Please tell me that this person did not just ask me that question in a job
interview.
You know you're supposed to ask questions at the end of the job interview,
but are you asking the right ones?
Stay tuned to find out what not to ask in an interview.
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I release a new video every Tuesday. A few weeks ago I had a video on TikTok,
and it went a little bit viral,
and it was talking about what questions you should ask at the end of a job
interview.
There was a lot of really interesting comments in terms of what people think
that you should ask at the end of a job interview.
And some of them are completely wrong.
Over the course of my career, I have interviewed hundreds of job candidates.
And I pretty much think that I have heard it all at this point.
While you definitely need to ask questions at the end of the job interview,
you also need to make sure that you're not asking the bad questions to ask in a
job interview. Because asking the wrong question at the end of the interview is
way worse than not asking any questions at all.
I don't want to make sure that you're not accidentally walking into one of those
land traps. That's why in today's video,
I'm going to cover five questions that you should never ask in a job interview.
If you're ready to find out what they are, click that like button,
and let's jump right into it.
And make sure that you stay tuned for the fourth one,
because it's one that I know a lot of career coaches tell people to ask,
but it's actually the worst question of them.
The first question that you should never ask in a job interview is:
when do I get paid?
Or how much am I going to get paid?
When is my first paycheck going to hit my bank account?
Anything to do with compensation and money is going to be a sensitive topic.
I am a huge fan of salary transparency throughout the job search process,
and I don't think that we should shy away from having open salary discussions by
any means. However,
when we're focusing on how much we get paid or when we get paid,
I think it's actually the connotation behind the paid thing that really rubs
people the wrong way. While no one is out there working for free.
Unless they're, you know, ladies of leisure who have the opportunity to do so.
And you know, good on them.
Most of us do have to work to earn a paycheck in order to, you know,
sustain our lives, rent, food, entertainment, all of those sorts of things.
It is obvious to everyone in the room that you are not going to be doing this
for free,
and that money is a factor in terms of why you were actually there. However,
when you phrase it in a purely transactional way,
it is making you seem like you were only there for that reason.
And maybe you are, but we have this weird social norm thing,
where we need to at least pretend that we're there for the goodness of our
hearts, and not for the paycheck. At the end of the day,
whether you were there because you just need the paycheck,
or because you love what you do and the money doesn't hurt either,
we don't want come across as being money-grubbing or anything like that.
And that's why questions like this are questions that you should avoid.
If you have had multiple conversations, multiple interviews with the company,
and you still haven't had the compensation or salary discussion,
I do think that you do need to have it before it actually gets into an offer
only to realize that you guys are worlds apart.
However you don't want to frame it in a way that is entirely about you getting
paid,
and you know grasping at money to throw it into a bank and swim around in it
like Scrooge McDuck. Now,
the second one is a question that you might laugh,
or you're going to cringe because you've asked it,
and that is what does your company do?
Where do I even get started with this one?
This one actually throws me every time that it's asked,
in every situation that it's ever been asked.
And I've interviewed a lot of people, for a lot of different roles,
at a lot of companies.
What you're actually telling the interviewer when you ask this question is that
you did no preparation whatsoever.
This is not going to help you get to the next round
of interviews and it's definitely not going to help you get a job offer,
which no matter if it is the beginning,
the end or the middle of a job interview,
it is always a bad question to ask in an interview.
If you're not sure what the company does, do the groundwork yourself
before you actually enter the interview. Check the company website,
look at their YouTube channel, go to Google news and see what's up with them.
Go look at them on Twitter.
There's all sorts of places that you can actually look to figure out a little
bit about what the company does.
You do have product questions in your certain questions,
general questions about the opportunity.
Those are ones that you can absolutely ask. But if it is any semblance of,
what does your company do because I didn't bother to look,
please don't ask that question in an interview. Whatever you do.
The third question on the what not to ask in a job interview list actually
surprises quite a few people, and that is something along the lines of,
I also noticed that this other role was open.
How can I be considered for that one? This one comes with a few caveats,
but let me put down a blanket statement before I give you the exceptions to the
rule. When you talk to the person who is hiring for an opportunity,
and tell them that you're interested in other opportunities,
even if it's other opportunities at their company,
they're going to be a little bit nervous to proceed.
Because they're not going to know if you're going to jump,
but that other opportunity, if that's the opportunity that you really want,
you're going to join their team and then just leave as soon as you can.
And it can also show that you're a little bit directionless,
especially if it's two really disparate positions.
And the thing is is that if you are actually suited for that role,
you shouldn't actually have to say anything if you were actually better suited
and they want to consider you for that job.
I can't tell you how many times when I was on the hiring side of the world
that I spoke with a candidate I really liked and I really wanted to hire,
but I knew of another opportunity at my company,
which I felt like they were a better fit for. In those cases,
I would actually refer them over to that position.
Of course after I actually spoke to them about it in the interview myself,
but they weren't the ones that were bringing it up.
You do want to put the trust into the recruiting team and the human resources
team at your hopefully soon to be employer that they're going to be able
to find the right seat for you to take. For the most part though,
when you are speaking with a hiring manager in particular,
you really want to act like that opportunity is the one and only one that you
are really interested in unless they bring up another one.
Now, as I mentioned,
there are a couple of caveats to this one that I do just want to know.
First of all,
when you're actually speaking with the recruiter during the initial phone
screen, you might actually want to bridge this subject with them,
and let them know that you also noticed another role that you thought
that you would be a very strong fit for.
And that if this opportunity wasn't the best avenue for you,
that you would be very interested in pursuing that - if they felt like you would
be a fit.
This is going to flag it for the recruiter that you do have multiple interests,
that you are very interested in their company,
which is actually a point for you.
But it also says that you're not just really trying to get to that other thing,
that you're really focused on the opportunity that you're actually currently
discussing, that they have already deemed you at least moderately qualified for.
If you're in a job interview,
if you're pursuing a job opportunity at a larger company,
there is a good chance that the recruiter that you are speaking with in that
job interview isn't necessarily aware of the other opportunity they're talking
to you to feel you out for the general fit of the company on for the role based
on what they actually know about it. Now,
if they find that you're a fit but not the greatest fit for that role,
they're going to be able to refer you to the recruiter who is actually working
on that opportunity. If they just think you're not a fit at all,
they're not going to pass you along and you're not going to waste your time.
The second caveat that I would put on this is that if the job was on the same
hiring manager's team, if they had multiple opportunities open,
I you really wanted to work for them,
and you can frame your interest in that way.
Letting them know that not only are you interested in working for their company,
but specifically working for them, and would appreciate if they considered
you for other opportunities that are currently available.
Or even available in the future.
Not only is that a really nice compliment for them,
because you really want to work for them, that means that they're a cool person,
right? But it's also going to help them potentially open their mind to other
opportunities
that you would be fit for if you're not the best fit for this specific one.
This is something that I still recommend my clients tread very lightly on.
This is generally better if you are not the successful candidate
who gets the job offer at the end of the hiring process,
and you can always do the followup then. But I know some people are just very,
very eager and if it is,
if it's authentic and if you feel like you have the rapport with the hiring
manager, it is a very narrow exception to the rule.
The fourth question you should never ask in an interview is,
is there any reason why you would not proceed and hire me?
And there's a lot of different flavors of ways of asking this.
I've seen this one touted in books, blogs, videos,
training courses, the whole shebang. And quite honestly,
this is a question that I've asked myself in interviews in the past.
The thing is unless you are a very aggressive personality type,
and you are meeting with another very aggressive personality type,
this is a conflict driven question.
It is going to make people uncomfortable because you are challenging them.
So not only are you at risk of putting the person who would be hiring you
into an uncomfortable situation,
they're also not likely to give you actual feedback at this point.
While they might tell you that they do have some level of concern over
something, it's not necessarily going to be the thing.
And while some hiring managers are making hiring decisions independently based
on conversations,
a lot are making decisions based on multiple people that they are actually
speaking with. So they're not even necessarily going to be able to tell you why
they would be hiring someone else or choosing to proceed with someone else.
So if you ask this question or the different varieties of this question at the
end of the job interview,
not only are you asking a question which is challenging the person
and putting you onto the opposite side of the table of the person who you want
to hire, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to be.
You want to be on the same side as them.
It actually has very low probability of having an upside.
You're not going to get the information that you want.
It's not going to be like what the books tell you,
where you can defend yourself.
It is just going to make for a very awkward close,
and it is potentially going to leave a very bad taste in their mouth,
which could impact your likelihood of getting the job offer.
So please do yourself and who is hopefully your future manager a huge solid,
and just don't ask this question at the end of an interview.
And that brings me to my final question in what not to ask in an interview
and that is anything about job benefits.
What's the health insurance like? What's your PTO policy?
Do you have a 401k?
I know that it seems really weird to have this on a list of questions
that you should not ask during an interview,
but there's actually a couple of reasons for that. First of all,
most companies actually advertises information on their website.
If you go to their careers page, you are going to find the basic information
surrounding things like do they have health?
You should be able to, how many days to question do they actually,
you should be able to generally all going to be there.
If you can't find it there,
you should be able to head over to a website such as Glassdoor,
which is going to have an overview of the benefits available there as well. Now,
the thing is with this question in an interview,
aside from the fact it's generally information that you can find on their
website
and you don't need the particular as yet is even in the absence of that being
information that is freely available, i.
t is still too early in the process for you to be asking these questions.
Things like, what's your work from home policy? How much vacation do I get?
What's your 401k like? The reason why these are bad questions at the
end of the interview is they aren't actually respecting the phase of
consideration.
Where are you actually are in the hiring process?
Both of you when you are in an interview setting are still in the phase
where you're trying to decide if you're right for each other.
There are trying to decide if you are the best person to bring onboard
to their team and you are trying to decide if it's the right company,
the right team, the right role and the right manager for you.
Don't burn questions and time on things like this that actually
aren't relevant for you to determining those things. That said,
I know that these things are often factors in terms of
if you actually want to proceed and they really should be part of your interview
preparation, which is actually going to be my next video,
so if you haven't already,
click the subscription button because I know you're not going to want to miss it
anyways.
That's the point. You're actually going to want to explore these questions in
intricate details once you actually get to the job offer stage,
and that is where these things start to become very relevant and they
become levers in your salary negotiations,
but the thing is you're not going to get there when you ask questions
like that at the end of the interview because they're not going to be sold
on you and let's face it, you're not going to be super sold on them.
Now that you know what five questions not to ask at the end of a job interview,
I want you to figure out the questions that you should be asking.
Head over to this video right here. As always, if this is helpful,
give this video a thumbs up.
Let me know what questions you are not going to be asking in a job interview
below. And I'll see you next time. Bye for now. {BLOOPERS}