1. Could you explain the company’s organizational structure?
\n2. What is the organization’s plan for the next five years,
\nand how does this department or division fit in?
\n3. What specific skills from the person you hire would make
\nyour life easier?
\n4. Will we be expanding or bringing on new products or new
\nservices that I should be aware of?
\n5. What are some of the problems that keep you up at night?
\n6. What are some of the skills and abilities you see as
\nnecessary for someone to succeed in this job?
\n7. What would be a surprising but positive thing the new person
\ncould do in first 90 days?
\n8. What challenges might I encounter if I take on this position?
\n9. How does upper management perceive this part of the
\norganization?
\n10. What are your major concerns that need to be immediately
\naddressed in this job?
\n11. What do you see as the most important opportunities for
\nimprovement in the area I hope to join?
\n12. What are the attributes of the job that you’d like to see
\nimproved?
\n13. What are the organization’s three most important goals?
\n14. What is your company’s policy on attending seminars,
\nworkshops, and other training opportunities?
\n15. How do you see this position impacting the achievement of
\nthose goals?
\n16. What is the budget this department operates with?
\n17. What attracted you to working for this organization?
\n18. What committees and task forces will I be expected to
\nparticipate in?
\n19. What have you liked most about working here?
\n20. How will my leadership responsibilities and performance be
\nmeasured? By whom?
\n21. What are the day-to-day responsibilities I’ll be assigned?
\n22. Are there any weaknesses in the department that you are
\nparticularly looking to improve?
\n23. What are the department’s goals, and how do they align with
\nthe company’s mission?
\n24. What are the company’s strengths and weaknesses compared with
\nthe competition? (name one or two companies)
\n25. How does the reporting structure work here? What are the
\npreferred means of communication?
\n26. What goals or objectives need to be achieved in the next six
\nmonths?
\n27. Can you give me an ideal of the typical day and workload and
\nthe special demands the job has?
\n28. This a new position. What are the forces that suggested the
\nneed for this position?
\n29. What areas of the job would you like to see improvement in
\nwith regard to the person who was most recently performing these
\nduties?
\n30. From all I can see, I’d really like to work here, and I
\nbelieve I can add considerable value to the company. What’s the next
\nstep in the selection process?
\n31. How does this position contribute to the company’s goals,
\nproductivity, or profits?
\n32. What is currently the most pressing business issue or problem
\nfor the company or department?
\n33. Would you describe for me the actions of a person who
\npreviously achieved success in this position?
\n34. Would you describe for me the action of a person who
\npreviously performed poorly in this position?
\n35. How would you describe your own management style?
\n36. What are the most important traits you look for in a
\nsubordinate?
\n37. How do you like your subordinates to communicate with you?
\n38. What personal qualities or characteristics do you most value?
\n39. Could you describe to me your typical management style and
\nthe type of employee who works well with you?
\n40. Corporate culture is very important, but it’s usually hard to
\ndefine until one violates it. What is one thing an employee might do
\nhere that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s culture?
\n41. How would you characterize the organization? What are its
\nprincipal values? What are its greatest challenges?
\n42. How would you describe the experience of working here?
\n43. If I were to be employed here, what one piece of wisdom would
\nyou want me to incorporate into my work life?
\n44. What are a couple of misconceptions people have about the
\ncompany?
\n45. Work-life balance is an issue of retention as well as
\nproductivity. Can you talk about your own view of how to navigate the
\ntensions between getting work done and encouraging healthy lives
\noutside the office?
\n46. How does the company support and promote personal and
\nprofessional growth?
\n47. What types of people seem to excel here?
\n48. Every company contends with office politics. It’s a fact of
\nlife because politics is about people working together. Can you give
\nme some exams of how politics plays out in this company?
\n49. What have I yet to learn about this company and opportunity
\nthat I still need to know?
\n50. I’m delighted to know that teamwork is highly regarded. But
\nevaluating performance of teams can be difficult. How does the
\ncompany evaluate team performance? For example, does it employ 360-
\ndegree feedback programs?
\n51. What are the organization’s primary financial objectives and
\nperformance measures?
\n52. What operating guidelines or metrics are used to monitor the
\nplanning process and the results?
\n53. To what extent are those objectives uniform across all
\nproduct lines?
\n54. How does the company balance short-term performance versus
\nlong-term success?
\n55. What kinds of formal strategic planning systems, if any, are
\nin place?
\n56. Can you describe the nature of the planning process and how
\ndecisions concerning the budgeting process are made?
\n57. Can you identify the key corporate participants in the
\nplanning process?
\n58. How often and in what form does the company report its
\nresults internally to its employees?
\n59. In the recent past, how has the company acknowledged and
\nrewarded outstanding performance?
\n60. What are the repercussions of having a significant variance
\nto the operating plan?
\n61. Are budgeting decisions typically made at corporate
\nheadquarters, or are the decisions made in a more decentralized
\nfashion?
\n62. I’m glad to hear that I will be part of a team. Let me ask
\nabout reward structures for teams. Does the company have a formal
\nteam-based compensation process?
\n63. Is the company more of an early adapter of technology, a
\nfirst mover, or is it content to first let other companies work the
\nbugs out and then implement a more mature version of the technology?
\n64. How does the company contribute to thought leadership in its
\nmarket?
\n65. How advanced is the company’s commitment to knowledge
\nmanagement?
\n66. I was pleased to hear you describe the company’s branding
\nstrategy. How does branding fit into the overall marketing mix?
\n67. How does this position contribute to the company’s goals,
\nproductivity, or profits?
\n68. According to (name source), your principal competitor, Brand
\nX, is the best-selling product in the space. What does Brand X do
\nbetter than your product?
\n69. Business Week magazine ranks the company second (or whatever)
\nin its industry. Does this position represent a change from where it
\nwas a few years ago?
\n70. How accessible is the CEO (name him or her) to people at my
\nlevel of the organization?
\n71. Does the CEO (name him or her) publish his or her email
\naddress?
\n72. I understand that the CEO is really approachable. Are there
\nground rules for approaching him or her?
\n73. Staff development is mentioned in your annual report as a
\nmeasure on which executives are evaluated. What kinds of training
\nexperiences might I expect?
\n74. Is the department a profit center?
\n75. Can you please tell me about the people who will look to me
\nfor supervision?
\n76. Would I encounter any coworker or staff person who’s proved
\nto be a problem in the past?
\n77. What happened to the person who previously held this job?
\n78. The incumbent was dismissed? How could the problems have been
\navoided?
\n79. The incumbent was promoted? I’m delighted to hear it. Would
\nit be possible for me to talk to him or her?
\n80. What is the company customer-service philosophy?
\n81. Could you tell me about a time when the team\/company went out
\nof its way to provide knock-your-socks-off service?
\n82. The best companies rely on rich customer data to fuel
\npersonalized content and services. How is the company doing in
\npersonalizing its offerings?
\n83. Customers are expecting companies to protect their data. Does
\nthe company have a privacy policy for its Web initiatives, and how
\ndoes the company balance the momentum for ever-increasing
\npersonalization with rising concerns for privacy?
\n84. How empowered are employees? How much of the company’s money
\ncan your people (including the ones with single-digit pay grades)
\nspend on their own recognizance to satisfy a customer or address a
\nwork-process issue?
\n85. How often would I come into direct contact with real, living,
\nbreathing, paying customers?
\n86. What are the success factors that will tell you if the
\ndecision to bring me on board was the right one?
\n87. To make our working relationship successful — something we
\nboth want — we’ll need to be sure we have good chemistry together.
\nHow might we determine this, and then what action would you see us
\nengage in to build that relationship?
\n88. If you and I were developing some sort of philosophical
\ndifference, how would you want to go about resolving it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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