I've been contacted by a company to come in as an exploratory interview. That is, there's no predefined role - but they say that they like what I have to offer in general and want to see if there's a position that I might fill within the management ranks. My specialty is corporate integration and change management, but I'm not certain that this is the part of my experience that they've keyed in on.
I'm prepared for the interview from my perspective. (Thanks Interviewing Series), except for one glaring item: my questions for them.
Given that I don't know the position, I'm finding it rather difficult to target my thoughts. Should I focus on what I presume are the skills that I think they've keyed in on, or should I prepare several in different areas (Strategy, Corporate Integration, New Market Expansion Execution, etc.) that covers the breadth of my skills?
My current thought is to do the latter - that is to prepare a wide range of potential questions and try to adjust on the fly in the interview. But doing that is proving to be rather daunting and exhausting. I'm not certain that there's a great answer here, but I wanted to see if anyone else had run into a similar situation and found a successful path.
Thanks.
Why focus on those kinds of
Why focus on those kinds of skill based specifics without a specific role out there? Unless, of course, you're married to working in a very specific capacity. In which case it makes sense. There's plenty to ask about that will affect your life no matter what job you're in. Culture being a big one. And it can still serve the dual purpose of additional marketing of yourself (which seems to be your main aim with that topic set). Maybe better since they're sure to get at skills like that in the interview on their time.
I could be wrong, but without knowing what they've keyed in on you could actually hurt yourself by emphasizing things they're not zoned in on. And using the time in a way that seems very genuine (on the things that you know will impact you regardless of job instead of trying to guess) would, in my mind, come off as a positive.
Full disclosure: I'm not a manager, so I could be way off base when it comes to managerial interviews. But that's my take.
What do you want to do?
I'm assuming that you're not actively *looking* for a job, and don't *need* a "job, any job". Your purpose in taking the interview is that you're interested to see if they've got something better than you have now.
On that basis, your questions to them should revolve around determining if the problems they have that you could work on are ones you really dream of tackling. There's two parts there: "what problems do they have?" and "can you work on them?" You need to dig out both.
Before you can assess their answers to the first question, you need to know what problems you want to work on. I don't have any suggestions here, as the stuff you mention is nowhere near my field. What I can relate to is that there are problems I see in my industry (and even my company) that really intrigue me and pique my interest. I'd be surprised if there weren't things you could identify in your industry or company that are the same -- problems that you'd *really* like to spend time and resources wrestling into submission, but can't in your current role for whatever reason (your current organisation doesn't have that problem, or they don't have the resources to tackle it, or you're not able to allocate resources to fix it, or someone else is responsible for it and won't let you play in their sandpit, or they're too small to have an interesting enough version).
Once you know what you might like to sink your teeth into, you just need to think of questions that will extract whether your prospect has those problems. Remember that they might not even realise they have the problem, so just asking "Do you need an X?" probably won't be effective. Instead, think of the visible *symptoms* of the underlying problem, and ask about those.
Finally, you need to make sure you'll be able to work on the problems that interest you. All the reasons I gave above for why you might not be able to do it at your current place are possible reasons why you won't be able to do it. I'd be especially wary of resourcing -- your prospect might recognise they have a problem, but they may not consider that the cost of the problem is worth the resources that you think will be necessary to fix it (they might be right or wrong on the true cost, but if they're not willing to spend the money, you're not going to get it). There's nothing more frustrating than being asked to boil the ocean, and then being handed a cigarette lighter.
Thanks for the insight.
Thanks for the insight. I think that I'll be focusing on questions that will shed light on whether or not this is the kind of place I can make an impact. I imagine I will have to play most questions by ear based on te way the discussions go. But at least I feel like I can go in prepared with a few that will ended it my understanding of their culture, structure and strategy so that I can try to see myself there (and perhaps convince them of the same).
interesting
That sounds really interesting. When we are not aware of our position and targets in a company and going for a general interview it makes the interview more difficult, since we are not aware of what they are expecting from us.
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