Durkin’s Getting Hired at a Startup Series (8 of 10): Ask Who You’ll be Interviewing With

February 7th, 2012

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#8. Always ask who you’ll be interviewing with so you can prepare

I’m always very impressed when an upcoming interviewee asks me prior to coming in to the interview who he/she will be interviewed by at my company. It is a totally, smart question to ask that makes sense for so many reasons:

1. It gives you insight into who you’ll be meeting with so that you can do research on those people, learn about what motivates them, learn about their interests, and learn about what conversation topics they will find interesting.

2. If will make you feel more comfortable. Who knows, maybe you’re not interviewing with only one person. Maybe four people will be interviewing you. Maybe they’ll be interviewing you at the same time! Maybe at different times. Get as much info as you can in prep.

3. It will allow you to understand the dynamics of “good cop / bad cop” interviewing mentality in advance. (Many companies practice techniques of having multiple people from their company interview a candidate, with each person’s focusing on one particular area of a person’s background. One employee may be interviewing a candidate to see if they are a good culture fit. While another employee may be interviewing a candidate to see if they can technically do the job on a day-to-day basis. One employee may be interviewing a candidate with the focus of seeing if the job is too complex or too simple and will ask questions focused around upward mobility and expectation setting. All sorts of things). I can guarantee that few businesses will have six people interview the same candidate and have each interviewer ask the same questions. It’s best to vary topics and questions to get a 360 degree look at a candidate. And candidates should be ready for this.

Ask who you’ll be interviewing with prior to the interview. Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. RIGHT!??!?!