Page 80 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

DO YOU MIND IF I TAKE NOTES?

tions. Then, if the interviewer surprises you with “Do you have any
questions at this point?” you will be ready to go without fumbling.

Finally, if you are still not sure whether going into an interview
with a notebook is an advantage or not, consider this comment from
John Hawke, CEO of Howe Barnes Investments, a Chicago broker-
age company specializing in community and regional banks. Here
he is discussing motivation: “When you want people to move to the
next level of performance, go to them with a notebook in hand. Get
them to step outside themselves.”

There’s that comment: “Go to them with a notebook in hand.” If
you go with empty hands, it indicates that you don’t expect to hear
anything worth saving, that you’ve gone into the meeting with your
mind made up, rather than to work together to arrive at a decision.
Maybe I’m making too much of it, but I believe that going into any
group process with a notebook in hand signals that you respect the
contributions of the other members in the process and are ready to
attend to what they say with your whole being. As Dale Dauten,
a syndicated business columnist based in Phoenix, Arizona, who
writes under the title “Corporate Curmudgeon,” visualizes: “Empty
hands, closed minds.”

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