Page 133 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

I N TERV IEW THE I N TERV IEW ER

SIX BEST QUESTIONS FOR COMPANY FOUNDERS
AND OWNERS

If your interview is with the founder or owner of the company, espe-
cially if your position proposes to take on activities currently han-
dled by the founder or owner, you have a special challenge.

All the other questions in this book are fair game and will give
you good information. But the main challenge of working with a
company founder or owner is not in getting the job offer but in suc-
ceeding at the job. If it doesn’t work out, often it won’t be because
of performance but because of the inability of the company founder
or owner to let go of the reins. Thus, the questions you ask in this
circumstance need to give you sharp information about fit.

Business history shows that few company founders have the skills
to manage the company when it gets past a certain size. Few such
managers, however, acknowledge this reality. One of your main goals
in the interview, then, is to try to determine how you will be able to
work with this individual and, by extension, his or her heirs, all of
whom have a stake in the business. To satisfy yourself of the viability
of the situation, you are entitled to a much greater degree of latitude.

Company founders and owners have tremendous pride in the suc-
cess of the organizations they built. They will generally resist shar-
ing their organizations with anyone else. The big issue, then, is how
willingly the company founder or owner is prepared to adjust the
company’s balance of power and, perhaps, ownership. The ques-
tions that follow are designed to give you a clue about how flexible
the company founder or owner might be. The questions assume the
candidate is interviewing for a senior executive position, perhaps the
COO to the founder’s CEO. Use these wordings as the basis for cus-
tomizing questions to your unique situation.

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What are the success factors that will tell you that the decision to bring
me on board was the right one?
This question starts the conversation off on the success factors that
you will bring to the organization.

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