interviewing

A reader writes:

I just got called in for my third interview for a political financial compliance firm. The first interview was over coffee at a Starbucks, and they drove to my location to make it easier for me to make the interview during my lunch break (I have a job and they know it). The second was at their office yesterday and I met the team. It’s a small firm with less than 10 people. And then they just called me moments ago to request that I come in for a third interview.

Now is where things get confusing for me. The interview is going to be over dinner next week with the two head guys and their wives, and they would like me to bring my significant other (boyfriend) so they can see how we fit in with them. I am so completely adrift in ignorance as to how this goes, it isn’t even funny. They told me it is down to me and one other person and they need to decide who they will choose. I also have no idea how much this job even pays at this point. I have until Tuesday or Wednesday next week to figure out what they’re really looking for during this interview and how I can do an awesome job and impress them with my amazingness. There is literally no information on this problem on the internet at all. Please help me?

Ick.

Sorry, that’s just my personal reaction. Plenty of people love this stuff. Are you one of them? That’s worth thinking about, because saying that they want to see how you and your boyfriend fit in with them and their wives is telling you something huge about the culture there. Do some serious contemplation about whether that’s a culture you want.

Moreover, make sure you’re thinking about whether you want this job, aside from the dinner request. I might be reading too much into it, but I get a vibe from your letter that you’re waiting to see if you’re selected by them, but haven’t thought much yet about whether you want to select them. This is stuff is a two-way street, and it’s crucial to think beyond “I want to get the offer” — because the way people end up in jobs where they’re miserable is often by focusing just on getting hired and not thinking rigorously about what happens after that.

I realize I just went on a tangent that might not apply to you at all, but there’s a lot of “I want to impress them” in your letter and not a mention of “I’d really love to do this work,” so I thought it worth mentioning. If it doesn’t apply to you, ignore me and consider it a PSA for everyone else.

In any case … Assuming you’re still interested, what they’re going to be looking for during the dinner is probably what kind of rapport you have with the group, as well as how you handle yourself in businessy social situations, which maybe the job will put you in a lot. (If it won’t put you in those situations, then this is weirder.)

Dress nicely, be warm and charming, and hope that your boyfriend can do the same. Follow some of the tips in this post. Don’t get drunk.   Ask the wives about themselves, and be sincerely interested.

And let’s hope your boyfriend is down for this. If I were a significant other expected to go on someone else’s job interview, I would not be happy. But then I’m a curmudgeon.

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A reader writes:

I have been networking to try and find a job as an attorney or two years! Finally, one of my contacts has been able to get me an interview with one of the most prestigious law firms in Utah. At first I thought this would give me an inside track on getting the job offer, then the interviewer asked to do the interview during lunch. This has caused a lot of anxiety. Is this a serious interview or is he just doing a favor for my contact? Is this such a hassle that he can’t take time during his normal work hours to do it? What if he asks me where I want to eat? What type of place should I choose? What if he takes me to McDonalds? How should I deal with the check (I assume he’s buying)? You can see the thoughts I have been having. What do you think?

You are freaking yourself out unnecessarily, to the point that you’re not going to be able to eat without instantly vomiting on this poor guy. Take a deep breath!

First, no, I would not assume that a lunch interview means that it’s not a serious interview or that it’s such a hassle that he can’t take the time to do it during his normal work hours. Some people just operate this way — if there’s a candidate they’re interested in talking to, sometimes their default is to meet over lunch or coffee, particularly if they don’t interview a lot of people as part of their normal job. It’s not uncommon.

If he’s like most lunch interviewers, he will probably suggest a place to eat. But if instead he asks you, just suggest a mid-priced place near his office. While some people do hold interviews in more casual restaurants (although usually more along the lines of a Chipotle rather than a McDonald’s), the more common option is to do it in a sit-down restaurant with service at your table, so if you’re put on the spot, you should suggest a place like that.

Assume that he is picking up the check. This is a business expense for his company. This is always the case with any lunch interview, but you can be extra confident that it’s the case with “one of the most prestigious law firms” in your state. Seriously. They’re buying.

Let’s see, some other things that you should keep in mind:

* If you’re concerned about what’s appropriate to order, take your cues from him. If he orders an appetizer, entree, and dessert, do something roughly the same. If he orders water and an appetizer and no entree, restrain the price of your own meal accordingly. Either way, don’t be the only one ordering dessert.

* Don’t order alcohol.

* Don’t order anything that’s really messy to eat, like barbecue or tacos, or anything that you know from experience gets stuck in your teeth, like spinach.

* If you know where you’re eating in advance, look at its menu online ahead of time, so that you can decide what to order in advance, rather than spending a lot of time deciding when you’re there.

* Be unfailingly polite to the wait staff. (You should always do this, of course, but in case for some reason you don’t, now is the time to start.)

This probably won’t be the last lunch interview you encounter in life. Don’t agonize over it, and prepare as you would for a normal interview, and you’ll be fine.

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While you can never predict with certainty exactly what questions you’ll be asked in a job interview, some questions get asked so frequently that you’d be foolish not to prepare answers for them in advance. Over at U.S. News & World Report today, I talk about five of the questions that you’ll most likely be asked — and why. You can read it here.

(And speaking of acing interviews, you might also check out my “how to get a job” ebook for way more on this.)

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A reader writes:

My question is about … questions. How many are OK to ask in an interview while being respectful of time? I usually try to squeeze in as many as I can while monitoring how much time my interviewer seems to have available for questioning (usually allowed at the end).

I have asked as many as 5-6 before, but I usually have more — and not necessarily about pay/benefits, which may not take as much time to answer, but aspects of the work and organizational culture that can take longer for the interviewer to answer. I find that even if I have other contact(s) at the organization who I can learn from and have researched the organization online, I still like to ask the interviewer some of the same information to get a second viewpoint, which makes the number of potential questions to ask very long. Is there a good rule of thumb?

Some of this depends on what stage you’re at. If it’s an initial phone screen, they have less time and are going to expect fewer questions than if it’s an in-person interview. Generally in phone interviews, most candidates ask fewer than five questions. In an in-person interview, when it’s closer to the final stages, you might have many more than that.

The key thing is what type of questions you’re asking, more than it is the number. If you ask 12 questions and they’re all thoughtful queries and clearly things that could impact your level of interest in the job, I’m not going to have a problem with that; I’m going to appreciate that you’re trying to figure out if this is the right role for you. But if you ask three questions and none of them seem designed to help you understand key things about the job and the workplace, I’m going to wonder why you’re wasting my time. And that’s a good marker to use here: Is the question something that will determine your level of interest in the job?

(For instance, I always wonder about this when a candidates only asks, say, three questions, and one of those questions is something highly unlikely to impact their interest in the job, like “How did you come to work here?” — which for some reason is a semi-popular question for candidates to ask their interviewer. Really, this is one-third of what you want to know to help you decide if this is a job you want?)

Now, it’s certainly possible that we might not have time for all 12 of your questions, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to get answers to them at some point, if you continue in the process. So you might start with a smaller number, but remain alert to the interviewer’s cues about how much time she has. If you’re getting the vibe that she wants you to wrap it up, it’s fine to say, “I do have more questions that I’d want to ask if we move forward, but I want to be respectful of your time, so I’ll hold them for now.” You can also just ask: “I have a ton of questions for you, but I’m not sure how much time we have. I can ask a few of them now, and hold the others for later if we move forward, if you prefer?”

And if you’ve had an interview and didn’t get some important questions answered, and they call you to come in for another interview, and you’d really like your questions answered first so that you don’t waste your time interviewing if the answers aren’t to your liking, then it’s totally okay to say: “I’d love to come in and talk to you again. Before I do, there are two things that are really important to me that I’d love to find out before I take up any more of your time.” But you’d only do this if their answers might make you turn down the second interview; otherwise, you’d just hold your questions for the in-person meeting. (If you do this with idle curiosity things, it’s going to be annoying.)

And if you get offered a job before having had all your questions answered, it’s completely fine to say that you still have some questions about the job and ask to set up a time to have them answered (or ask them on the spot, if it seems like that kind of conversation).

The main thing to know is that no good employer would want you to take a job that you hadn’t had a chance to ask all your significant questions about, even though it might need to happen in a different conversation. And if an employer seems to be expecting you to take a job without getting all your questions answered, consider it a danger sign.

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A reader writes:

I have a second-round interview coming up for an in-house legal position. This round of interviews is with senior management and will include the chief legal officer.

My contact person is the HR manager in charge of legal recruiting. I am wondering what type of information I can request of her about the folks with whom I will interview. In other words, may I ask for bios of these people? Or LinkedIn profiles? May I ask whether she has any advice for the interviews? Or whether there are particular topics I should be prepared to address? Those last two feel unprofessional, so I’m inclined to just ask for biographical-type of information, but is even that inappropriate? Many thanks in advance for your assistance.

Opinions probably differ on this, but I’d say not to ask for advice for the interviews. It risks coming across as if you’re asking for inside information to help you do well, which makes you look … not especially confident and even a little bit supplicating. I wouldn’t even ask if there are particular topics you should be prepared to address, because — unless you have some reason to believe otherwise — it’s likely that the answer is going to be the standard interview stuff: your experience, interests, skills, etc.

It’s not that the HR manager would gasp in horror if you asked or anything like that, but it’s going to come across as a little unnecessary and probably not garner you any information you don’t already know anyway.

There are times when someone will divulge some advice — “Jane really likes to hear about experience in area X, so make sure you emphasize that” or “Bob can be a little intimidating, but that’s just his face,” or whatever — but it’s better to let them volunteer that than to come across as if you’re looking for a cheat sheet because you don’t trust the process to work well on its own.

After all, remember that you are supposed to be interviewing the employer right back and working to figure if this would be the right fit for you — it’s not just a one-way assessment. So you don’t want to come across as if you’re just interested in impressing them at all costs. It’s about talking to them like normal people, being whoever you are naturally, and figuring out if it’s the right fit on both sides.

I also wouldn’t ask for bios or LinkedIn profiles, because you should be able to find those items yourself online; asking for them will probably make you look unresourceful. That assumes you have their names, of course; if you don’t, you can certainly ask for the names and positions of the people you’ll be meeting with. From there, you should be able to research them yourself. (If for some reason you don’t find information about them online, I wouldn’t go back and ask at that point either; it’s not so crucial that you have their bios that it’s worth asking the HR person to collect them for you.)

Good luck!

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A reader writes:

I work in commercial aviation as a pilot. I am currently applying for an internal management position that is seen by managers as a stepping stone to progressing up the company ladder. Every high level manager in my department is a man. I am 28 and have been in the industry for 6 years (first two were for training). I’ve had three jobs so far, due to the recession, and I’ve been in my company for 18 months.

I have secured an interview after a tough selection process (a 1,000-word essay, cover letter and resume). My question is… Is it non-PC to say that I believe there needs to be a more equal representation in my department? I’m not saying I want the job because I am woman. I just mean that I believe women need better representation at the higher levels and as a result could influence promotion of my job in the wider world. And how could you articulate this without sounding overly feminist and wanting an easy ride up the career ladder?

No, it’s not appropriate, nor is it an argument for hiring you. There might be an argument for hiring more women in general, but that doesn’t mean that you personally should have a leg up. The only argument for hiring you is that you’re a spectacular candidate.

And that’s what you should focus on in the interview: demonstrating why you’d be an excellent fit for the position. Any argument you make for hiring you that isn’t about how you’d excel at the job is an argument that will weaken your case (and probably make people uncomfortable, since you’d be asking them to consider something irrelevant to the job).

Besides, if they want to hire a more even mix of men and women, the way to do that is to make a deliberate effort to broaden their pool of candidates, so that they have lots of well-qualified women (and men) to choose from. It’s not to hire the candidate in front of them who happens to be a woman.

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A reader writes:

I’ve been very selectively job hunting for the last year and have had a few interviews. I have found it difficult to get into the interviewing groove because I only have one about every four months due to the low number of applications I’ve submitted. I have a “big” interview coming up that I’m preparing for, and after an awkward impromptu interview for a club tonight, I was reminded about a problem I’ve been having during interviews.

When asked a multi-part question during an interview, I often find myself forgetting the question while I start giving the answer. This results in mild panic as I scramble to coherently try to finish my thoughts, and either ends up in an awkward situation where I have to ask the interviewers to repeat the question or they have to prompt me to continue or I worry that if I don’t ask and they don’t prompt me, I gave an incomplete answer which I will be penalized for. I already try to give myself a brief pause to collect my thoughts before I start answering a question, but between being nervous and then having my mind flood with ideas, I keep ending up lost mid-answer. Do you have any suggestions?

One trick to better lodge all the pieces of the question in your brain is to repeat it before you start answering. For instance: “I’ll answer the last part of that about X first, and then I’ll come back to Y.”  Or, “Sure. I’ll tell you about X first, and then explain how Y has fit into that.” Sometimes just saying it out loud can help you remember it.

But if that doesn’t work, it’s also completely fine to say, “And you had a second part to that question too — you wanted to also know….?” in a tone that says “Please prompt me; I’ve forgotten the next part of your question.”  It’s even fine to just come out and say, “And I’ve forgotten the second part of your question — can you remind me?”  This is normal, and unless you’re applying for a job that requires remembering multi-part questions without writing them down, it’s unlikely to be held against you.

Speaking of writing things down, some people find it helpful to jot notes in situations like this. You don’t want to take lengthy notes that require you to pause the conversation or break eye contact for more than a few seconds, of course, but just really quick notes to keep you focused. For instance, let’s say that your interviewer said, “Tell me about the work you did at ABC Corporation and what your biggest accomplishment was there. And what led you to leave?”  You might jot down these notes: “ABC, accomplishment, why left.” And if you feel weird about doing that, you can just say, “It’s ingrained in me to write everything down so I make sure I address everything.” In other words, you’ll convey, “I’m super organized!” not “I can’t remember anything you say.”

But really, I suspect a big part of what’s happening here is that you’re freaking yourself out by worrying that you won’t remember everything and that it will be a Horrible Disaster if you don’t, and so you panic, and panic is really effective at wiping our brains clean. So I’d also try just relaxing about it a little, and realizing that it’s completely fine to just say, “What was the second part of your question again?”

What other advice do people have?

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A reader writes:

I just had an interview today that involved a written test. The employer is a law firm and I was intertviewing for a legal assistant position. I was informed I would interview with 2 current paralegals and then take a written exam. I was given no information as to what the exam was about, only that it was timed.

The actual interview went okay (not glowing but not a total bomb at all), but I was a little intimidated once I started taking the test; it involved a lot of research I was not familiar with. I kind of had to wing it. I got to use the internet for about half of the test to do my research with. Needless to say, I did a lot of googling. I had to even google an abbreviation to make sure I knew what it was.

I didn’t finish the test, so the person interviewing me came in to let me know that my time was up. We then discussed what would happen next, I thanked her and then left… without exiting out of any of the browsers and web pages I had used! I kept some of them open in case I had enough time to go back and tweak my answers. I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if I knew where to find the information and didn’t use google so much. Did I blow it?

Well, it depends on your definition of “blowing it.”

Here’s the thing: They are testing to make sure that you have certain types of knowledge, because they’ve determined that that’s an important factor in whether you’re the right fit for the job. If you don’t do well on that test, that’s not just a sign for them not to hire you; it’s also a sign for you that this isn’t the right job for you. You don’t want a job that you’ll struggle in — and it’s reasonable to assume that if you were struggling with the test (and “winging it” counts as struggling), you’d struggle with the job.

(Caveat: I suppose that there’s a small chance that that’s not true. Some employers use badly designed tests that test knowledge of things that a good candidate could pick up in a day if given a chance. But in general, these exercises tend to be reasonable ways to assess whether a candidate has certain key skills/knowledge.)

My guess is that you’re not going to get this job — because you didn’t finish the test in the time they’d allowed, if nothing else. They’re looking for someone who can do that exercise and do it in the time they allotted. But if you’re not quite what they’re looking for (and it sounds like you probably aren’t,) it’s a good thing for both of you to find that out at this stage. The test did what it was designed to do — show both of you that this probably isn’t the right match.

In fact, assume that this exercise gave you information about the fit just as much as it did them. And you do not want to get a job if it’s not the right fit for you. You really, really do not.

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