Hi guys! It's Caroline career coach and mentor. And today I wanted to share with you the best
questions to ask a CEO in a job interview. Now when I was doing some research
on this topic to see what's out there I found a lot of really good questions
But unfortunately, they were all like one silence. And so, I thought like oh my
god these are good questions but not really questions that really touch on the essence
why actually ask questions in the first place. So, questions that I came across was what's
the biggest challenge in your industry or for your company. Other questions we're like
questions like what the board’s voice expectations are and so on. Now there is nothing wrong
with those type of questions. The problem is that they give you information that you
can't really make a decision on whether the company is a great fit for you or not. Now
if you actually see in an organization a lot of reasons why people leave is because they
don't believe in the leadership or the direction of the company and they don't really fix the
organization. So, the point is that I believe and that's what I teach my clients let's go
through the career success program is that you need to ask questions that give you information
that enable you to make a decision whether that company is fit or not a fit for you.
So, and that is what's missing. So, I was going through all the questions on the internet
and I was like oh my god this is so important that people ask the questions not to just
receive information. That's like oh yeah that's nice real information that they can use make
a decision, an important decision. Because it will impact a couple of years of your working
life with that organization. So those questions that I mentioned earlier like what's the biggest
challenge but supports expectations there might be questions that we miss are the CEO.
And that really you want to highlight that you're the right candidate but it's not really
enabling you to make that fundamental decision whether or not there is a fit.
So, I'm going to give you an expert an example on the type of question that I want you to
think about. And I will give you an exercise so you can go away and make your three questions
that you can ask to CEO, the other senior manager to actually be able to decide if the
organization is aligned with you and if you're going to fit or not. Because before I go into
the example the problem is that in an interview you have a lot of BS. And it's very difficult
to really pull back the curtains and to really understand what's going on behind it. So,
for example if you ask anybody what's your management style? People will say like oh
it's collaborative. It's very resulting unit and the person that I hire just needs to deliver
the results that they say they're going to do and then I'm happy. But the reality is
that we all know a bunch of micro managers that actually stand behind and read down you
Nick to actually get the results they want. So, and you don't want to work in such a new
market. So, I'm going to give you an example of a question that we came up with my client,
came up weighs around what he does use in the workplace. So, he came from an organization
that wasn’t really receptive to ideas that were brought to the table by senior leadership
teams. So, employees in general said CEO and really, I will not believe going on about
decisions that were being made which is often the case nothing wrong with it. But he wants
now organization that really understands the value he can create and gives him the autonomy
and accountability to actually bring an idea to life. So, the question that he is now going
to ask is like okay give me an example where one of the employees in the organization came
up with an idea and just was able to implement and execute it because basically it was a
good idea. By asking a question like that to do a couple of things. You don't ask for
a specific in your team and you put it in order to have employees and company because
then in that way you can get a feel of the type of organization that they really are.
And secondly you get information that you're able to use to make a well-informed decision
on based on what they say. Now there is one remark I want to make it's not because the
answer is not what you want to hear that you have to reject an opportunity because it can
still be amazing opportunity. But what I teach my clients to do is to ask questions that
gives them the information that enables them to make a decision so that they are aware
of what they're stepping into. Because in the 12 years’ experience that I have as
a recruiter and HR professional and the biggest thing that I saw was people would sign a contract
and because oh my god this is the best opportunity ever. And it's a great company. Don't need
to find out three months that it just absolutely bullshits that they're stepping into you.
And they actually were promised certain things that didn't come true or it wasn't really
aligned or didn't fit at all. So, I want to give them tools to actually come up and protect
themselves against that. So, if you actually ever wearing is quite a similar situation
and you want to have a toolkit that you can implement what I want you to do as an exercise
is list three things that are important to you. And that could be innovation, agility
and flexibility and that could be compensation that could be how people value whatever it
is write three things down. And then formulate questions that you think like okay they have
to really think about coming up with an answer. Because here's the thing when people really
have to think about the answer that they're going to give because it's not a book standard
question that you ask then actually the honesty comes really through. Because if it's a book
standard question like for example what's your management self or what are your expectations?
Then people actually give you just BS. So, this is my exercise for you. If you have
any questions or if you want to work with me and I will properly below. So, you can
actually schedule a time to talk because if you're a senior manager or an executive that
actually is looking to step up and take the next step then it's really important to get
all the elements that make up that successful career right. Because basically it's very
important move that you're going to make and I'm here to help and support you. So, top
the link below so you can reach out and schedule a time for us to talk. Perfect! It was lovely
talking to you today again guys. Even going to one side it but I hope this helped and
opens your mind a little bit because that is what I intend to do. Thank you so much
and speak to you soon.