Page 66 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

CHAPTER 4

DO YOUR HOMEWORK

KNOW BEFORE YOU ASK

As you go into an interview, assume that the interviewers know a
lot about you. After all, they have your résumé. They have your ref-
erences and may have checked them. They have probably Googled
your name and checked out your presence on Facebook and other
social networking sites. (It’s critical, then, to be careful about what
you post online, but that’s another subject.)

My point is that you have to be even more informed. You can’t go
into an interview cold and expect to come out looking good. And if
you use your opportunity to ask questions the answers to which are
a Web search away, interviewers will conclude that you are lazy. And
they will be right.

Many interviewers send out information about their organizations
to candidates. I know one interviewer at a large design company in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, who always starts the job interview process
with a telephone conversation. The first question is always:
What do you know about us? Have you reviewed the packet I sent, or
have you poked around on our website?
If the candidate hedges, the interviewer ends the process. At this
point, the interviewer’s goal is to weed out candidates. The applicant
has failed the first test.

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