Page 146 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

much interaction took place. If the interviewer asked fifteen
questions to your five, it probably went against you. In order for
the interview to go well, you have to match him blow for blow,
question for question.
Take every chance to drill down into the role itself and chal-

lenge the interviewer about the components of the job. Generic
questions such as, ‘What are the hours?’, ‘What’s the size of the
team?’ will not tell you anything significant. What you really

want to do is ask, ‘Tell me a bit about the role: what is a typical
day? What am I expected to do? Do I have KPIs? Am I going to be
measured? Are there quarterly appraisals? How often will I report
to my manager? What is my manager looking for from me?’ Give
yourself every opportunity to evaluate the job for yourself.

Imagine you’re the interviewer. You’ve had ten interviews –
all very standard. Somebody walks in and all of a sudden puts
you on the spot, challenges you, asks you a couple of tough

questions. That’s the interview you’re going to enjoy.
Does that show overconfidence on the candidate’s part? Let
me tell you something. At the end of the day, when you reflect
back on the ten people you met, the one who will stand out is the
person who asked the right questions and who challenged you.

I interviewed somebody quite recently who said, ‘James, I was
quite interested to read that you’d actually invested in a business
that failed.’

That immediately got my back up, and I said, ‘Really? Which
one was that?’ All of a sudden I was engaged, because now he
was almost interviewing me. I had to justify the statement he’d
made, so I said, ‘That’s interesting. Where did you read that?’

134 get the job you really want