What’s the 1 thing that can make you stand out in an interview?
Ask good questions that show you did the research
Interview questions are my favorite part of the interview process. As an interviewer, they are the 1st chance to see how the candidate thinks about our company. As an interviewee, it’s your chance to show prospective employers why they should hire you.
In spite of every blog telling you to prepare interview questions, few candidates do this well. Missing what I see as a crucial opportunity for you to show your competitive advantage. Interview questions that candidates receive will be the same, but the questions you ask are your own. This is how the interviewer will remember you once you leave the interview. A good question can save a bad interview.
How possibly can good interview questions save bad interviews?
They show you care. What you ask shows you how much research you have done on the prospective company, and therefore a signal of how hard you will try on the job.
What makes a good interview question?
Showing employers you care is easy. It means doing company research, and following these 3 steps:
- Use the job description to hypothesize what problem the company is trying to solve by hiring you
- Pre-validate this hypothesis by doing some extra research on the internet
- Don’t ask questions you can easily get the answer to on the internet
Let’s see what this would look like in practice by walking through a real-life example. Take this job description for a Head of Growth Marketing at Elysium Health.
Use the job description to understand what problem the company is trying to solve by hiring you
Paragraph 2 of the job description jumps right in ‘drive growth across the entire customer journey’. Ok, so they are looking for somebody that can do both customer acquisition and retention. Duh! You think, all marketers do this, that’s not news, but wait, lets jump into the Requirements section of the article:
Reading this, what is Elysium Health really interested in cracking? Acquisition or retention?
The word execute implies they have a formula for acquiring customers, your main job will be to ensure you keep doing what they are all doing as you get more customers. So, it’’s not just any customer acquisition, it’s help me find more of the customers we already have, at the same cost.
On the other hand, spearhead implies they haven’t figured out retention. Supported further by ‘improve the retention curve’. Ok, so at this point in time
a) I can improve my chances by starting to crack on highlighting my email marketing experience
b) I can come up with a bunch of questions investigating what email marketing strategies you have tried:
“So, you mentioned in your job description you are keen on improving retention, what email marketing strategies have you tried?”
Even better
“So, you mentioned in your job description you are keen on improving retention, in the past i have used Newsletters to great effect, how does your newsletter system work?”
Or
“So, you mentioned in your job description you are keen on improving retention, but where are you capturing the emails?”
Pre-validate this hypothesis by doing some extra research on the internet
Ok, so we know now that the company is interested in retention based on the job description. Is that true?
What could be the drivers of a lack of retention? Let’s check out the website.
Retention means the number of customers repurchasing your product. So when you are looking at the website, what tools is the company deploying to attract existing customers? E.g, is there an email sign up? Who are their customers (look at their customer stories), what about pricing?
Your intention with this research is to come up with hypotheses as to why retention is a problem for Elysium. The interview then presents the perfect opportunity to validate these hypotheses. Its effective because you are providing value for the company, as well as showing them you are the best candidate because you understand their problem.
Now that you have looked at their website your question can be:
“So, you mentioned in your job description you are keen on improving retention,I checked out your website and I saw that you have 2 prices for your NAD+ product. I read a bunch of reviews and saw that most customers feel effects in 3 months. What does retention for your monthly users look like?”
Don’t ask questions you can easily get the answer to on the internet
Recently, one of our LMNS candidates said he asks this question at an interview:
“How is <Company> differentiated from other competitors?”
They explained they ask this question because they wanted to get the companies thought on their competition. The problem is, this relies on the interviewer assuming you have an opinion of your own. I’d rather not assume. You can still ask such a question but easily improve it by simply listing the competitions names, like:
“Do you think X is how you differentiate yourself from Company Y?”
So there you have it, 3 easy ways you can craft good interview questions that show the employer why you, are better than the other 100 people that are interviewing for the role!
Looking for somebody to review your interview questions? Visit us at LMNS or email us directly at contact@hirelmns.com
