The Job Seeker's Guide: Part 2 , The Interview

You figured out the type of business and the type of role that add value to your career.You updated your CV to reflect your professional achievements and the value you will add.Now, you have the 1^st interview coming up and you want to be prepared, and present yourself professionally but you also want to

• Assess the business further
• Understand the role better

We won’t spend time lecturing you about the basics, such as being on time, dress code, researching the company – you know all of that already.Let’s help you make this interview a two-way street, a conversation, where as much as the company is interviewing and assessing you, you are interviewing and assessing them as well – after all, you want to ensure that you will make the best possible choice for your career.

1. Prepare questions

A lot of times, candidates fail to ask probing questions during the interview stages, which can lead to misunderstanding about the type of job you will be doing, the company setup, as well as mismatched expectations.You’ll want your questions to probe further into:

• the type of job you will be doing and the tools at your disposal to do that job
• the employer’s expectation in terms of performance
• the company procedures and assessment methods
• the company’s governance and readiness for future

These can be asked at different interview stages, depending on how discussions develop.Some examples of questions to get your inquisitive mind going:

• “What is the most pressing issue that the person will need to deal with when taking the role? “
• “What are you expecting the person taking the role to achieve in their first 3 months on the job?”
• “Compared to your closest competitor, in what area is the company stronger?”
• “Compared to your closest competitor, in what area is the company weaker?”
• “How is success/ failure measured in the role?”
• What is the most challenging aspect of this role?
• What do you see as the biggest threats to your growth in the next year? / What do you see as the biggest challenges to your business in the next year?

1. Understand how the role came about

If it’s a replacement for someone, look to understand the weaknesses left behind and how the company plans to address those.If it’s a new role, look to understand the company’s assessment of the role and how it will mesh in with other departments – here, it’s important to understand the tools at your disposal to make this new role work – such as training, assistance, etc.

1. Understand how the role fits in with other departments

Rarely, if ever, jobs exist in isolation. It’s important that you get an understanding of the departments that will influence your role and how well those departments are run and the bottlenecks that they may have.

1. Understand how the role fits with your own expectations and values

For example, if flexibility is important to you, understand how that looks for the business.If career progression is important to you, understand how this role can develop within the business.This is not a size fits all approach and professional discretion and analysis must be applied based on your individual circumstances, but we hope that it will give you some ideas on how to get more information during interviews and how to assess this based on your values, needs, and aspirations.If you are looking for new opportunities, feel free to reach out to Fran Moisa at FM Search on fran@fmsearch.eu