Page 58 - 201 Best Questions To Ask On Your Interview

QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD NEVER INITIATE

How much money do you take home?
What would it take for you to leave your job?

Would you want to work for the guy I might be working for?
What’s the worst thing you got away with at this company?

Aren’t you a little young (or old) to be in your position?

“I welcome questions about my personal experience that give me an op-
portunity to share my enthusiasm about the company,” says Beau Harris,
a recruiter at Handspring, Inc., the Mountain View, California–based
manufacturer of the Visor personal digital assistant. What questions
would Harris resent? “There are a whole range of questions about mar-
ital status, religion, political views that I as an interviewer am not al-
lowed to ask,” he says. “I believe the candidate should be held to the
same standard. Questions like that should not be part of the decision-
making mix.”

YES, THERE REALLY ARE DUMB QUESTIONS
A platitude popular in educational circles is that there is no such thing as
a dumb question. After talking to hundreds of recruiters and job coaches
around the world, I can tell you that, unfortunately, there really are dumb
questions, and their articulation has cost thousands of people jobs for
which they might otherwise have been qualified. Job candidates ask
dumb questions every day. These questions prove they haven’t done
their homework, haven’t listened, or have a tin ear for context.

ALL-TIME DEAL-KILLING QUESTIONS

Candidates who ask these questions remain candidates.
These questions basically terminated the job interview, according to re-
cruiters, job coaches, and staffing professionals who generously shared
the worst questions candidates asked in job interviews. This list doesn’t
include “Do you drug-test?” (four instances) and requests for dates (six
instances).
There seem to be no conditions that justify asking the following ques-
tions in any circumstances:

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