Three Thoughts on Key Questions Every Candidate Should Ask: Why? What’s First? What’s Next?
As I talk to people about why they want to leave their current job, they often express the feeling that their job is not aligned with the overall objectives of the company. They express disappointment that they are not working toward a goal that is also important to the company’s goals. Worse yet, they sometimes have no idea what the company’s goals are.
When I ask them how the work they focus on compares with what they were told to expect during the interviews, I learned the topic had never been discussed.
Companies and candidates have a bad habit of discussing what candidates and companies do, and how candidates and companies should do it, but seldom discuss WHY.
Companies should make certain they express what the organization’s objectives are. They should explain how a particular job fits into executing their strategy. People should understand the purpose of their role before they accept the job.
Candidates should make certain they ask these key questions if the company’s interviewers fail to address them. Interviewers can set themselves apart by offering this information, even if they aren’t asked.
Here are three thoughts on key questions to ask during the interview.
1. Why?
The worst moment in most jobs is when you find yourself asking, “What is the point? Why am I doing this?”
Companies trying to recruit motivated, talented people should know why the company exists. Companies should know the point of the work they do, the services they provide and/or the products they produce.
Companies should be able to describe their three year strategy to candidates succinctly. People participating in interviews should be able to describe how their role and responsibilities, and that of their department, fit into the overall scheme.
In an interview, candidates should ask what the company’s three year objective is. What is the company trying to accomplish over the next three years? Why is the company trying to accomplish that?
2. What’s First?
The main point of an interview from the company’s perspective is to evaluate if candidates are capable of doing the job and to decide which candidate will be able to do it best.
The point of an interview from the candidate’s perspective is to understand the job, and decide if they are capable and willing to do it.
What will you actually be responsible for doing? How will your work matter? Understanding the company’s objective is the important first step. Understanding what the job entails and how it helps advance the company’s mission is the next important step.
Take the time to discuss the actual work you’ll be doing. What does a typical day and week entail? How will you be observed and evaluated? What are the most basic elements of the job? What are the loftier objectives? How will what are you working on lead to meeting the company’s three year objectives? Ask about your work, your team’s work, your leadership’s work, your business unit’s work… ask all the way up the chain.
3. What’s Next?
Over a three year period, a job should evolve or lead to promotion. How will your role evolve as you meet the three year objective? If it won’t, why won’t it? Perhaps the company knows and understands that the job has a three year arc and expects most people to move on if they can’t be promoted. Perhaps they never give clear thought to how careers develop at the company.
After you acknowledge your interest in the company’s three year objective, and emphasize how your skills and experiences will lead to your successful performance in the initial role, ask what’s next. It is more artful to ask what your next three year challenge will be as opposed to asking when you’ll be promoted. It can be very powerful to ask your potential boss what is next for them after they lead you and the team successfully through the initial three year challenge. The response leads nicely into a discussion of what’s next for you.
There is clearly a difference in being an employed candidate with low urgency and high leverage, compared to an unemployed candidate who needs to land the job. The more secure your current role is, the more (politely) belligerent your questions can be. If you have the luxury of evaluating your next role from the security of a perfectly good job, then make it a priority to get these questions answered before you accept the offer.
Carefully consider what it means if your interviewer can’t answer the questions. Are they put off that you even asked? Do they think the questions are not important? Or do they acknowledge, “Great questions. Let me find out the answers.”
How an interviewer or company responds to these questions provide important clues about the company’s vision and understanding of their mission. Maybe the disconnection is just the interviewer’s failure to convey the information. Or maybe the company lacks a clear vision and purpose. Perhaps the culture of the company is no one cares why we do what we do, just do it.
However the interviewer(s) respond, pay attention to what you are learning about their culture. Pay attention to whether the attitude toward you is annoyance or welcoming for asking these questions.
Timing is important. These are generally second or final interview questions, although the three year strategy question should be discussed in the first interview for anyone considering a management or leadership role.
Cheryl Bedard represents the best interests of candidates and clients. She identifies opportunities for success for talented executives and companies and reconciles hopes and dreams with reality.
