Page 62 - John Kador - 201 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview-McGraw-Hill (2002)

WHEN TO QUESTION

CANDIDATE: My question is this: By what criteria will you select the
person for this job?

INTERVIEWER: That’s a good question.
CANDIDATE: Is it all right if I take notes? (Always ask permission.)
INTERVIEWER: Of course. Now, let me see. I think the first criterion
is . . .

Now listen. When the interviewer is done reviewing the first criterion,
ask about the second. Then the third. Pretty soon you will have a list of
the interviewer’s hot buttons, a recipe for the ideal candidate for the job.
Your challenge is to underscore how your credentials and experience
just happen to fall in perfect alignment with those very criteria.
Let’s back up a minute. Notice what else you have accomplished by
asking this marvelous question. You have seized control of the interview.
Suddenly the interviewer is working according to your agenda. The
question—by what criteria will you select the person for this job—is de-
signed to put you in the driver’s seat. Play with the wording at your own
risk. Look at how the question parses:

By what criteria. This part of the question focuses the discussion
where it belongs—on the job and its requirements, rather than your
education, experience, age, gender, etc. What the hiring manager
really wants is someone who can do the job and will fit in. Are you
that someone? Can you prove it? That’s your goal in the next
phases of the interview.
will you select. This acknowledges the authority of the decision
maker. It is critical for you to know if, by chance, you are talking
to someone who is not the decision maker, but merely a gate-
keeper. In either case, you need to focus on the action verb in the
clause and what you must provide in order to be selected.

the person. Only one person will be selected for this particular
job. You want that person to be you. One of your jobs in the in-
terview is to remind the hiring manager that you are a well-
rounded, likable person who will fit in with the other people in the
organization.

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