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.
Right! I don’t want you to be here if you’re going to hate it anymore than you do.
Yup. It’s an interview. Not a viewing.
“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!”
Yup. If your employer uses the, “we’re all one big family” then you’re in for a real bad time.
Because sooner or later, they’re going to make you choose between their fake “family” and your real one.
That family bit is a massive red flag for everyone to be aware of. That’s how they rope you in with empty promises, broken dreams, and no raises for the next 10 to 15 years. It’s good to have a positive working culture, but if the only emphasis is the work family, skip to next job.
Abusive Families are Families too…
Just don’t go in the room alone with your uncle!
Heard a similar thing too many times
Dad is an alcoholic. Mum is psychologically tormenting everyone. Older half brother really wants to fuck.
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.
“These ARE the important questions, though based on your reaction I don’t believe you are the employer to value a skilled employee.”
How fucking dare that applicant ask what hours they will be working.
And trying to get a feel for the workplace culture‽ Absolutely outrageous!!!
the workplace culture‽
Such a loaded phrase lol
Is the culture yogurt or Clostridium botulinum?
Hopefully a good mix of Firmicutes and Bacteriodes.
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
“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.
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.
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.
Nine to six? Dolly Parton is spinning in her grave
She is not dead.
Made you look.
Or is she?
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
“Stop shifting the power balance waaaah!”
What a toxic choad.
What a toxic choad.
Upvoted for bringing back a most classic insult. Lol
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.
That’s how corpos want this process structured…
Why should people waste their time to go through the dating process only to find counterparty is an idiot.
They can do that because they have the power. You only have power after an offer is made. Then leverage that power to get what you need.
corporate shills:
“they have the power”
also corporate shills:
“nobody wants to work any more”
that’s bullshit. labour has, and always will have the power
That’s the reality and companies are abusing this process by making hiring process a dick sucking, boot licking hunger games style process
It is disgusting
I don’t disagree with any of this, but I don’t know how this is connected to when it’s appropriate to ask these questions. What am I missing?
If worker are able to shift the power balance to where employer has to tell term of the employment on the front end, we would get abused as much during interview process.
For example as middle age cuck, I don’t even talk to recurieter unless we agree on salary range that is acceptable to me. I am not wasting my time.
Obviously entry level can’t do that but adults should be a lot hard on these corporate IMHO
It is our job to the drive this. Boomers unwillingness to do this got us into this situation.
But yes, as person on bad luck, young or otherwise unemployed, has to play the game how you outlined.
Well, good luck organizing the union of the unemployed people. That’s not a category that is easy to gather.
Or you can play the individual game, and save your power to use when it will have some effect on your ongoing life, instead of just some psychological comfort on the short duration of an interview.
Yes, it sucks that you have to choose.
But most of these questions aren’t addressing issues at the level of salary range. #4 might be something like a benefit package. Those are important questions and are usually addressed early for a certain type of professional early in the process.
But free parking? Work hours? Weekly activities? It not that these aren’t important to know, but most of these questions are either better addressed later or asked in a way that gets them to reveal their values.
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.
lol no. If a company can’t answer what my work hours are gonna before we even have the first interview, I’m not wasting my time.
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
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.
If you have market power, make sure you demand the terms upfront.
People who have market power and don’t do it, are bootlickers
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 did 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.
Last job I worked had 38 hours per week of work, free parking, health insurance, and was a terrible company.
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.
Not providing health insurance definitely makes a company shitty.
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.
You’re right. I didn’t think of that, but it does completely shift the lens.
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.
Interviewing 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?”.
A lot of hiring managers are on power trips and forget that interviewees are not their employees. Also, the job description sucks if you have that many questions. Take it as constructive feedback if you’re a hiring manager. Hell, if you don’t like that many questions, you can even ask “Oh would you like a run down of benefits?” If you have none, you’re company is going to have a bad time hiring solid employees. Even if you’re a Dollar Store you should be ready with that rundown, unlike these idiots that expect no one to take bathroom breaks.
Exactly what questions would this person consider “more important”?
None. None questions are important to somebody like that.
“When is your lunch?” is probably somewhere in there.
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?
“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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
