‘is This A New Position If Not Why Did The Person Before Me Leave This Role’
This might be uncomfortable to ask, but Harrison said it’s not uncommon to ask and that it shows you are being smart and analytical by wanting to know why someone may have been unhappy in this role previously.
If you found out they left the role because they were promoted, that’s also useful information.
“It’s helpful to know if the last person quit, if the business is growing, or if there’s some other driver at play,” Angela Copeland, career coach at Copeland Coaching, told Business Insider.
Questions To Ask Interviewers At The Start Of The Interview
At the start of the interview, understanding the people who are interviewing you will help you provide answers appropriate to the persons role in your work life. You will also become a bit more comfortable talking with the interviewer, hopefully turning the interview into a discussion rather than a series of questions and answers.
What Is Culture Fit
Culture fit is the alignment of a companys core values and culture with its employees. Often, its easiest to know what culture fit is when there isnt one, like someone who prefers silent concentration joining a company with a shared playlist playing across the office or an extreme extrovert stuck in a silent cubicle all day.
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What Role Does A Good Manager Play In His Or Her Relationship With Reporting Staff Members
When you asked about company values, was transparency on your wish list? What about collaboration? Or trust? Another way to check if the company is living its values is to see how managers interact with supporting staff members. Make sure to be mentally checking if the answer tracks with the stated cultural values.
Questions To Ask During An Interview: Determining Culture Fit
Sometimes a job interview can feel like an audition. Rapid-fire: What are your strengths? Why do you want to work here? Can you tell me about a difficult situation? But for the best jobs out there, the interview process should be a conversation, not an interrogation.
When looking for a new job, you should be just as concerned about if the job is a good fit for you as you are about if you are a good fit for the job. Some things can be easily discovered, like daily job duties or expectations, but some aspects of finding the right fit can be much harder. A major part of job satisfaction can be attributed to a companys culture and whether or not an employee is aligned with the company values.
When you reach the end of an interview and they start asking for your questions, its essential to ask key questions to determine your culture fit at an organization.
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Do You Prefer Working Independently Or On A Team
Your answer should be informed by the research youve done on the company culture and the job in question. Nevertheless, you should expect that most work environments will have some team aspect.
Many positions require you to work collaboratively with other people on a daily basis, while some roles require you to work on your own. When you answer this question, highlight the best traits of your personality and how they fit the job requirements. It could also be in your interest to answer this question by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of both situations.
Example: I enjoy a blend of the two. I like having a team to strategize with, get diverse opinions from, and reach out to for feedback. But I am also comfortable taking on assignments that require me to work independently. I find I do some of my best work when I can focus alone in a quiet space, but I really value collaborating with my teammates to come up with the best ideas.
Questions You Should Not Ask In A Job Interview
Ok, now that you have some surefire questions you can ask that will impress hiring manager lets go over the types of questions you should avoid asking. As youll see, these questions reflect poorly on you and paint you as a less than ideal candidate
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What Are The Performance Expectations For This Position Will That Expectation Change The Longer I Am Doing The Job
This is a two part questionbut knowledge is power and the more you have, the better off you are! You want to make sure you and your employer establish early on what they expect from you performance wise and not just for the immediate future. If this is a job you plan on sticking with for a period of time, make sure early on that you know what they want you to do and if that will change over time.
Questions To Ask About The Company
In addition to those questions about the specific job, you can leverage the research youve done beforehand to ask questions that showcase your interest in the company and industry. Here are some examples:
Question 13: What do you like best about working here?
This question can be a casual way to engage your interviewer on a personal level while gaining valuable insights into their experience with the company. If appropriate, be sure to respond to their answer with examples of why you believe this type of environment is a great fit for your personality and working style.
Question 14: Who do you see as your biggest competitor and why?
This question can show that you have an interest in the bigger picture of the company and industry. It can also be an opportunity for you to share that you did research on the company by following up the interviewer’s response with what you found when you looked into this before the interview.
Question 15: What challenges has this company faced in the last few years? What challenges do you anticipate in the coming years?
This is a great question if youre interviewing with managers or senior leadership. It shows your interest in the performance of the company and can give you insight into the pain points they experience. If applicable, you can follow up their response by any experience you bring to the table that can help with these pain points/challenges.
Question 16: What changes or innovations in the industry are you most excited about?
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Why Is Culture Fit Important In The Workplace
Culture fit plays a big role in employee satisfaction and an important role in job seeking. A 2018 survey by Jobvite found that 88% of respondents reported company culture as at least of relative importance in applying to a company, with 46% saying it is very important and 32% saying they would be willing to take a pay cut for a job they are more passionate about.
For employees who are already employed, a Columbia University study shows that the likelihood of job turnover at an organization with a strong company culture is 13.9%, whereas the probability of job turnover at businesses with weak company cultures is 48.4%. The Department of Economics at the University of Warwick found that happy workers are 12% more productive than the average worker, and unhappy workers are 10% less productive.
There are, however, some critics of the current focus on culture fit in hiring. Patty McCord, Netflixs chief talent officer from 1998 to 2012, wrote in the Harvard Business Review that culture fit is just code for liking someone socially. McCord went on to say the focus on culture fit in hiring can lead to a lack of diversity in the workplace. She writes that hiring should be about finding the right people for jobs, not social environments.
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What Are The Common Reasons People Leave This Position/company
Asking this question gives you insight into what the companys greatest weaknesses might be. If the last person to have the job youre interviewing for left for a more senior position at another company, there might be limited room for growth at the company youre interviewing for. If the interviewer alludes to the companys culture not being for everyone that can mean that its maybe incredibly fast-paced and less personaleven cutthroat. The interviewers ability to give you these answers also means the team has paid attention to why people are leaving and is at least aware of the reasons behind prior employees departure. If the interviewer cant fully answer these questions, it might be a sign of not taking exit interviews or feedback to heart.
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Questions To Ask About The Culture
This is a great opportunity for you to learn if the company culture is in alignment with the type of culture youre seeking. You might consider researching the type of company culture youre most interested in beforehand.
Question 22: How would you describe the company culture?
This is a great, straightforward question to hear about how the interviewer would describe the companys culture. Interviewers will often speak to what they like most about the culture, so its great to ask this question to multiple people throughout the interview process to get a holistic view of the culture.
Question 23: I came across an interview with your CEO where she touched on several aspects of the company culture. What elements of the culture here do you like best?
Asking about company culture this way shows how youve researched the company and its executives. Its a great way to display a genuine interest in the company and position. This question also shows that you care to understand whether the culture will be a good fit for you and whether you’ll be a good fit for the company.
Question 24: What are the most important values of your company?
Companies often have missions or values that drive the decisions, attitudes and goals of the company. Knowing and understanding these values can give you great insight into the type of culture thats set.
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Question 25: What are examples of company events?
What Are Your Weaknesses
“What are your weaknesses” is one of the most popular questions interviewers ask. It is also the most dreaded question of all. Handle it by minimizing your weakness and emphasizing your strengths. Stay away from personal qualities and concentrate on professional traits: “I am always working on improving my communication skills to be a more effective presenter. I recently joined Toastmasters, which I find very helpful.”
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Ask About Your Day To Day Responsibility For The Job
This might be the most common yet important question that you can ask during the interview. The question will make the interviewer believe that you are looking forward to the job and also serious about the responsibilities. On the bright side, you will get the crucial information about what will be your role at the job and what you can expect from the company.
Could You Tell Me About Yourself And Describe Your Background In Brief
Interviewers like to hear stories about candidates. Make sure your story has a great beginning, a riveting middle, and an end that makes the interviewer root for you to win the job.
Talk about a relevant incident that made you keen on the profession you are pursuing and follow up by discussing your education. In the story, weave together how your academic training and your passion for the subject or industry the company specializes in, combined with your work experience, make you a great fit for the job. If youve managed a complex project or worked on an exciting, offbeat design, mention it.
Example: I come from a small town, where opportunities were limited. Since good schools were a rarity, I started using online learning to stay up to date with the best. Thats where I learned to code and then I went on to get my certification as a computer programmer. After I got my first job as a front-end coder, I continued to invest time in mastering both front- and back-end languages, tools, and frameworks.
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Here Are 25 Interview Questions You Can Consider Asking:
‘where Do You See Yourself In Five Years’
Becca Brown, the cofounder of the women’s shoe-care company Solemates, interviewed 20 to 30 job candidates a year in her various roles at Goldman Sachs. She previously told Business Insider she wished candidates would have asked her this question.
“I like this question, and yet no one ever asked it because it’s difficult to answer,” she said. “It’s an important question for anyone to be asking him or herself, and so if ever a candidate were to ask this question, it would have stood out.”
She continued: “I think this is a good question for interviewees to ask because as a candidate if you see where the person interviewing you is headed, you can decide if that trajectory is in line with your career objectives. While they don’t have to be completely correlated, it’s helpful for the candidate to have some indication of the interviewer’s direction.”
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What Does Growth And Career Development Look Like
If youre the type of employee who wants to grow with your role, youre likely interested in companies that invest in that growth. While many people can be happy excelling in the role they are in, if youre focused on upward mobility you may want an office culture that invests in training, conferences or enrichment opportunities. Theres nothing less motivating than a job that has no opportunities for growth, so pay special attention to the interviewers answer.
Questions To Ask When The Interview Is Being Set Up
Usually the first person you speak with is the recruiter or a member of the Human Resources staff. In some typically small organizations, the hiring manager will be the first person who interviews you.
The best question to ask is Who will be interviewing me, and how does your hiring process work?
Ask for the names and job titles of the people who are interviewing you so that you can do some research about them before the interview. Hopefully they will have LinkedIn Profiles you can review to see if you find any common ground among them or with you to help you understand more about the organization.
Research the interviewers to help you find ways to build rapport with the interviewers during the interview same school or degree, same professional organization, etc.
Dont be surprised if the first interview is a remote interview. The first interview in many organizations is often a phone interview, a Video interview, or a one-way video interview.
During this initial screening interview, employers ask questions to determine if you are a qualified candidate who should be invited to a face-to-face interview. You may not have an opportunity to ask many questions, but do have questions ready to demonstrate your interest in the organization and the job.
Regardless of who that first person is, ask these questions of both the HR/recruiting staff member and the hiring manager to learn important details about the job and to compare the facts presented.
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