Page 64 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

WHEN TO QUESTION

hiring him,” the recruiter adds. In short, Charles needed a bid-for-
action question, as described in Chapter 12.

AT THE END

This is the typical point at which you’ll be invited to ask any ques-
tions you may have. The interviewer will lean back and turn the
interview over to you. It may seem like the interview is coming to an
end. It’s not. Interviewers are unanimous on this: they really expect
you to ask intelligent questions.

Don’t assume you know when the interview is over. The safest bet
is to apply this rule: the interview is not over until you no longer have
an interest in the job. Until then, the clock is ticking.

From the Field

Sometimes It’s Best to Hold the Questions

One of the lessons of this book is not to wait until the end of
the interview to ask your questions. By then there may not
be enough time to get full benefit from the great questions
you’ve prepared. But sometimes it does make sense to wait.
Jason Warner, a senior recruiter at Google, recounted this
experience in the Brazen Careerist blog. Heed the lesson of
how a seasoned recruiter interviews for a recruiting job. The
magic here is that Warner waits to ask his questions until
after an interest in hiring him has been established.

When I interviewed with Google recently, I recognized
that the process with each person was going to be short
(short interview time slots) so I realized that it wouldn’t
be fruitful to burn time that they could use to evalu-
ate me as a candidate with what are generally cursory
questions from me (as the candidate at the beginning of
the process). Instead, my response was, “I have a lot of
questions, but I want to respect your process to evalu-
ate me, and I’m comfortable waiting until a suitable time

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