The questions to ask at a job interview are as
important to the impression you make as the answers
you give. Smart, incisive, relevant questions
demonstrate your intelligence just as clearly as
smart, incisive, relevant answers. Luckily, the very
same process that allows you to give smart answers to
interview questions gives you a head start on asking
questions like that as well. Specifically, the more
you know about the job and the company, the better you
can ask the kinds of questions which solicit the
answers you need to make your best career decision,
while convincing the interviewer that you are the
candidate best for the job. Ultimately, this requires
you do some serious thinking and research into the job
and company.
The questions to ask at a job interview should come
from a place of knowledge, not ignorance. That is to
say that the questions that you ask should be filling
in specific gaps of knowledge or asking for a kind of
overview perspective from the interviewer, not
requesting a complete data dump. For instance, to make
a ludicrous example, going into the interview, sitting
down and asking “So, what is this job supposed to do?”
would not elicit a useful response. That is just too
much information for the interviewer to give you
during the limited time of the job interview. Neither
would that question give the interviewer much
confidence in your suitability for the job.
Your Questions to Ask In a Job Interview Strategy
Before you even consider what questions to ask at a
job interview, do the research you need first. At a
minimum, you should know in clear terms what the
duties of the job are, what kind of attributes the
company prefers in employees, and what results the
company values above all others. Any information you
can gather about the company, their recent history,
their competitive position and the like is going to be
helpful as well. With all this information, is there
any additional info which you would like to get from
the interviewer to help you make up your mind about
the job? That’s a great question to ask in a job
interview. Before you go in, think of a handful of
questions like this. If the interviewer does not
address them in his or her comments, ask away.
If you cannot think of some specific questions to ask
in a job interview, then a good strategy to use is to
ask the interviewer to summarize something for you.
For instance, you might ask “In your opinion, what are
the three most important changes that this company is
making right now?” Or you might want to ask the
interviewer for his personal insight. For instance, a
question like “What attracted to come work for this
company, over all the other opportunities you must
have had?” This gives a relevant psychological insight
that is worth hearing, as well as giving the
interviewer a chance to talk, which everyone loves to
do.
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