Page 51 - 201 Best Questions To Ask On Your Interview

THE RULES OF THE GAME

and holidays. No matter how you frame the questions, you come off
looking greedy and fixated on what the company can do for you instead
of what you can do for the company. Any discussion about these issues
will distract the interviewer from your qualifications and how you can
help the company.
Yes, money and benefits are important. I guarantee you will have this
conversation after the company expresses an interest in you. Your bar-
gaining position will be much stronger then, so just resist asking about
money and concentrate on showing that you understand the company’s
challenges and can help solve them.
On the other hand, let’s be real. Money is critical, so why should it be
so awkward to acknowledge that fact? True, most career counselors and
job-hunting experts suggest it is taboo for you to ask about pay before
the interviewer does, but I think it’s possible to be too rigid on this point.
Occasionally it may make sense for the candidate to initiate a relaxed con-
versation about pay issues at an early point in the interview. Any reason-
able person would expect rate of pay, health benefits, and what constitutes
the workweek to be important topics. To pointedly ignore them diminishes
the honesty of the relationship between the candidate and the interviewer,
surely not an auspicious way to start a relationship with someone who
may become your immediate supervisor and mentor.
There is one exception when issues of pay should come first, not last.
That exception refers to salespeople who are paid by commission, not
salary. With salespeople, the acknowledged desire to earn a high income
is considered an unalloyed virtue. Companies actually like to see a rea-
sonable level of greediness in their salespeople. The system is set up so
that salespeople make money only if they earn the company a lot more
money. Thus if you are interviewing for a sales job, it can be appropri-
ate for you to raise the issue of commissions, royalties, quotas, and other
compensation issues early on in the interview.

SELF-LIMITING QUESTIONS
These are questions that appear to put your needs before those of the
employer. You may have legitimate issues around matters of hours,
transportation, medical requirements, education, and accommodations
of all sorts. But it is rarely to your advantage to initiate these issues be-

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