normal hours. This is regardless of the number of parents employed, because even if they have to pay overtime it will still be cheaper than hiring and training new staff (plus it is easier to stop assigning overtime in a recession than to sack 25% of your employees).
Often it is more about the attitude of bosses and what they expect your attitude to be. There are some people who simply can't understand that it is possible to enjoy your job at Global Megacorp Inc without wanting to make it your whole life. They tend to take the attitude that either you are going to put in 70 hour weeks "voluntarily" or you are not a "team player" or in line with the "corporate values" and you cancollect your stuff from security. There's not much that can be done about that.
Re:Are there a lot of people with kids here? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my personal experience, unless you're so in demand that you really don't need an interview anyway, the first person who mentions a monetary figure loses, and if it's the potential employee it's usually worse.
The reasons for this is rather simple. If you underbid, you lose out on cash, no employer on earth will offer you more than you asked for. If you overbid, especially if it's by too much, you risk alienating the employer and are likely to end up not getting what you want.
If on the other hand, they overbid, they don't need to know that and you score. If they underbid, you can refuse, without looking like a greedy asshole and blowing a potential later contact, and if they want you enough, they'll up it.
Salary questions are definitely important, but they're not the be all and end all of getting a job. I value a whole bunch of things above straight dollar figures(so long as the dollars are reasonable of course). Even more importantly, unless you're really strapped for time and don't need the job, negotiating them after they've made an offer will put you in a much stronger position.
As to the general question, the questions you should ask an employer are the questions where the wrong answer means you won't take the job. If you need to have weekends off 100% of the time, ask that, if you need to be able to work flexible hours, ask if you can. If all you're looking for is a paycheck so you don't end up on the street, and you don't really care about anything else. Then you can stick to the pointless crap you ask to show you're interested in the company. Check any employment agency web site and they'll give you a list of them, all they're for is to show you're keen.
The basic rule is that, asking for too much can make you look greedy and cause you problems. Asking too little gets you a job that doesn't meet your needs. The most important skill in life is to know what you need, as opposed to what you want and how far you can go down the want pile and get away with it.
Re:Details on benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a different understanding of freedom.
You suggest that your government telling you that you may not contract with an employer for a job for less than three weeks vacation, no matter how much you'd like to do so, makes you more free.
We suggest that when you are told that you aren't allowed to do something that is otherwise legitimate, you have less choice/less options and are thus less free.
In the US there are industries where most employees have 12 weeks vacation every year. There are even industries where the norm is 40 weeks of vacation a year. Sometimes it just depends on what you and your employer find mutually beneficial. That's been the basis of trade and wealth for thousands of years. win-win exchanges that leave both parties better off.
I suppose the question is, what if you preferred to have less than three weeks of vacation time in your job in exchange for some other benefit the company was willing to give you? (For example, if you got paid enough more that you could take two weeks instead and travel the world, while before you got paid enough to only travel locally for your three weeks. I'm sure you can think of other examples.) How are you more free if your government forces you not to make a contract that you'd prefer?
Can you imagine wanting something other than what the government has decided you must desire?
You may counter that the companies have all the power in the relationship, so you need the government to have the power and protect you instead. Generally, when the government and companies get together, it's not the employees and customers that win as a result. As long as there are plenty of competitors (the government hasn't set up one company as a monopoly nor over-regulated things to prevent competitors from joining the market), you are better off negotiating with several companies that can use your skills, because they have to compete for your labor. You are also entitled to start your own company if you think you can do it better. There's a reason we have so many small businesses in the US and there's a reason poor immigrants come here for opportunity and end up wealthy in less than a generation based solely on their hard work and smarts.
Do you mentally make any connection between being forced to give 3 weeks vacation minimum (increasing the cost of employees to employers) and a high unemployment rate among the less skilled? Economists do.
Do you think that someone who hasn't been in the work force and thus hasn't been able to learn valuable job skills and experience prefers to be unemployable rather than accept lower wages, lower benefits, and lower vacation time than someone available with more experience? What is moral about the majority telling them that they must stay unemployed and backing it up with force? Why do you think foreigners and young people in that situation in France riot? Is it because they are happy with the laws that keep them unemployable?
Why should the most needy among us be punished for your preference for three weeks vacation? Can't you just negotiate that (and a corresponding pay cut) with a prospective employer instead of forcing the rest of us to bow down to your preference by using the political process and governmental force?
Sure, if you ask most people if they want more vacation for free (no trade-offs), they'll agree that they'd like that. In the real world there's no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch and to get that result someone sacrifices something else.
Right (Score:3, Insightful)
That does indeed change things but you are still in dangerous water without clarifying yourself. If you asked those questions and didn't follow up with keywords like "productivity", "morale", and "TCO" then you are still a prima donna or worse, a religious zealot.
Letting people choose their own email client and develpoment platform might be okay, but it really depends on the organization. If you are hired to grow a development team, you better be well versed in the tradeoffs between "every gets outlook" and "lasse faire--anybody runs anything". At your level, you are hired to make the business more competitive. You better make it perfectly clear you aren't some zealot who will be hellbent on turning us into the next FSF regardless of the business justification. Once you've turned off my "zealot alert" radar, then you can ask these kinds of questions.
Re:Euphemisms (Score:3, Insightful)
Better to find out the important things first with practical questions so that I don't waste the company's time and money, and they don't waste my time.
I don't need offers from many companies especially ones that are a poor match. I only need one offer from a company that I wouldn't mind working for.
Maybe if I'm really desperate I'd do that, but for now, I'm not.
Re:Asking about hours (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Employment is a two-way relationship. You wouldn't expect an employer to go out of their way to hire you (and only you) without even reading your CV. Why would any rational employer expect a skilled worker to seek them out and want to work for them (and only them) without knowing anything about what they were getting in return?
Another good one is when a potential employer is really keen to know your previous salary. How could that possibly be relevant to your new job, if you're being judged on merit and they're willing to make an honest offer based on what they think having you in that role will be worth to them? If they ask about what kind of money/package you're looking for, that's fair enough, but it's a different question. Otherwise, they're just trying to force you to give a number first (which is how you lose any negotiation) and pin you with lying at interview otherwise.
Sometimes, saying something to the effect that your current employer asks everyone to keep those details confidential but it's around the market rate will get you off the hook, and if they challenge it, you can ask if they'd really want to recruit someone who would later betray their own confidential information. If they still won't take the hint at that point, personally, I'm thinking about ending the interview. Of course, if you're not willing to walk away from a bad deal, you're going to lose any negotiation anyway, so you might as well just tell them what they want to know.
Employers whose job offers you shouldn't be sad to lose:
Re:Details on benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
DO NOT ask about benefits in the interview, ESPECIALLY in the first interview.
Your mission in the "interview" process is to sell yourself, NOT to negotiate (or even understand) the terms of an offer. Separate the interview process from the negotiation process.
Asking about benefits is comparable to a car sales person asking the prospective buyer about his capability to afford the car. (In other words, you would only do it as a "qualifying question", if you seriously doubted the company's capability to meet your requirements.) Good car sales people get you wanting the car, and sell features of the car before talking details of the offer. Once you want the car, as a potential buyer, you have overcome a major hurdle - it's *this* car over any other, provided we can come to terms. Then they start working the terms.
No, don't talk benefits or pay. Instead, sell yourself, and then once you have them wanting you (instead of hundreds of your competitors), find out the details of the offer. Then feel free to negotiate better terms.
The only 2 exceptions I can think of are if you want to qualify the company, or if you have VERY unusual requirements for benefits. For instance, if you have a dying out-of-town parent, you may want to touch on the vacation issue. This is something that most everyone can be empathetic to, and if you approach it in a way that is honest and human, and shows that you are willing to *give* in order to *get* what you want (like "I have a personal situation with a dying parent and so I'd like to work 50 hour weeks, so that I can take a few extra days off in the first two months. What's the company's flexibility to such short-term arrangements?" ...even that should be a "late in the interviewing process"-type question.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a better way to phrase it would be "Through the current financial crisis, what has been the biggest struggle for your company-- bringing in new work, project cycle delays, accounts receivable, cash flow, or credit concerns?" You can follow that up with "How do you see that changing over the next year?"
Re:How often do people get promoted (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Details on benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
You suggest that your government telling you that you may not contract with an employer for a job for less than three weeks vacation, no matter how much you'd like to do so, makes you more free.
We suggest that when you are told that you aren't allowed to do something that is otherwise legitimate, you have less choice/less options and are thus less free.
Which would be fine, if negotiations were between parties of equal power.
However, the employment market in many industries is close to an oligopsony. Consequently, prospective employers have far more say in contract writing than prospective employees, there is little effective competition between employers to drive working conditions to a reasonable level, and the negotiating power isn't equal.
One of the valuable roles a government can play in maintaining a healthy society is that it can act as an equaliser in such circumstances. If you're going to allow the creation of artificial legal entities (corporations/shareholders) that disrupt the natural financial system (you work, you get paid; you don't pay, no-one works for you) then there has to be a flip side so that individual citizens don't get screwed as a result.
It's just like monopoly abuse/anticompetitive behaviour, but the other way around: while I'm generally not a fan of excessive regulation of businesses, I also recognise that the natural end result of an unbalanced system will be very bad for most people, so I don't mind the balancing provisions.
You may counter that the companies have all the power in the relationship, so you need the government to have the power and protect you instead. Generally, when the government and companies get together, it's not the employees and customers that win as a result. As long as there are plenty of competitors (the government hasn't set up one company as a monopoly nor over-regulated things to prevent competitors from joining the market), you are better off negotiating with several companies that can use your skills, because they have to compete for your labor.
That's a lovely theory that is nothing like practice, for the reasons above.
You are also entitled to start your own company if you think you can do it better.
I did, thanks, and I'm working fewer hours, for more money, and (here's the telling one) making better products with more satisfied clients.
But the amount of paperwork and admin required to do so, not because it's necessary for the job but because it's necessary to deal with all the government-imposed bureaucracy, is staggering. If you're going to argue that there should be more small, independent companies to keep the system honest and the real workers getting the real rewards, I'll be the first to agree with you, but changes would be needed to allow that on a significantly wider scale than today as well.
Do you mentally make any connection between being forced to give 3 weeks vacation minimum (increasing the cost of employees to employers) and a high unemployment rate among the less skilled? Economists do.
Erm... Right. Or we could just compare the notoriously bad working conditions in countries like the US and Japan with the conditions in places like Europe, Scandanavia, Australia and New Zealand. It's a shame I can't post the little chart I just built from a couple of Wikipedia tables showing unemployment rate and statutory minimum holidays by country, but if you're in any doubt, you might like to try the same exercise.
Granted, this is looking at total unemployment and not just the rate among the less skilled, which is what you mentioned. Even so, with such huge variations in total unemployment levels with the same (higher) level of statutory minimum paid time off, I struggle to believe that increasing that statutory minimum would be economically damaging on any level.
As an alternative theory, I suggest to you that people work better when properly rested an
Re:The thing about "what is your salary requiremen (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Details on benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
Bull-shit.
US citizens have far less holiday time than Europeans, but as yet there is no evidence of them being more productive. Anecdotally they seem less so.
And as for individual negotiations, that may work for you or I, with degrees and experience, but anyone without that is screwed. No thanks, government exists to negotiate for the little man and he gets a better life out of it.
The needy among us are the ones that suffer as they will work in any conditions for any money at all. Take your objectivism and stuff it.
Re:I wouldn't ask that (Score:3, Insightful)
Many times you need those questions, unless you have good references about the company to begin with. Without them, you might find yourself in an unhealthy environment that might even make it hard to find another job without quitting first. I've seen places that went for 70 hour weeks for well over half of any given year. I've seen programmers stuck on ancient tools that would make the job not just an ugly chore for anyone used to semi-recent technology, but would also mean that any time spent there would not be useful experience. I've seen on call procedures where people were on call 80% of the time, and received multiple calls a week between 2 am and 6 am.
Nobody wants to give a two weeks notice on a job to learn, in the second they on the new job, that it's not going to work out. There's things in a work environment nobody should put up with: Shouldn't we do some screening to make sure we don't spend even a minute of our time in such an employer?
You must have limited experience (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:"What color m&ms do you prefer?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Red pigment is made from insects [wikipedia.org]. I never ate another red M&M in my life.
Who cares? They're not endangered--eat up!
Re:Don't ask questions (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Documentation (Score:1, Insightful)
A red-flag is probably if they tell you all of their code is a "trade secret".
Soo..., pretty much every corporation gets the red flag, then?
Re:Details on benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
You punish the young, the needy, and the discriminated against who would rather have a job so that they can eventually gain the experience and skills they need to get a better job and make enough to easily support themselves by imposing your preference that they have no job at all rather than one where they'd get less than 3 weeks vacation.
So what's supposed to happen in your world? Young kid leaves school at around 15–16, goes to flip burgers and clean toilets at Maccy D's for a while, and then becomes — what? A skilled tradesman? A doctor or dentist? A teacher? A lawyer? Head of the government? Chief executive of his own business?
I know someone who did in fact start his career flipping burgers and went on to become a qualified engineer, but somehow I think the four years of study at university in between had more to do with his career advancement than the burger flipping experience.
You sound like one of those people who condemn companies for paying only a dollar an hour in a third-world country where if they weren't paying a dollar an hour, the people they were paying would be starving on ten cents a day.
And if the cost of living in those countries were the same as in the US, your strawman would be relevant.
Re:Details on benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
In the US there are industries where most employees have 12 weeks vacation every year.
I hope, I really hope, that this isn't a clueless swing at teachers who "only work a few hours a day and get the whole summer off".
I suppose the question is, what if you preferred to have less than three weeks of vacation time in your job in exchange for some other benefit the company was willing to give you?
Back in the late 90's, as a newly-minted computer-science Ph.D. who was also a hot coder, I quickly worked my way up to a very nice salary, but my employers expected programmers to put in ridiculous overtime on a regular basis. I would gladly have accepted a 50% pay cut in exchange for a 50% cut in actual hours, which realistically would probably have involved only a 25% reduction in net productivity -- indeed, toward the end, it would have increased my net productivity considerably. Oddly, though, this sort of option was never, ever on the table. It was assumed that if you weren't willing to put in the 80-hour weeks, you were an inferior specimen.
I've been lucky -- yes, lucky -- enough to fall into a position where I'm expected to work sane hours, albeit at a much lower salary, on intrinsically interesting problems. But if you're imagining some perfect market where I can easily find and choose an employer like this, and most of my peers continue to do the unpaid overtime simply because they like it, well, I admire your imagination.
Re:"What color m&ms do you prefer?" (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe I haven't seen this listed in the discussion yet:
Whether you are interviewing for a sales position or a technical position, you should ask a "sales-closing" question.
You: "Now that you've had a chance to meet me, and to review my qualifications, are there any issues that concern you, that would prevent you from making me an offer?"
Here's your chance to allow the interviewer to tell you what's bothering him or her about you. And your chance to address it.
Interviewer: "Well, I'm really concerned about your lack of experience doing design work."
You: "Oh, well, I didn't state it explicitly, but I did the design work on Project X, Y, and a significant part of Z, as part of a design team."
Interviewer: "oooh, I'm glad you cleared that up!"