Work ReformInterviewing is a two way street, and the employer definitely failed this interview
That said, coming with a long list of questions of different importance without noticing that the interviewer isn't on the same page is also a bit of a signal so the prospective employee didn't do great either.
A lot of these questions could be condensed into "What are the benefits like?" which is a great question to ask when they ask about salary expecations which often happens early on. If they provide very little in the way of benefits, raise salary expectations.
The other questions are generally around company culture. You don't need to ask all of them to get a good enough picture. If there are several interviews, spread them out. You can also ask them in a more open ended way like "What is the company culture like?", "What do you like most about working here yourself?" or "What makes your best employees so good?".
"Stop shifting the power balance waaaah!"
What a toxic choad.
I actually tell the employer that I'm interviewing them just as well as they're interviewing me. It's a two-way street. They can't handle that. Well, sorry for them. They're not for me.
Yeah, I'm at the point in my career that you win me over I don't win you over.
It took time to get here but I've got no care for a shitty employer.
Thankfully I'm also self employed so unless my business goes tits up I'm set
"We are all like a family here.. so nobody asks questions and just do as they’re told or else they go to the naughty corner!"
Literally how abrahamic religions work. Do not ask, just do whatever you're told and be happy when awful things happen since god is testing you.
How tf is asking what hours I'll be working, if not listed in the application, not important? Can't work if I don't know when I'll actually be working.
In fact looking again why are they even having to ask them questions? Most of these seem like things that should be on the listing anyway.
Yes. That makes the original listing a red flag. But sometimes you take a chance and go to the interview anyway.
parking is often not clear in larger cities where you'd have to pay for a spot in a garage. they may have spots, or you could be shelling out $200 a month like I had to.
Paying to go to work is wild
Everyone does that. You aren't paid for gas, bus passes, the food you use to bike. Every single person pays to go to work.
Nope, here thanks to socialists half of bus pass is covered by employers (mandatory), some people have a car benefit fully paid even gas (but they pay contributions on that benefit), and companies can give tax free money for bikers and carpoolers, thanks to environmentalists.
But you are right, most of people does not have these benefits as it is not mandatory (except for bus pass)
My 100% Homeoffice employee contract says different. The moment I step outside my apartment to go to a rare meeting in the office or to a client's site, I am clocking hours. Any reasonable (so no limo or heli shuttle) travel expense (gas+deterioration as well as parking if I were to use my own vehicle, tickets for public transport otherwise), I note down and hand in to the company at the end of the month so I get reimbursed fully.
If you have to travel to do your work, it makes sense for the company to have to pay for it. On the flip side, companies might prefer hiring people living in more convenient, closer locations to their business than rural farmsteads. Which on the other hand makes sense as well, reducing time and energy waste, imo.
And so your work pays for heating? Cooling? Internet? Power use for your laptop? Very impressive contract if so.
Even in medium cities it can be unclear, just lower priced. I paid 34/month to park in a lot they owned.
How fucking dare that applicant ask what hours they will be working.
or if they will get insurance through work.
I feel like the answer to some of these questions would/should be answered in either the job application or the job offer. I get not wanting to wait for the job offer, but a company not offering that info is a red flag imo. Personally, I'd ask before signing the official offer, and not at the job interview. I'd also probably go for more general questions.
"What does a typical work day look like?"
"What is the overall compensation package?" Though this one can be a bit taboo
why the heck would someone want to waste time with an interview process if they don't know the most basic expectations and compensation? no, i don't think you should have to wait for an official offer to learn things like hours and benefits.
Based on the OP, they didn't have the answers to these questions when they accepted the interview. These should be presented by the business along with the job offer, or they'll come along with the job offer.
Yes, you'd expect so, however on average you'll be applying to 100 jobs per 1 interview, and if you get an interview with a company that doesn't list it, it's another 100 applications before one rolls around, might as well take the interview and ask.
"What is the overall compensation package?"
This should be discussed as part of salary expectations. In fact talking about the overall compensation is a recommendation to avoid giving a specific number when asked what salary range you are expecting. ("That depends on other compensation factors such as how much time off I get in a year and medical benefits coverage.")
Doing this got me an extra $1000 a year as my starting salary at my previous job when their medical benefits were not as good as what I had at the time.
And trying to get a feel for the workplace culture‽ Absolutely outrageous!!!
Toxic bosses need not post job offers. I would rather work at a McDonald's with a good mgmt team, than a small company with hiring expectations like this. I also refuse to shop at your business if you see your employees this way.
- Employers; answer the damn questions, then move on, what's important to you isn't going to matter to your job candidate, what's important to them is earning an honest days pay that will cover their expenses, and their responsibilities, like making sure to fulfill their requirements to their previous employer which is something you want them to do for you when they leave.
- If you can't pay enough that YOU could cover rent and a car payment off the pay, then you shouldn't be hiring, and if you can't treat your employees, and job candidates with respect, then you deserve to be a job candidate yourself instead of a business owner.
Toxic bosses need not post job offers. I would rather work at a McDonald's...
Oh you sweet summer child...
As someone who spent too many years in fast food the bosses there are extremely toxic, largely due to the fact that it is one of the easiest places to find some nieve replacement for the person who doesn't want to be on call 24/7 and work unpaid overtime.
They did say with competent management, which may be a fictional state.
Statistically there's got to be one well managed McDonald's somewhere in the world.
One reason why finding a job is such a hassle. So many employers just want to interview people to hit a quota of "candidates reviewed" without taking any given candidate seriously.
You get a bunch of false positives in the search and waste time going through the motions with people who aren't actually in charge of anything.
Straight out of college I had an eight hour interview process once, for an IT job that paid $25k starting. Round after round of quizes and queries that ate up my whole day.
Then I got picked up by a boutique medical IT firm a few weeks later after two calls and a 30 minute walk in, for nearly twice the salary. When I got the rejection letter from the first people six months later all I could do was laugh.
Bingo. I wasted time with a huge, multi-day, multi part interview process with a huge local manufacturing conglomerate. Multiple interview panels over a week, and finally just got rejected because the first two panels I had sat in had no allowance to reject anyone. According to a friend that works there, "it tests how persevering you are".
I had a place tell me I wasn't selected almost exactly a year after I had spoken with them. I set a timer for as long as they had waited to send me that, and replied to it myself a year later.
Probably no one saw it or understood, but it made me chuckle.
My experience in engineering on both sides of the table is similar. As a hiring manager, my goal is to move as fast as possible because talented folks are going to be looking at lots of places and I need present the best option to them very quickly so I don’t lose them. I don’t fuck around with haggling or candidate pools; two, maybe three max interviews depending on the role and we’re rejecting or making the best possible offer we can. I picked this up from companies I have preferred to work at. I think massive enterprises get bogged down in their internal processes and procedures and red tape while forgetting the employee experience begins during the candidate experience. If I have to go through many rounds of interviews I can only assume working there will be miles of bureaucracy before I can do anything more than sneeze.
I am personally fine with the old onsite process where you’d go to the company and have a day or half a day of interviews with not only the team but the stakeholders as well. Post-COVID that turned into a remote onsite and slowly turned into weeks of interviews which I don’t like but is more flexible for serious candidates. When I was running those, each group had specific areas to cover so we got a good sense of the boundaries of your skills. You got to meet many people you’d work with and get a sense of how things run. Always practical, though, never any of that leetcode bullshit. Also always two way. You don’t just stare at a candidate; they need to understand you to make a good decision. And, most importantly, the scale is based on seniority/pay. I’m not going to spend more than an hour or two with a junior interview because it’s a fucking junior interview.
"These ARE the important questions, though based on your reaction I don't believe you are the employer to value a skilled employee."
I can kind of see the logic here. People think they interview the top three candidates and, if so, the interviewees have a high chance of actually getting hired. These would then be appropriate questions in that scenario.
However, if they are interviewing 100 candidates in 4 hours then the appropriate place to find this info for the interviewee is the job posting. The hiring manager doesn't have time to answer 20 questions from 100 candidates and moreover if the information is on the job posting, then they either didn't read it or are basically asking if the interviewer is a liar to their face. Now, if it isn't on the job posting, well that is the person who posted it's fault and they should expect these questions to be asked OVER and OVER.
If it is general questions like 6 or 7 that normally doesn't appear on job posting, the appropriate time to ask those questions (to a busy interviewer) is when a job offer is made to the interviewee.
If the interviewer doesn't have time to answer questions then they shouldn't ask the interviewee if they had any questions.
The interview is a two way conversation. If the employer can't handle questions, then it is too mismanaged to be a viable work option.
On any jobs interviews i do, i always ask if the applicant has questions because they are interviewing us as much as we are them.
Yup. It's an interview. Not a viewing.
Right! I don't want you to be here if you're going to hate it anymore than you do.
Maybe I'm crazy or out of touch, but I've never asked these questions... because all of them but #6 and #7 should have been in the information given out long before I even get to the interview. Two/Five should at least be addressed by someone selling the company to you during the interview.
Six could be worded a bit better, because the interviewer is already going to have to clarify with you what pressure and laid back look like to you, and seven is probably better once the negotiation starts after the offer is begun.
keep in mind, this wording is filtered through the hr fool's retelling.
This is important IMO. This is not the applicant's wording. This is how the HR drone perceived these questions, not direct quotes. We actually have no idea what the applicant asked, but we do know that this person is a clown.
You're right. I didn't think of that, but it does completely shift the lens.
I'm on the job hunt right now and I cannot stress enough how much I do not care what company leadership needs to tell themselves so they can sleep at night. All I need to know are the pay, the benefits, and if the job aligns with my interest
Good thing the session was already wrapping up. I couldn’t take a candidate employer seriously after that.
I may take the job if I needed the money, but you bet your ass I’m jumping ship the moment I get another offer, and there won’t be any notice.
That interviewer should be fired immediately for not being intelligent enough to recognize more important questions when asked them. Whoever let that one into the corporation should be fired as well, also with immediate effect.
Exactly what questions would this person consider "more important"?
The obvious ones duh.
Should I be referring to you as sir or master?
When I bend over should I hold my cheeks open or will you do that?
Can I lick your boots before others so I can eat more shit?
Waitaminute. Were you at my last interview?
None. None questions are important to somebody like that.
"When is your lunch?" is probably somewhere in there.
"What's the career trajectory in the unit?" Which is a polite way of asking what happened to the last person. Another classic is if they are looking to sustain their current performance, make small improvements, or do an overhaul.
They’re important questions but lots of these are pay and benefit related. Usually I discuss that after getting an offer, and I think that’s what companies expect too.
eh, I'm hiring for my team right now and I have zero problem with these questions.
I tend to bring similar things up myself at the end of the interview if the candidate doesn't ask just because I don't like wasting time down the line.
we shouldn't make people jump through a bunch of hoops to see if they fit the job itself without being willing to consider that they might not want to waste time on a work environment that won't fit for them even if they could do the job.
I get it that pay is negotiable, but i would expect benefits to be based on general policy for all employees.
And in a place like the US, whether you get healthcare or not is a huge deal. If the company cannot tell you that straight away, the HR just wants to waste everyones time.
Pay and benefits should be in the job description.
As someone who lives in one of the two or three states where pay being listed in the job posting is now a legal requirement. Yes, ideally they should be. But our state just put this into law this year. And prior to that I think there was only one other US state with the requirement.
I’m sure the U.K. has to tell you the pay, amongst other things.
It's a step in the right direction but still isn't perfect because they'll have huge ranges of salaries which are all made up and that is not in their budget. These make it into your filters but tell you nothing because of how unrealistic it is. Like $55k - $180k. When you get to the salary, they offer $60k and tell you that you'd need to be a god to get higher.
No problem in anticipating them. But the OP might not be asking them to a person that is allowed to answer them.
Yes but that is very simple to redirect.
Unfortunately I'm not able to answer all of your questions, you would need to refer to our HR specialist for those answers.
Very simple and polite. Going and posting on the Internet that they didn't hire someone because they had 100% legitimate questions make them look like an absolute moron, or simply someone that is looking for a slave that won't complain or inquire into anything. When the reality is, a person knowing those answers is helpful to both the company and the individual in terms of finding a good fit.
Oh, it seems I'm getting thread-structure blindness.
I only saw the person complaining that the questions weren't answered. I didn't notice the one bragging about not answering them.
Nine to six? Dolly Parton is spinning in her grave
She is not dead.
Made you look.
Gotta get that siesta, comrade.
If it's while I'm working, it's on their time.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime…
The boss makes a dollar, I make a dime That was a poem From a simpler time
Now his boss makes 1000 While I make a cent And he's got employees That can't make the rent
When the CEO makes a million And we don't make jack That's when we riot To take it all back
Now Mr investor If this seems extreme I have to remind you It beats guillotines
These are questions for after receiving an offer.
The questions you should ask now would be along the lines of management style, corporate culture, and team dynamics. It's the first few dates, not a marriage proposal.
Wow what a simp
Oh my! So many hurtful words. Are you getting enough oxygen?
No, none of us is due to poisoning our atmosphere
lol no. If a company can't answer what my work hours are gonna be before we even have the first interview, I'm not wasting my time.
I disagree. They're important for me to know if I want to keep pursuing this job opportunity or if I should stop wasting our time. I don't want to do a second or third interview only to find out afterwards about all these factors. I could be out there interviewing for other jobs in the meantime, not in a second interview at this shitty company that doesn't want to tell me how shitty it is until they've offered e the job.
I don't see how answering any of these question in s straight forward and honest way would reveal if this company is shitty or not. Their ability to provide free parking is far an indicator of quality.
Interesting that you cherry picked that one... I would consider work hours and whether or not you'll get health insurance to be pretty consequential
I didn't say it wasn't consequential, I said it wasn't an indicator of if it was a shitty company.
OK. But those things definitely are.
Free parking, insurance, hell... Even weekly activities don't necessarily make or prevent a company from being shitty. #6 could be an indicator, but by itself, it's not enough.
To stay in the dating metaphor:
Would you want the other party to be upfront about serious issues, or prefer to get to know that down the line?
In dating terms these are topics like "do you have children from a previous relationship" or "i plan to move to a different state in a few months".
If you dont respect the other side enough to discuss these things right away, the relationship is destinend to fail.
I don't think the questions on the list do that.
Working hours, medical insurance, probation period and notice to current employer are all pretty damn crucial.
If #4 is medical insurance, sure.
Probation period and notice to employer assume that you've landed the job and is presumptive to do so before the offer.
#6 is good. Weekly acticities is a weird question, but indicative of something important.
The rest are important after an offer.
Lots of companies have strings attached, you are allowed to ask if there are strings before they are presented to you on a platter.
Never said you can't ask.
Unpopular opinion: the candidate shouldn't have asked any of those questions. Those are offer negotiations because you can trade off salary for parking etc.
That first interview is a chance to be strategic and ask about growth in the department or development pathways/programs. I was always told that first you get the ring, then you negotiate the prenup.
It doesn't say this is a first interview.
Good point. On a callback I'd be all about expectations and details. That having been said I'm changing jobs this month and I still don't know if there is a bike cage or showers at the the new place. But it wasn't part of my decision criteria so I'll find out when I start
Some of them maybe, but asking the working hours, the health insurance, and whether the company will wait or buy out the two months might be complete deal-breakers, and saves both sides time by asking up front (and for the first two, should have been offered up front prior to the interview, to prevent wasted time).
It's like being offended if, on a first date, one person asks if the other ever wants to have kids. If you know the long term potential is dependent on something, getting that question out there up front saves both parties, and anybody getting upset over it is scamming (getting them invested before being willing to discuss it). Same as not talking about general (not specific) payscale for the position, medical coverage, hours, or whatever until the second or third interview.
