Assessing A New Opportunity: You Must Interview Them

With every job hunt, there’s an interview process. This is the process that the employer sets up to evaluate whether or not you’ll be good for the company and/or job. The process is designed and dictated entirely by the employer. Which is fine to a point because they’re assessing you but what about you assessing them? If you haven’t thought about how you’re going to assess them, think about it now.

Sure there is Glassdoor but I’m an advocate of truly understanding the situation you’re going to get yourself into. Usually in the interview process you’ll interview with your future boss and peers. That gives you some of the picture. To fill out the picture there’s someone you definitely need to speak to:

The person who had the job before you.

While you should approach this with caution- you don’t know if they were fired, quit or are still at the company in another position, it is imperative you reach out. This person will understand the ins and outs of the job and might be able to give you insight into how your boss manages and maybe what the job should be like in the future. I recommend using the tips from the Informational Interview blog post. LinkedIn is usually going to be your best first stop to figure out who had the job beforehand but you should also not be afraid to ask if you can talk to the person who had the job as part of your interview process.

If there isn’t someone who had the job before you aka it’s a new position, you should leverage your network to find someone on that team, in the department or at the company to talk to about the company and the role. Your next job is going to be part of your life and you owe it to yourself to find out as much about the position as possible.

Bonus tip: if you’re a manager and not interviewing with someone who would report to you, 100% ask to interview with a potential direct report. The people that report to you are going to be imperative to your success and vice versa. You know what it’s like to have a manager you never got to meet, so you want to build a relationship before day 1. For this conversation, definitely ask them as many questions as you can - what did they like about their former manager? What do they wish the manager did more of? What gets in the way of them doing their best work? etc. Of course leave time for them you ask you questions but really drive the conversation. It is of course, your career!