Page 17 - John Kador - 201 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview-McGraw-Hill (2002)

INTRODUCTION

interview has received more than its share of attention as a critical ve-
hicle to achieve organizational goals. If you have been interviewing,
you know that employers have developed dramatically more sophisti-
cated interviewing and selection techniques. You see evidence of these
developments in every aspect of the selection process, from the job in-
terview to exhaustive background checks and drug testing. This book
gives you a shot at understanding what you will be up against in the
new world of job interviews.
Many job hunters think their primary goal is to get to the job inter-
view. Wrong! If you think the primary goal of the job hunter is to get
a job offer, you are getting warmer, but you are still a day late and dol-
lar short. In reality, the primary goal of the job hunter is to get an offer
for a job that is a good fit with his or her short- and long-term re-
quirements—in other words, a position that is sustainable for both the
job hunter and the employer.
To succeed at this part of the job hunt requires the job seeker to in-
terview the interviewer. By this point in the process, the chemistry
between the employer and job seeker should be pretty good. If there
are any remaining candidates, their abilities should be fairly similar, so
you are now competing on softer issues. If you are still in the running,
chances are the employer wants to hire you at least as much as you
want to be hired. Now the tables are turned, and it is your opportunity
to determine if this is the job that’s best for your career. Now you get
to interview the interviewer, and in doing so you have another oppor-
tunity to reinforce your desirability as the best candidate for the job.
This book shows you how.
To ground the book in reality, I’ve asked hundreds of recruiters, job
coaches, and hiring managers for the most memorably good and bad
questions they have heard from job candidates. Some of these ques-
tions are brilliant in their insight, depth, and elegance. Others are just
as effective in terminating the interview with extreme prejudice.
Whether the questions are memorably good or memorably bad, learn
from the former and avoid the latter. The best of these memorable
questions, with comments from the recruiters, are peppered through-
out the book and are separately indexed in the back.

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