You need to know if the company can meet your needs as much they need to know you can meet theirs. Here’s how to interview them without sounding judgmental or that your interest is conditional.

Instead of asking what they are expecting of you over the first 6 months, try asking what you’ll have the opportunity to accomplish over the first 6 months. You’ll get the same information, but you’ll give them the impression you are a proactive person who is looking for ways to add value instead of someone who is trying to find out the bare minimum expectations of the job. How you phrase your questions makes a huge difference.

Rather read than watch? Here’s the script:

Hi everybody, Paul Cameron here from SpeedUpMyJobSearch.com with some Job Search Tactics and Motivation for today. When you’re interviewing obviously it’s essential to be able to communicate how your skills and experience can fulfill their need for employer’s position, but it’s also essential that YOU find out if the job they have can fulfill YOUR needs for your career. So you need to be able to interview them just as much as they are interviewing you, but you have to be careful about how you do this so you don’t come across as judgmental or that you’ll only be interested in them if they meet a certain set of conditions. Maybe that’s true, but if they feel that, they’ll lean towards the other candidates who appear to show interest unconditionally. So, you need to be able interview them without them knowing, and today I’ll show you how to do that.

If this video is helpful for you, I invite you click that Like button so more people can find it, and I thank you for your help with that. And if you want more help with your interviews, check out the playlist of interview strategies I put together on my youtube channel, you’ll find lots of great ideas there.

It’s important understand that the WAY you ask a question, gives the person you are asking information about you and your motives. So I’m going just go through a few questions you’ll likely want the answers to and how most people that I see ask the questions, and then I’ll show you how to get the same information by asking it a different way, and at the same time create a very positive impression on the employer. After we do this just a few times here, you’ll be able to do this for all the questions you have for employers.

One question I hear a lot of people ask is, if I’m hired, what are you expecting me to have accomplished over my first 6 months? And the goal behind the question is pretty obvious, they want to know what they’ll be working on, but think about the context of that question. What are expecting me to have accomplished. I’ll tell you, if hired someone to do some work for me, like the neighbor kid to do some work in the yard, and he said, Mr. Cameron, what are expecting me to have done by the end of the day, what is he asking? He wants to know what is the bare minimum I have to have done by the time you get home so I don’t get in trouble. Right? So when you ask what they’re expecting you to accomplish in the first 6 months, you’re essentially saying, what’s the bare minimum I have to do in my first 6 months so that I don’t get fired? That’s the feeling of your questions. Whereas if you were to ask, so what will I have the opportunity to accomplish for you over my first 6 months, that gives you the same information, but it also says that you’re the type of person who looks for opportunities to help and that you will be a proactive employee. You get the same information, but you create a completely different impression.

How about this one, and if you’ve reading any books on how to interview or watching a lot of the other youtube channels on youtube strategies, one of the most common questions I’m sure you’ve seen that they recommend you ask at the beginning of your interview is, “What skills are you looking for in this job?” And the premise behind it makes sense, because you want to find out what skills are required for the role, and it helps you to be focused on which elements of your own experience you should talk about during the interview. But the problem is, if you just ask them “what skills are you looking for in this job”, you’re going to come across as completely unprepared. To me, this is the difference between actually thinking about asking these questions in real life interviews, and just coming up with theories about how to interview well so you can sell a book or get more followers. Think about this, from the employer’ perspective, if you don’t know what skills I’m looking for, why did you apply? What are you even doing here? Which not the perception you’re trying to create. But if you were ask for their opinion of what skills are needed, that changes the feel of the question entirely. Everyone at the company will likely want something different from this person, HR will want one thing from you, but development hopes you’ll help them in a different way, and another team will want something else. So instead try asking it this way, say “I know a little bit about this position based on what I saw in the job description, or from what my recruiter told me, or however you found out about the role, but I’m curious to find out what YOU would looking for from ideal person in this role?” and when you ask it this way, it justifies the question, and it makes sense to ask of everyone you meet with throughout the interview. So focus on their opinion, and not just what skills.

Lastly, a very common question people what to know is why the position is open, and they’ll ask it pretty directly like that. So why is this open. To put that in context and how that feels to the employer, could you imagine walking up to a person who is single and asking, so why are you single? Wow! I mean, what are the answers that? Well because I can’t get a date, because the last person left me, because I’m all the answers to that are negative and they make the person feel bad about themselves. And is the same thing with, So why is this open? Well because the last person left but they were and it sets them up to justify why that person isn’t there anymore and badmouth that person. That’s not helpful to anyone. Instead just ask them what’s happening at the company that’s giving you a chance to be there. Was someone promoted out of this position, or what’s giving me the opportunity interview for this role? When you say it that way, you’ll get the same information, but you’ll also set them up to say something positive about the last person in the role or the positive things going on at the company.

And you can use this technique for just about any question you want to ask. So write down your questions, and then come up with a positive way to ask those questions that will also tell the employer that you’re a proactive, positive person who is always looking for ways to help. Try this, it will help you.

Again, I’m Paul Cameron from SpeedUpMyJobSearch.com, please subscribe to our free youtube channel to see all of our videos as soon as they come out, or go to DriveStaff.com/Motivate and sign up to have these videos emailed to regularly, and remember, it’s okay to interview the employer, and when you’re intentional about the wording of your questions, you’ll not only get the information you want, but you’ll stand out as the proactive person they want for that job, and they won’t even know that you’re interviewing them. You can do this. It’s time to get to work.