Common Interview Question: What Do You Expect from a Supervisor?

“Candy. Lots and lots of candy.”

After working for some of your life, you probably expect nothing from your supervisor. Nothing good anyway. Most people in a management position get there by either sucking up or receiving an education that makes them no more qualified to lead than a high school dropout. The ability to work with people is not a skill that can be taught in the classroom.

Still, interviewers like to ask what you expect from your bosses and supervisors. They do so for the following reasons:

• They want to see if you have reasonable expectations for company leadership.
• They want to see if you use this as an opportunity to complain about previous supervisors.

The last part is tricky. When applicant start to talk about what you expect from supervisors, they often say the things they hadn’t received from their last supervisor, like praise or fairness. Don’t fall into that trap.

How to Answer

The best way to answer is to focus on the good qualities of the last supervisor you had (no matter how much you disliked them) and stay away from anything that could imply you didn’t like a previous supervisor.

Bad Answer

“I expect supervisors to be fair and level headed. I expect them to make competent decisions and not blame me for things I didn’t do. I also expect them to reward employees based on production, and not based on who sucks up the most.”

Notice how this makes it look like you experienced these examples of mistreatment in the past. You do not want to give that impression.

Good Answer

“My last supervisor had a lot of qualities I appreciated. She would often ask for my opinion and thoughts on the best course of action before I started on a project. She would also schedule regular check ins with me to ensure we were on the same page, and every once in a while we would enjoy a conversation over coffee over my future projects and responsibilities. I hope that any supervisor I have shares those qualities.”

By keeping the focus on what you liked about your previous supervisor, you ensure that it doesn’t sound like you are complaining, and you reinforce the idea that these qualities are realistic, since you are pointing to a specific person in your recent past and saying “she did it, so I expect it from others.”

Take Away Interview Tips

• Keep the focus on your last supervisor.
• Only discuss the positive qualities they had.

Marketing Interview Question: How Effectively Do You Think You Can Work Within Current Budgetary Constraints?

Your ability to do your job is always a part of any job interview. Within marketing – although really within a lot of fields – your job will be affected by the amount of money the company has available to invest in the work that you do. When budgets play a role in what strategies you can use, the company may wonder or worry that you might struggle with the amount of funding they have available.

How to Answer

There are two ways to answer questions about working within budgetary constraints. The first is to discuss possible strategies you can enact. The second is to tell a story about a time when you worked within extremely difficult budgetary restraints. Only tell a story if you have a good story to tell, and make sure the budget you are describing is even less than the budget you will be offered by the new employer.

Bad Answer

“Depends. How much is available? I have a few ideas but I don’t know how effective they’ll be yet.”

Good Answer

“Most of the marketing strategies I plan on implementing are either free or involve negligible financial commitment. Thanks to various SEO marketing and social media marketing techniques, I foresee no problems improving brand awareness on a limited budget, and I have a few cost effective direct mail marketing ideas as well, based on some successful in depth targeting philosophies I have acquired at my previous organization.”

This is the type of answer that breeds more confidence. You should supply the employer with enough information that they have no trouble believing you can achieve what you claim you can achieve.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Answer in a way that gives the employer confidence in your abilities.
• Share a story, if applicable.

Interview Question: What Do You Know About Our Competitors?

Where a company stands in the market is important to the company and you. The company cares because their long term outlook depends on either offering a better product or marketing their product better. You care because a company that fairs poorly may not last very long if the other companies manage to show consumers why their products are more effective.

Companies often ask applicants what they know about competitors for three reasons:

• It tells them how much research the applicant performed.
• It tells them how much knowledge the applicant has in that type of product.
• It tells them if they understand the product, by how they compare it to competitors.

How to Answer

You should research the major competitors of the company in order to have a solid answer to this question. Try your best to learn about the competitor’s products as well. When you answer, try to focus on the following:

• Specific feature differences and similarities.
• Projects/improvements in the pipeline.
• Market share and possibly marketing tactics of the company.
• Performance of the product and reviews.

Your answer should avoid the following:

• Simply listing facts and names that show no deeper knowledge.
• Saying anything negative about the company you are applying for.
• Hinting that another company may be better.

Bad Answer

“I know that your lead competitor, OpposiTech, offers a product called the ‘EyeSoar’ that offers similar functionality. I also know that they offer 3 other products and they have a lot of the market.”

These are just listing facts. It is not that impressive an answer.

Good Answer

“From what I have researched, OpposiTech offers the most competitive program to your own. Their software has slightly greater functionality, including the ability to gauge user trends, but their program is not considered user friendly and would take about 3 years of reprogramming to improve ease of use. On the other hand, it appears that your product has the functionality in the pipeline for later this year, so I suspect their share of the market will decrease dramatically before their Ui upgrade is out.”

Here you show much greater knowledge of the product. This is an in depth answer that shows you not only did your research, but you also compared and contrasted, and are intelligent enough to do so effectively.

Take Away Interview Tips

• I forgot to write anything here.

Common Interview Question: Have You Had Any Questions Come Up Since the Last Interview?

We mention time and time again that it is important to ask questions at your job interview. As long as your questions are intelligent and make the interviewer think, they are good questions. You can ask questions in the beginning, the middle, at the end of your interview – you can even ask questions with your interview answers. There may be a difference between good and bad questions, but as long as the question is good, it will always benefit your shot at employment.

That said, there are a few ways to improve your chances a little bit more. If you are invited to a second interview, and you are asked if any questions have come up, some questions will give you even more bonus points than others.

How to Answer

Obviously you can ask any question you want here. However, the best questions are going to be as follows:

• Questions that show you researched the products further.
• Questions that show you researched the position further.
• Questions that show you researched the company culture further.

These three types of questions are best. You benefit less from questions that came up BECAUSE of the last interview, because the interviewer may wonder why you didn’t ask at your first interview or during the thank you letter. Also, questions that are unrelated to either the first interview or further research can be saved for a more opportune time. The three examples above are the best types of questions to ask.

Bad Answer

“A few. Can you tell me more about [something that they said last interview or random, unrelated question]?”

Good Answer

“A few. Can you tell me more about [something you researched between interviews, either about the company, its culture, or its products]?”

Take Away Interview Tips

• Good questions will always be good questions.
• However, if you are asked about questions that came up during the last interview, there are better questions you can ask.

Management Interview Question: Tell Me About a Time You Disagreed with a Subordinate

Once you’ve reached management level, there is a good chance you have enjoyed several years of work experience that the interviewer can ask you about. That is why management interviews often have a lot of behavioral questions.

As a manager, your leadership skills are going to be tested often, so you can expect some behavioral interview questions about your interaction with subordinates. Answer them carefully.

How to Answer

No matter how you traditionally manage, you need to make sure you sound like a fair and loving boss. You should not talk like you are wiser or more experienced. Instead, share a story about calm and measured disagreement, what you learned, and how the company benefitted. Or, if you caught an employee doing something illegal or slacking off, you can talk about that disagreement as well.

Try to call your subordinates something nicer too like “team members” or “staff.”

Bad Answer

“One time my subordinate came to me and refused to do a project. She and I had an argument in the middle of the workplace. Needless to say I fired her.”

This doesn’t really make you look like an outstanding boss. No story that ends with you getting your way just because you’re the boss is a good story.

Good Answer

“Often I would walk into my team member’s office and find that he was spending time on social networking sites instead of working. We had a discussion about the time he spent on his projects. It started as a disagreement, but I realized that he wasn’t wasting time for the purposes of wasting time. He was wasting time because he would get done extremely quickly and efficiently, and he would run out of projects and get bored. Rather than reprimand him, I started finding him more work to do, and he became one of our most productive employees.”

This is a disagreement, but only in the beginning. By the end of the story you have shared a tale that makes you look like someone that recognizes brilliance and communicates well with subordinates. These kinds of stories are much better for your employment chances.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Look for stories that make you look intelligent and fair.
• Stay away from sounding too dominant, but try not to sound weak either.
• Always remain positive.

Graduate Interview Question: What Do You Dislike About the Field?

In the last post, we talked about how to answer questions about what you like about the field. Like any good anarchists, today we are going to do the complete opposite. What don’t you like about your field?

How to Answer

We often discuss how important it is to stay positive. It is especially important if you are talking about working in a new field. If you are a recent graduate or have not worked in the field for very long, saying anything too negative about the industry may cause the interviewer to doubt how long you will stick.

Avoid talking about a major part of the field. You do not want to accidentally say negative things about your job. Focus more on something existential, like the politics involved in the position.

Bad Answer

“I don’t like how repetitive the tasks are. Every day you usually do the same thing over and over. I don’t mind the repetition, but it would be nice if something new happened once in a while.”

Good Answer

“Interestingly, I think one of the things I dislike about the field is the instability of the market. I can make an extremely well researched marketing plan, put it into action, and suddenly the market changes unexpectedly and the campaign needs to be completely changed. At the same time, that is also one of the things I like about the field, since it makes every day interesting and exciting.”

Making the biggest negative you can think of both a negative and a positive is a good way to show that you do like the field – because you even like the things you don’t like about it.

Take Away Interview Tips

• See if you can spin the negative into a positive.
• Do not complain about anything that plays a major role in your job.
• Struggle to come up with something.

Graduate Interview Question: What Do You Like About The Field?

You graduated. No more teachers, no more books, no more giving the sexy classmate dirty looks. You studied for hours, possibly even with textbooks! Probably not though. Hooray for Cliff Notes and cheating!

Interviewers know very little about you. All they know is that you have a major, and presumably your major is related to the field. The interviewer has little they can ask you, so they are left asking you questions about why you chose your field.

How to Answer

Give them an intelligent reason. It should have nothing to do with money or your parents telling you to do it. Talk about the field itself, its innovation, etc.

Bad Answer

“I don’t know. It has a lot of jobs available, and in this economy you try to get whatever job you can.”

Good Answer

“It is a field that will never become obsolete, with constant innovation, logic and problem solving. No two campaigns are ever the same, which means that you are always trying to find a new strategy or platform to help the company.”

These types of answers are intelligent and exciting, so it does really look like you have a reason to be in the field. Good reasons show the employer that you plan on sticking around and didn’t make a career choice that you are likely to regret.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Provide an intelligent and thoughtful answer.
• Avoid answers that make it appear you did not put much thought in the decision.

Interview Question: Describe Your Ideal Company

“One that offers free chocolate chip cookies to its staff every hour and pays for time spent receiving backrubs from attractive, single masseuses.”

There are a lot of interview questions where sucking up to the company can help give you brownie points (to go along with your brownie nose). This is sort of one of those questions. Describing your ideal company is not necessarily about literally describing the company you are interviewing with, but it is about achieving the following:

• Nothing you describe is NOT applicable to the company.
• Everything you describe makes you sound like a great employee.
• The company sees itself in the words that you use.

For example, if you say that your ideal company involves a lot of hard work, the interviewer will say “Hey! Good! We have a lot of hard work!” and be pleased. If you say your ideal company offers rewards to hard working employees, however, the interviewer might think “Hm… We do not offer any bonuses or corporate gifts for hard work, so maybe that’s not us.” Ideally, you should use this question to say more about yourself than about the company.

Bad Answer

“My ideal company will have a fair amount of workload for my salary, and the knowledge that if they want harder work, they should reward me with greater pay. I also like donuts.”

Good Answer

“For me, an ideal company is one where I show up every day and feel myself contributing, knowing that I am playing a role in the success of the company. My ideal company depends on me, so that I am motivated to work hard and complete my tasks. Also, my ideal company offers products and solutions that I believe in, and has a long term plan for success.”

Here you meet all of the criteria. You do not mention anything untrue to the company. You do mention a vague statement that all companies believe about themselves (having a long term plan for success), and you make yourself sound like a great employee by focusing on how you can contribute.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Don’t make jokes.
• Avoid anything not applicable to the job you are applying for.
• Make yourself sound like a great employee.

Interview Question: What is Your Sense of Our Corporate Environment?

“Stoned.”

Lots of interview questions are designed to see how much you actually want to work for the company. Your perception of the company and how it works plays a key part of that. Many applicants see the company they want to work for as they want their ideal company to be. For example, someone that is looking for less work on a regular basis will probably see the company as more relaxed. It’s the brain’s way of trying to justify wanting to work for the organization.

Your job is to see the company both accurately and in a flattering manner. That way the interviewer feels that you see the company accurately and that you like what you see. Focus on how the company operates, and integrate any company research that you can. Also, stay away from any words that have negative connotations, like the word “Relaxed” (a relaxed company may not have hard work, etc.).

Bad Answer

“Your corporate environment appears friendly and supportive. I can tell that you put employees first and that you treat people fairly.”

There isn’t much content here, and things like “putting employees first” make give the impression that your other company was mean to you.

Good Answer

“Your corporate environment is one that appears focused on achieving its vision, looking at the bigger picture and helping to reach its mission statement on providing affordable, enterprise level marketing solutions to small and medium sized companies. I can tell that the employees work hard to meet their goals, which also leads me to believe that the company recognizes hard work and is successful at motivating its employees…”

Nothing here has a negative connotation, and you integrated the mission statement which shows that you did research before the interview.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Avoid anything with negative connotations.
• Focus on the work.
• Integrate any information that you can.

Difficult Interview Question: What Would You Do If You Were Asked to Perform a Task That You Know Would Hurt the Company?

One of the benefits of being in power is that you get to make decisions and others have to listen to you. One of the weaknesses of not being in power is that you have to listen to stupid decisions and do them anyway even though you know they are idiotic.

When you apply to a job that does not have much authority, you may be asked what you would do when you know a course of action is wrong, but you are told to do it anyway.

How to Answer

Though the question may look like one of commitment and leadership, this is actually more of a communication question. The best thing to do is explain how you will disagree with the course of action (tactfully, of course) but that you would probably do it anyway when instructed.

Bad Answer

“I would talk to the CEO and tell her what my supervisor instructed me to do, then tell them what should be done instead. Then let the CEO decide if it is best.”

So your plan is to be a tattle tale?

Good Answer

“First I would draft up my reasons for disagreeing with the course of action, including offering alternate solutions and backing them all up with research, if possible. I would either present this information in a meeting or via email depending on schedule factors. If my supervisor still instructs me to go along with the plan, then I will do so, but at least my objections were noted and alternative solutions presented. If possible, I will also get started on anything that can help fix the problem in case the plan does perform as poorly as expected.”

You are not in a position to refuse to do something your supervisor tells you to do. That is insubordination. You are in a position to at least explain your thoughts and present other opportunities. So tell the interviewer that you will first share your thoughts with the supervisor, but that you also respect the chain of command in the workplace. Offering to start on alternative solutions or projects just in case is nice but not required.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Respect the position hierarchy.
• Share that you will explain your thoughts and present alternative solutions.