Advice Column #8: Reverse Job Interviews
🚩 What should I look for when looking for a job? What can I compromise on, and what's a dealbreaker?
Dear Bizlet: I got laid off from my job, but honestly I’m relieved. I liked the company, but my boss was a nightmare. He was impossible to work with, and didn’t set our team up to succeed. How do I avoid making the same mistake again? What do I look for when I’m looking for a new job? —Clark
Condolences on your job loss, Clark. Or else congratulations!
Both are appropriate. After many years and many coaching clients, I’ve found a silver lining in every firing.
For most people, most of your career growth will occur when changing jobs. That’s true whether the change was voluntary or not.
The reality, though, is that most people feel some pressure to find a new job fast after they’ve been laid off. When you’re in a hurry, there’s a tendency to see a prospective employer through rose-colored glasses.
You may not have the luxury of choosing among employers to find the Goldilocks fit for you. There’s nothing to stop you from going into your search with your eyes and ears wide open for the things that matter.
Here’s how to be aware of the signals that tell you about the opportunities and pitfalls of the situation you’re getting into.
Do Your Research
Start by making a prioritized list of companies that you most want to work for. One of my top job search tips is to be among the first applicants when a new job opening is posted. Having a list of your dream employers makes it manageable to stay on top of your search.
That targeted list of companies also tells you who you should silently and shamelessly stalk on social media.
Start following the executives, management, and your future co-workers. You won’t discover if the people are truly good or evil deep inside their hearts. On the other hand, focusing your social media attention on the people you want to work with is a great way to think about networking.
So follow them, read, like, and comment on their posts. You don’t need a reason. It’s not necessarily transactional. If you can get over the idea that it’s not an everyday habit, you’ll realize that this is exactly what LinkedIn is for!
Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of “networking.” It’s easy to think it means something worse than what you’re already doing on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Over the years, I’ve hired several people who turned up in my LinkedIn comments or feed for one reason or another.
My friends, everything you do on a social network is network-ing. The “ing” just makes it an action verb. It means that you’re doing it for a reason. Got it? Great. Now get to work.
Even if you don’t network your way into a new job, you’re making connections. I also connect with people on LinkedIn all the time who I don’t interview or hire. But now we’re connected. I follow them, and they follow me. We’re part of each others’ networks. We’re both building networks that we can use in the future.
Reverse Interviewing
The real work of researching a prospective employer begins when the interview process starts. I call this “reverse interviewing” and it starts when the first interviewer asks “So, do you have any questions for us?”
Why yes! Yes I do.
This is your opportunity to learn about the company and the people who work there. I advise you to tread carefully, though. It might not be the best idea to roll out deep, piercing, skeptical questions early in the process.
Here’s why. You have one mission in your first few interviews, and that’s to make it to the next interview. Most candidates are rejected early in the screening process not because of anything they didn’t do right, but because of something they did wrong.
Your job #1 is to make no mistakes. Asking tough questions of the interviewer at the early stages isn’t the safest approach to that.
Ideally, an enlightened interviewer perceives you as inquisitive, thoughtful, and thorough. When I’ve been asked tough questions early in the process, it has sometimes come across as over-confident or premature. Avoid that by sticking to relative softballs, at least until you’re feeling confident that you’re moving towards an offer.
Here are some questions likely to start interesting conversations and unlikely to leave an awkward impression:
What would you say are the most difficult or challenging aspects of this role?
Tell me about someone who has been super successful at the company. What is it about them that helped them succeed?
What are some of the things you think the company does as good or better than anybody else?
About Us
Scrutinize a prospective employer’s “About Us” or “Our Management” page. Read the backgrounds and biographies of the management team. Stalk them on social media. Do the same for all of the people you’re meeting with. As you advance in the process, interviewers will mention the names of the people you’ll be working with. Write them down.
Google all of these people as if they were about to go on a date with your younger sibling. Read what they’ve posted on LinkedIn, check out their personal web sites, find their side hustle Etsy store. See what else their public presence says about them.
Does this sound creepy? Not to any parent who has ever hired a babysitter. There’s no creepy when safety is at stake. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with these people. They could be a huge part of your life for the foreseeable future.
Here are a few things I look for when I’m researching a company:
The average tenure of the management and staff. A stable and healthy team should a mix of tenure. Lots of people with long tenure in their current role indicates promotions may be hard to come by. A team where everyone is new could be a great opportunity, or it could signal instability.
Evaluate their progress on diversity. I want to work in a company that looks like the world I want to live in. That world is not all-white and all-male like a lot of “About Our Management” pages. A 10-person management team with one non-white person and one woman gets a failing grade from me.
Are the leader’s posts written in a steady stream of robotic, self-congratulatory, stilted marketing-speak? Authentic, person-to-person engagement from people at the VP level and up is a green flag. Some people avoid social media altogether, and that’s a valid (wise?) choice. I’ve noticed that I can learn a lot about leaders from the endorsements they write for other people. (View profile → Scroll down to Recommendations → Given)
Reverse Behavioral Questions
Behavioral questions are what we call them when they’re in the style of “Tell me about a time you overcame adversity to achieve success.” They’re used to focus on concrete past experiences, rather than fungible opinions or beliefs.
Put this same idea to work for you. Instead of asking about values or the nature of a role, ask about historical facts. These may be more likely to reveal what you need to know about your future co-workers.
Once you’ve cleared the early interview rounds, you can start asking more interesting questions.
Here are a few suggestions:
“What does this company do best. What is it not so great at?” This is a sneaky behavioral question for somebody in a leadership role at a company. An emotionally intelligent person will give an easy, sincere, humble answer. Some people will panic at the prospect of saying something negative about themselves. You can learn something interesting about the employer this way, and also about the person you’re talking to.
“Can you tell me about the person who was previously in this role?” Ask about their strengths and weaknesses, and what they did successfully or where they fell short. Learn how the person you’re talking to perceives the job and how they relate to co-workers.
“What’s the worst mistake you’ve made recently?” I love this question. A good leader is self-aware, which calls for some vulnerability. A solid response includes the candid admission of a specific error. An answer that identifies the impact a mistake had on other people shows the interviewer’s empathy. Be wary of an answer that describes an “error” that had only the effect of temporarily slowing their own accumulation of wealth.
Reference Checks
The science shows your relationship with a manager will likely have a greater impact on your mental health than your therapist — perhaps equal in weight to your partner or spouse. What else can you do to learn about this person who will hold your quivering psyche in their withered, gnarled hands.
You’d think people would be reluctant to openly describe the shortcomings of their co-workers in a job interview. Some interviewers are only too happy to finally be asked for their opinion on a topic that’s so vital to their own happiness!
I’ve found that if you ask direct questions politely, you’re likely to get the information you need. The harder part is being ready to hear what your future co-workers have to say about your next boss.
Here are some ways to gain more information about a potential manager:
Ask questions that address management behaviors that are most important to you. If your 1:1s were a consistent source of disappointment in your last role, ask about them. Ask a manager to describe their own management style on a spectrum from “very hands on” to “strategic vision.” Ask other people to describe the manager’s style that same way. This can help you discover a micromanager before it’s too late.
Ask the other people you meet questions about your potential future manager. Say “Could you tell me about some of your experiences working with Marina?" or “If you could change one thing about how things work on Yelena’s team, what would it be?”
Check your network for people who may have worked with your new team. Send them a DM saying “Hi there, I see you used to work with Yolanda. I’m considering taking a position on her team. Could you share a few words about your experience working with them?” If you get no responses at all, it’s not necessarily conclusive evidence of anything. But you might learn something interesting.
Compromises and Deal-Breakers
Not everything you’ll learn about a future employer is going to be positive. Every company, like every person, has flaws, foibles, and failings. You’ll find some horns on your future co-workers, and you’ll find some halos.
Many are searching for jobs under some kind of duress. Sometimes it’s more important to focus on getting out of the current situation than it is to perfect the next one.
That’s life on the rebound, Clark. One choice you can make is to go into the world knowing your purpose.
Here’s how to do that. Even before you make your list of companies, make a list of criteria that are most important to you. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Managers who don’t hate their teams, each other, or themselves
Evidence of a real customer-focus process, not just slogans
Diverse representation in the management team
No sports metaphors in the job description
A company not actively working against the shared interests of humanity
Generate a list of about ten of these criteria. Now rank them in order of importance. The stuff at the top of the list, you should try not to compromise on. Further down the list are the “nice to haves.”
Can you have all of these things? Maybe, maybe not. What you can have is a sense of intention and purpose, now that you’ve made your job search into something that you’re a bit more in control of.
You’ve also built a list of topics to build questions around when the “What questions do you have for us?” question comes up.
In our lives and in our careers, we get to make some decisions, and some decisions make us. There is another silver lining the comes with loss of your job.
It’s the opportunity to take stock of what’s most important, and a chance to make choices that align with those priorities.
So congratulations, Clark! And condolences, and good luck.
