Awkward Questions

Q. You don’t want any?

A. Prepare!  You can predict most of them!

1. What are your strengths?

(and, to follow: What are your weaknesses?)

Not a poisoned chalice, surely?  Want to bet?!  Although you can hit this one for six (cricket metaphor)… Well you should… especially if you show your strengths to be exactly what your putative employer is after… the likelihood is that you will face the opposite Q next: What are your weaknesses?

The first thing to note is that they will have already assessed you against their JD and PS criteria and have formed an opinion as to where you might be weak. You have two strategies open to you, perhaps:

• choose a weakness you know they know that you have and give a damn good explanation as to what you are doing about it (training, higher-qualification, further professional development etc)
• have a ‘weakness’ or ‘difficulty’ up your sleeve that we all face (including your interviewers) and seek to demonstrate that you are doing the same sort of things as everyone else to address it.

An example. Balancing quantity and quality of output.

Start by explaining the issue and why we all face the same challenge.  Businesses want both quality and quantity and are forever trying to get us to produce greater output with even greater quality and reliability, often with less in the way of financial and human resources.  This is a real ‘Catch 22’ (Joseph Heller) situation:

• Quality takes attention to detail and that takes both time and money and is likely to reduce output.  … If we have neither the money or the luxury of time is quality of product or service possible?
• Increased output can be produced but often at a lower level of quality.  If we are producing poor quality relative to our competitors and client needs, is this not a false economy

I have a poster in my office which reads:

We do THREE types of job here: GOOD, FAST and CHEAP:- you may choose any TWO:

• If it is good and cheap – it will not be fast
• If it is good and fast – it will not be cheap.
• If it is fast and cheap – it will not be good.

The challenge for management is always to improve all three…. but ‘tweaking’ one can affect the other two negatively.

So I might suggest that, for example, I tend to be the sort of person who naturally focuses first upon quality and then seeks to increase the rate of output (by training, skills development and analysis and evaluation of the production system) –  rather than producing poorer quality in large quantities which is not likely to be welcomed by customers.  For example: « In order to achieve this, I have been on  Time Management and Project Management courses and am currently working with my company’s Business Process Re-engineering department with a view to streamlining the production process… etc »

The thing to remember is that employers are not seeking a list of your failures – rather they are after evidence that you are self-aware and interested in self-development and improvement.

2. What salary will we have to pay to get you?

Be encouraged by this: they would never ask you unless they think you might be on their eventual shortlist to be offered the post!   BUT…. Never pitch yourself too LOW!  If you pitch a bit too high for the salary scale they have in mind, and they very much want YOU for the post, any employer ‘worth his salt’ will come back, explain the position and the salary scale limits and make a proposition around which you might usefully negotiate.

Some justifications that you might have for the higher figure:

1. this post has significantly greater responsibilities than your previous post
2. you meet all the JD / PS essential and (nearly) all the ‘desirables’ too.
3. you need to cover the costs of removal… / increased costs of living etc
4. you might know from research the salaries for similar posts both within the employer company and in the industry in general.
5. try ‘splitting the difference’ between what you asked for and what he/she offers you…. he/she will almost always be expecting  that.  If they are so close to getting the person they want rather than the No2 on the list, they will tend to want to negotiate.
6. You are confident that you can demonstrate your abilities – so how about starting at the salary they suggest with a pay review based upon perfromance after 6 months, say.

3. What do you think of…..?

• …..our current strategy?
• ….. our annual report and performance figures?
• ….. our position vis-à-vis our major competitors?
• ….. the depressed state of the market and what we should be doing in such circumstances?

The point is that you MUST read up about the company, its competitors, the market and be able to show that you have some knowledge of each C:

• company
• competitors
• context

In addition, you will probably need to show sone sense of analysis and evaluation of these three Cs.

You are  married and female:

4. Are you planning to have a family any time soon?

Now this you should not be asked in UK / USA because it smacks of sex-discrimination (which has been outlawed since 1974 in the UK), but it is still asked occasionally.  You must be aware that heavy costs fall on an employer covering for maternity leave:

• continuing to pay you
• a period of recruitment of a temporary replacement (plus training etc)
• payment of the replacement
• loss of the skills of the replacement when you return to work
• possible period of slightless lower effectiveness given you have been ‘out of the loop’ for a number of months
• there also exists the perception (rightly or wrongly) that when there is illness – it tends to be the role of the mother to look after the child: hence likely and inconvenient unplanned absences

There are a number of strategies for dealing with this:-

• Refuse to respond because this is not a question that should be asked. Dangerous: you might be showing yourself as too ‘strong’ for their liking.
• Respond on the understanding that all other cnadidates, be they male or female, are asked the same question.  Slightly less ‘dangerous’ …. but dangerous nevertheless, depending on how you then respond.
• Use the fact that most of the interviewing panel will be older than you to your advantage: they will probably have children and have had to find a way of managing the situation: kindergarten, family help close-by, child-minders etc.  They (or their partners) have made a success of it – why shouldn’t you?
• You could say that you are not planning a family currently in order to concentrate on your career….. falling pregnant after an appointment is not a sacking offence!

5. Are you a member of…….. (Recognised industry Professional Association)?

The point is that you SHOULD be!  Once you are settled in a given sector or function (or even before, frankly) – do seek out and become a member of an appropriate body.  Companies will want to see this – it shows whether you are committed to your speciality / industry, have a network, are getting hold of important developmental information from outside the company.  Such things are critical because once locked in to the company ‘box’, where is such information going to come from?

If you say: ‘No I am not a member of any professional body’.… they might wonder why the hell not!

If you say: ‘Yes, I am a member of body xxxxx’ and mention things about the network, conferences/seminars etc’, you will probably be demonstrating the ‘Halo Effect’, because the person asking the Q has asked it to see if you are like him/her… and we tend to like people who are like us and to feel we can work with them.

So, if you are NOT a member of any such body – do your homework, choose a well-recognised body, join it and participate.

6. Do you have any Questions to ask us?

Well, the answer is: yes – you do…. and they are most emphatically NOT:

• how much holiday do I get?
• what is the salary?

You need to show them that you are thinking ahead, that you could see yourself developing your career with the company, so things like these can be useful:-

• With my former company I was following a programme of professional development – what sort of professional development opportunities are supported by your company? (MBA? Internal training programmes etc)….  If you are interested in developing yourself, then you will have better, sharper capabilities to put at the company’s disposal.
• In terms of career paths, what are the likely promotional paths that may be open to me in two or three years’ time? (Higher level within functional speciality (marketing, maybe) or a move into general management?).  Of course, you may not have the chance to ask this…. THEY might choose to ask YOU where you see yourself in three/five years’ time!!!  And you had better have an answer!!