Page 116 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

QUESTIONS FOR HIRING MANAGERS

that your experience can help optimize the opportunities and deflect
these threats. Notice that you didn’t ask the interviewer to name a
superlative (the greatest opportunity). Don’t ask the interviewer to
work that hard.

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How important is creativity to you, and how do you identify it and
reward it?
The first part of the question is a gimme. Who’s going to say that
creativity is not important? The real question is how do interviewers
know it when they see it and how, specifically, do they incentivize it?
The question is your opportunity to talk about how you can put your
creativity to demonstrable benefit.

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Collaboration is important to me. What processes do you have in place
to promote cross-team teamwork?
This is a powerful question that communicates your commitment
to teamwork. Be prepared to be asked about what processes you
recommend.

8-30
What are some of the problems that keep you up at night?
This is another way to uncover the employer’s hot buttons, subtly
suggesting that hiring you will bring immediate relief to the inter-
viewer’s insomnia.

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What would be a surprising but positive thing the new person could do
in the first ninety days?
The wording here is designed to reveal the interviewer’s wish list for
what the new hire can offer.

8-32
How does upper management perceive this part of the organization?
The response to this question will give the job seeker a feel for how
valuable the department is to upper management, because if and
when the organization goes through a financial crisis, you want to
know that your department will not be the first department cut.

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