Page 41 - 201 Best Questions To Ask On Your Interview

THE RULES OF THE GAME

Don’t get me wrong. These can be great questions. And if you could
get an honest answer out of them, I might say toss one or two out there
and see what happens. But if you ask questions such as these before you
get an offer, it has the effect of raising the ante too high. No one wants
to work that hard. The interviewer will simply fold and hope the next
candidate is less challenging.

7. Avoid Questions That Are Obvious or Easy to Determine
Asking questions such as these will make you look uninformed or lazy:

What does IBM stand for?
Who is the company’s chief executive officer?

Where is the company located?
Does the company have a Web site?
Why? Because the answers are as close as the company’s Web site or
annual report. Don’t ask the interviewer to state the obvious or do your
job for you. At best it will raise questions about your ability to engage,
and at worst it will cost you the job offer.

8. Avoid “Why” Questions

“Why” questions—queries that start with “why”—often come off as
confrontational. Interviewers can get away with asking you “why” ques-
tions. After all, they are interested in your thought processes and the
quality of your decisions. But when the situation is reversed, “why”
questions from the job seeker sometimes make the interviewer defen-
sive. Not good:

Why did you consolidate the Seattle and Dallas manufacturing facilities?

It comes off as a challenge. Better:
I am interested in the company’s recent decision to consolidate the Seat-
tle and Dallas manufacturing facilities. In a Wall Street Journal arti-
cle, your CEO stated the wisdom of keeping manufacturing facilities
close to customers whenever possible.Yet this move creates distance be-

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