You've
interviewed potential employees. I have too: Over the years I interviewed well over a thousand candidates for job openings. (Don't ask.)
And I'm willing to bet the part of thejob interview when you ask the candidate, "Do you have any questions for me?" almost always seemed like a waste of time.
Why? When they ask questions, most people don't actually care about
your answers; they just hope to make themselves look good by asking
"smart" questions. To them, what they
ask is more important than how you
answer.
But a few people actually care. The best candidates ask
questions they want you to answer because in effect they're interviewing
your company and evaluating whether they really want to work for you.
(After all, the best candidates almost always have options.)
What kinds of questions do the best candidates ask? Here are seven.
1. "What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 90 days?"
Great candidates want to hit the ground running. They don't
want to spend weeks or months "getting to know the organization." They
don't want to spend huge chunks of time in orientation, in training, or
in the futile pursuit of getting their feet wet.
They want to make a difference -- and they want to make that difference right now.
2. "If you were to rank them, what
are the top three traits your top performers have in common?"
Great candidates also want to be great employees. They know every
organization is different -- and so are the key qualities of top
performers in those organizations.
Maybe your top performers work longer hours. Maybe
creativity is more important than methodology. Maybe constantly landing
new customers in new markets is more important than building long-term
customer relationships. Maybe the key is a willingness to spend the same
amount of time educating an entry-level customer as helping an
enthusiast who wants high-end equipment.
Great candidates want to know, because 1) they want to know if they
will fit in, and 2) if they do fit in, they want to know how they can be
a top performer.
3. "What really drives results in this job?"
Employees are investments, and you expect every employee to generate a
positive return on his or her salary. (Otherwise why do you have them
on the payroll?)
In every job some activities make a bigger difference than
others. You need your HR team to fill job openings, but what you really
want is for them to find the right candidates, because that results in higher retention rates, lower training costs, and better overall productivity.
You need your service techs to perform effective repairs,
but what you really want is for those techs to identify ways to solve
problems and provide other benefits -- in short, to build customers
relationships and even generate additional sales.
Great candidates want to know what truly makes a difference and
drives results, because they know helping the company succeed means they
will succeed as well.
4. "What are the company's highest priority goals this year, and how would my role contribute?"
Is the job the candidate will fill important? Does that job
matter?
Great candidates want a job with meaning, with a larger
purpose -- and they want to work with people who approach their jobs the
same way.
Otherwise a job is just a job.
5. "What percentage of employees was brought in by current employees?"
Employees who love their jobs naturally recommend their
company to their friends and peers. The same is true for people in
leadership positions -- people naturally try to bring on board talented
people they previously worked with. They've built relationships,
developed trust, and shown a level of competence that made someone go
out of their way to follow them to a new organization.
And all of that speaks incredibly well to the quality of the workplace and the culture.
6. "What do employees do in their spare time?"
Happy employees 1) like what they do, and 2) like the people they work with.
Granted, this is a tough question to answer. Unless your
company is really small, all you can do is speak in generalities. (Or
you can pick out a few people and describe what they do outside of work
-- and if you can't even do that, you don't know your employees nearly well enough.)
Great candidates want to be sure of having a reasonable
chance of fitting in on a personal level as well as a professional level
because cultural fit is extremely important to them.
7. "What do you plan to do if...?"
Every business faces a major challenge: technological
changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends.
There's rarely one of Warren Buffett's moats protecting a small
business.
So while some candidates may see your company as a
steppingstone, they still hope for growth and advancement. If they do
eventually leave, they want it to be on their terms, not because you
were forced out of business.
Say I'm interviewing for a position at your ski shop.
Another store is opening less than a mile away: How do you plan to deal
with the competition? Or you run a poultry farm (a huge industry in my
area): What will you do to deal with rising feed costs?
Great candidates don't just want to know what you think; they want to know what you plan to do -- and how they will fit into those plans.
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