Great news! Your resume has served its primary purpose, and you’re on to the next step of the recruitment process. You have been selected for an interview and will be meeting with several people including the hiring manager. Now your work really begins.
In preparing for these meetings, it’s not enough to have the answers to an interviewer’s typical questions, which you should have down cold. Just as important, you must prepare your own set of questions. If you want to sell yourself as the right person for the job, you have to ask questions that demonstrate your curiosity, interest, and intelligence. The astute interviewer can discern as much about you based on the answers you give as the questions you ask. The key is to make the interview as much of a dialogue as possible.
It’s not enough to have the answers to an interviewers typical questions
While potential questions will arise during the interview, it’s best not to leave this part of the discussion to chance. Conducting research on the company will help you prepare very specific questions that will show your thought process.
Topics to Talk About
Questions concerning company culture, strategic initiatives, competitive pressures, and market dynamics are just some of the areas that can be probed. Together with these types of questions, you can also make general inquiries concerning training, advancement potential, or success factors. Based on the interview flow, you can pick and choose questions that fit best with the discussion. Note that you should not ask questions about salary as they are best left for negotiations. Questions about benefits are appropriately directed toward human resources.
It’s your responsibility to do your homework and be prepared. Interviewing the interviewer is an effective way to not only sell yourself, but gather important information to help assess whether the opportunity is the right one for you.
