Questions to bring to an interview

When you ask questions during an interview, you should have two goals in mind: To determine if the role is right for you and to demonstrate that you're a good fit. John Lees, who is a career strategist, told Harvard Business Review that it helps to prepare questions in advance once you decide what message you want to portray as a job seeker. He recommends personalizing your questions as much as possible, which can help the interviewer visualize you in the role, leaving a lasting impression.

Sample Questions to Ask at the End of a Job Interview

Here are categories of questions you’ll want to consider in an organized list, along with samples of each that you can personalize.

Questions about the specific job

1. What are your expectations for me in this role?
2. What’s the most important thing I should accomplish in the first 90 days?
3. What’s the performance review process like here? How often would I be formally reviewed?
4. What metrics or goals will my performance be evaluated against?
5. What are the most immediate projects that I would take on?
6. How long before I will be… [meeting with clients, have responsibility for my own accounts, interacting with other departments, etc.]?

Questions about the team

1. What types of skills is the team missing that you’re looking to fill with a new hire?
2. What are the biggest challenges that I might face in this position?
3. Do you expect my main responsibilities in this position to change in the next six months to a year?
4. Can you tell me about the team I’ll be working with?
5. Who will I work with most closely? What other departments or units will I interact with?
6. Can you tell me about my direct reports? What are their strengths and the team’s biggest challenges?

Questions for your potential boss

If the interviewer is your boss, you want to ask questions along these lines as well.

1. How long have you been at the company?
2. How long have you been a manager?
3. What’s your favorite part of working here?

Questions about the company

One important note here: Don’t ask things that you can easily find with a quick Google search (more on this in the “Questions to Avoid” section).

1. What are the current goals that the company is focused on, and how does this team work to support hitting those goals?
2. What gets you most excited about the company’s future?
3. How would you describe the company’s values?
4. How has the company changed over the last few years?
5. What are the company’s plans for growth and development?

Questions about the culture

Lees warns that you should take answers to questions about the company culture with a grain of salt. It’s highly unlikely that the interviewer is going to come out and tell you that the culture is unwelcoming, or even toxic. That’s why questions like #22 below can be helpful. They get at company culture without explicitly asking about it and can “help you uncover any unexpected elements about your potential new workplace,” Markman says.

1. How do you typically onboard employees?

• If the position will be remote, ask specifically about how remote employees are integrated into the company culture, Markman advises.

1. What do new employees typically find surprising after they start?
2. Is there anything that I should read before starting that would help me have a shared understanding with my colleagues?

• Asking this question not only signals your interest in the position but also shows that you’re eager to have “shared cultural references with the people you’ll be working with,” Markman says.

1. What’s your favorite office tradition?
2. What do you and the team usually do for lunch?
3. Do you ever do joint events with other departments or teams?
4. What’s different about working here than anywhere else you’ve worked?
5. How has the company changed since you joined?

LinkedIn Tip #10: Featured Section 

Ready to share some social proof.

The Featured section is a section that only a very small percentage of LinkedIn members take advantage of. If you want your LinkedIn to become your own Free Personal Branding website than you must take advantage of this feature.

You can add a photo of you receiving an award

Maybe it’s sharing a link to a website that mentions you being a very important part of a project. It doesn’t even have to mention you. If the article references something already on your resume you are providing social proof.

Resume Tip #10: Dates are important

And yes, the months are important – My wife conducts more than her share of interviews and says in her eyes it’s a red flag when someone doesn’t put in the month started and ended on their resume. 

05/2021 looks much cleaner than May 2021 and will align much easier as well because there is obviously the same number of characters with two numbers for the month and four for the year.

The company is going to find out those dates so you might as well place them on your resume.

ABT - Always Be Transparent

How to Build Your LinkedIn Profile Webinar

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During this 60 min Zoom Webinar I will be sharing my screen and showing you how to:

1)   How to improve your Headline to get noticed by recruiters

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4)   and everyone else on your LinkedIn profile

We will have time for about 10-15 min for Q&A at the end.

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Wednesday August 17th at 3pm PDT

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I would like to thank the team at the Starbucks Alumni Community, Starbucks, and of course AleQ Bateman for nominating me for this month's Starbucks Alumni Spotlight.

Click on the photo above to read my SPOTLIGHT Story in full.

If you are a former Starbucks Partner, you can join the Starbucks Alumni group as well - tons of resources and interaction as well. Visit https://lnkd.in/exR2mk3y