You’re Not Interviewing the Company
Photo by Maranda Vandergriff on Unsplash
Interviews are sold to software developers as a two-way conversation. While the company will assess you and ask questions to decide if you are the right candidate for an available role, you are able to ask questions to decide whether the fit is right for you.
It sounds great. Everybody gets to evaluate the opportunity in front of them and decide if it is right for them.
Except that isn’t happening. Not really. Not only is the process controlled by the company, so is the agenda and what it is appropriate to ask in the situation.
Let’s break this down.
The Asymmetry is Real
The company can ask you anything, and it’s very difficult to infer anything about the company from the question.
A case in point.
“Rate your skill as a developer out of 10”
This is a poor question as the intent is unclear, and then it’s difficult to know how to respond to it. But you can’t infer if a bad question says anything about the company as it could be a poorly trained interviewer, a dictat from HR, or a simple naive question.
On the other you might as a killer question, that will kill your application.
“How often do you work overtime?”
A risky question. If you ask this with the wrong tone, and/or to the wrong company they will think that you are not dedicated to the role. That you lack passion. You won’t get rejected for simply asking this question but it puts doubts in your interviewer’s mind and asking it can mean there is no job for you.
The Hiring Funnel of Doom
An interview is not a conversation, it’s a funnel. You go through a screen from a recruiter who barely understands the role. You get the coding challenge (with extra points for speed, none for readability). Then you might get grilled by an engineer with no interview training. If you’re lucky, you meet a manager who also has no training in evaluating candidates but thinks they do.
During the funnel there is no opportunity for a fair exchange of information. Rather you are a pig being weighed for slaughter, you’re being judged, measured and rated. You need to smile and feign interest in their team vacation. You need to feedback that you love the people and are interested in their esoteric technology. Candidates might have questions, but there may be no time or the right person is unavailable to answer.
The Reality
The whole thing is a game, and you’re not holding the rulebook. If you ask the wrong question, you’ll look like a “bad culture fit.” If you push too hard for actual answers, you’re “not collaborative.” But if you don’t ask any questions, you’re “not engaged”.
The result is far from a two-way conversation. They can refuse to answer questions. They judge whether a question is a red flag. They hold the cards.
You can do what you want in an interview. You can demand they tell you what the reality of working there is like. The problem is if you need work so you and your family can eat you need to play the game. If you don’t play it well, the feedback will be that they had other more qualified candidates.
But don’t despair. There are strategies you can apply to actually get value from the interview process.
Strategies
Preparation
Make sure that you have a prioritised list of questions and understand which need to be asked. To be clear that doesn’t mean each and every question needs to be answered, but you need to gain the understanding in whichever particular topic area the question sits.
If you have prepared the questions beforehand you might be able to slip them in during the interview, take control of the flow and have your concerns answered. It’s hard, but with a little preparation, this can be possible.
Ask the Right People the Right Question
The hiring manager can tell you about the company vision (which may or may not be real), but the engineers can tell you what it’s actually like. If you get a chance, ask them what they like least about working there. The answer (or awkward silence) tells you a lot. Use your emotional intelligence here to try and work out if what you are being told is true or tells you the truth through the things that they don’t say.
Reversed
When they ask, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” have an answer prepared. Then when it is your turn to ask questions you can turn it around “Where do you see the company in five years?”. Most of the times I’ve asked this question the interviewer cannot answer it, but at least it provides me a sensible chuckle after the end of the interview.
Watch for Red Flags
Are they rushing the process? (high churn) Do they keep pushing back the final interview? (indecisive leadership) Did the recruiter ghost you for three weeks before suddenly demanding availability tomorrow? (disorganized mess). You can then put this together with other evidence (hello, Glassdoor) and work out whether this is the company for you.
You Can Walk Away
Companies love to act like you should be honored for the chance to work for them. No. If they’re dodging questions, giving weird vibes, or making you jump through flaming hoops for an average job. Sometimes you need cut your losses and move on. There will be other jobs, in the same way there will be other candidates for companies.
Dream Answers and Responses
Your Dream Answers
We can all hate many of the questions we are asked.
Here are some of my favourites, and the answers we all might want to give, if we had the chance.
“What’s your biggest weakness?”
Dream answer: impatience with pointless bureaucracy, obviously.
“Why do you want to work here?”
Dream answer: Because I need a paycheck, because I’d rather be in bed than working frankly.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Dream answer: Hopefully not still answering questions like this.
Your Questions
Meanwhile, your questions must be curated like a politician’s soundbite. You can’t ask these humdingers, but I bet you wish you could:
“Why did the last person in this role leave?”
Even though that’s the most useful thing to know.
“How often do you work overtime?”
Because the answer is probably, “Well, we don’t expect it, but…” which means every day.
“How long until I can quit and not look like a job hopper?”
This one just isn’t an option, even though you were thinking it.
Instead, you get to ask about “growth opportunities” and whether the team does “agile” (now if only they could answer if they did agile “properly”).
But you won’t do any of that. You’ll play the game with a straight bat and answer the questions as best you can. What else is there to do?
Conclusion
The biggest lie in hiring is that an interview is a two-way process. It’s not. You’re being assessed. You’re being scrutinized. The company, on the other hand, gets to present itself however it wants.
But hey, if they really wanted to make it fair, they’d let you sit in on a leadership meeting before you sign the offer.
Now that would be an interesting interview.