Hey guys, Jennifer Tardy here and you are on the career success channel, and today we're
talking about how you can make an impression at your interview.
Four questions that you can instantly ask that will knock your interviewers socks off,
and make sure that you stay until the very end of this video because as always, my favorite
segment, the career success bonus tip for UP's so you don't want to miss that.
Stay tuned.
Now, before we dive into the questions, the four amazing questions, I need to set the
tone because there are a few things that you need to know upfront.
Number one, always ask questions.
If this video was a shock to you that I'm even suggesting that you ask questions, then
you really need to know this.
You deserve to be at that interview.
You are interviewing the organization just as much as they are interviewing you, and
so asking questions is a part of you also getting to know the organization.
Second, make sure that you're asking these questions to the person that you're likely
to report too.
These questions are very good for them, but make sure that that person is also a decision
maker too, because if you're reporting to someone who's not the decision maker, you
need to ask these questions to the decision maker instead.
Number three, when you ask these questions, use it as an opportunity to number one, listen
to their answer, but number two, follow up and show how you align to that answer, and
so you'll see what I'm talking about in a second, but just keep that in mind.
Always follow up with how you align to that answer.
Number four, don't worry about writing these questions down.
You don't need to write them down because I already have something in the detail section
for you.
Just click on that link and you can also see the questions there as well.
Okay?
Knock your socks off.
Question number one, what are three challenges that you presently face that you would want
someone to come into this position and fix immediately?
That is an excellent question because now you want to get to the heart of what is on
your interviewer's mind, and it's typically the challenges and every role in every department
has challenges.
So by you finding it out, now you can kind of frame your answers to future questions
around this challenge, around what you know is on your interviewer's mind.
Now, in addition to that, when that interviewer tells you what those challenges are, if you
have solved a problem like that in your past experience, you need to tell the interviewer.
That's what I meant earlier when I said, hey, you need to talk about how you align to those
questions.
So if you've solved that same challenge before, great, but you got to vocalize it.
Okay?
Knock your socks off, how to make an impression, question number two.
What are your top three priorities or initiatives this year?
Excellent question, right?
So the earlier question is, you're trying to understand what is urgent to them.
This question right here is understanding what their goals are this year, what their
priorities are for the department.
So by understanding what the priorities are, you're able to get a sense of if it aligns
to what you even want to do it, which is really, really important.
You want to make sure that you want to do, and meet some of those goals that they have
within that department.
Now, in addition to that, if you have ever completed initiatives or priorities like what
the interviewer is describing, you need to tell them, okay, you need to be able to tell
them, to articulate, "Well yes, I've been a part of a project team before that's completed
one of those same initiatives before and I have some best practices that I would love
to be able to share here."
That would be excellent because every manager wants to know that you can take the work off
of their plate quickly.
Okay.
Quick pause.
So while you are in this interview, you need to be able to show that you are engaged.
Do you know what engagement looks like?
Now, if you don't know what it looks like to be engaged during the interview, I have
a video for that.
I created a video just for you, just so you know how to do that.
I wanted to drop that into here so you know, check it out because that is a huge piece
to why people do and do not get job opportunities.
Question number three, and this is actually the question specifically for you.
What is one area of your department's reputation that you love and what is one area that you
would change immediately about this department's reputation?
This is a really good question because it gives you some insight on how others perceive
this department, and it gives the interviewer a chance to tell you what some of the issues
are in the department that has created the negative part of the reputation, the part
that they would change.
So it just gives you some insight that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise from the person
who's leading this group.
And because you're catching them off guard odds are they're going to be pretty straightforward
and honest with you.
So let me ask you a question.
What is one question that in retrospect, you wish you would have asked before you took
this current job that you're working in right now?
Tell me in the comment section below.
All right, question number four is what I consider a courageous question because so
few people will ever ask this question even if they know it, but it's one of the best
questions you could ever ask an interviewer.
Is there anything that I've said, or have not said that would prevent you from feeling
100% confident that I'm the person for this position?
Do you see how powerful that question is?
That is a very powerful question because what you're doing is you're asking this question,
and this is typically what you asked at the very end of an interview.
It doesn't give them a huge opportunity to be able to think about how to filter their
answer.
So they'll just come out and tell you, because most interviewers will say, if you're brave
enough to ask me a question like that, I'm just going to tell you upfront, and when they
tell you the answer, you have to be prepared to hear it.
Let me give you an example.
I interviewed for a position once and I asked this question at the very end, and it was
my first time trying to get into a director level position and the manager said, or the
VP said, "Well I thought you had more management experience, or a longer amount of management
experience."
He said, "I'm not saying that that's going to affect anything, but I just thought that
you had a longer tenure of management experience."
I came back to him and I shared with him things that I had been doing outside of the organizations
that I've worked in my path that are listed on my resume.
I've actually created an organization of women, and I had a lot of members, so I had to wear
a lot of leadership hats within the organization.
I did that for several years, so that was a great way of closing his concern gap, and
that's what you want to do also.
You want to ask this courageous question, listen intently to the answer, don't try to
justify it, don't try to fight it, and say you didn't hear that wrong, you heard that
... You can clarify and that's all I did was clarify.
And by closing that person's concern, I was able to get that job offer, and I want you
to be able to get the job offer as well too.
So let's get ahead of this for a second because I know that you all are super proactive and
you're already wondering, what if you don't hear back immediately from the interview?
Do not be alarmed.
There are so many reasons why you probably haven't heard back on the interview yet, and
guess what?
I have a video about it and I want you to check out the video, and it's three reasons
why you probably haven't heard back from the interview.
I actually want you to watch it before you go in to interview so that you can relax after
the interview is over.
So when you get a second check out that video.
So as promised, I certainly want to share with you our career success tip for UP's,
and in this one I want to tell you, do not be afraid to ask diversity specific questions.
So being able to ask questions like, what is the diversity of your executive team, or
board of directors, or how does the company promote inclusion here?
Or even asking questions about what diversity and inclusion programs are in place overall?
But you also should have prepared for this by doing some research beforehand.
So if you're doing research, and you're trying to look for proof of diversity within an organization,
check out last week's video.
I'm going to put it right here for you.
So it's the interview preparation checklist.
But within there I talk about how you can look for proof of diversity, or proof of support
of diversity and inclusion within the organization.
So check that out.
So listen, so now you know exactly how to make an impression during an interview because
I've given you four extremely good questions to ask, and a bonus question too, but I bet
you didn't know that I have more questions.
So I want to give them to you, I want to share with you more great questions that you can
ask.
I've already given you five of them.
I'm adding five more, and I have a downloadable pdf guide for you for free.
It gives you 10 questions all together of things that you can ask to your interviewer
that will knock their socks off.
So make sure you go into the detail section and you pick up your copy overall okay.
Now which interview question knocked your socks off?
Tell me in the comment section, I'm very, very curious.
If this video was helpful to you, be sure to subscribe, be sure to click the bell because
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video.
Take care.
Bye.