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Hey Spiceheads,

I have an interview next week and the headhunter told me I need to bring questions to ask the interviewer. It is an MSP job for systems administrator. I have to admit, I have never been good at this part. I never seem to have questions. It’s not that I don’t care; I just don’t seem to have any questions. I could Google some ideas but, I think Spiceheads can come up with better answers. I have a friend that is in sales and he has lots of questions he asks but, those are performance type questions.

I guess I don’t have to point out, this is important to me. I have been out for 4 months due to a family member’s injury and I need to get back to work.

Thanks for any help!

15 Spice ups
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What makes this a great place to work? Is it a great place to work?

How does the company grow? By acquisition or organically

What is the business plan for the next 5 years

How long have you worked here? What makes you stay

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Why did the guy I replace leave? :slight_smile:

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Make sure you have a long list, I’ve found in the past that by the time I have any chance to question, the interviewer has covered all the basic points in their description of the job and company.

Don’t ask about vacation allowances/vacation commitments you already have, save that for any follow up interview.

See if you can find out the salary range for the position, without giving away what you want.

Ask the interviewer to walk you through a day on the job, supposedly this implants the thought that they should give you the job!

Question will depend on whether it is a technical interview, or the initial get to know your personality type of interview with just an HR drone.

I did some reading on the Human Workplace website, some interesting techniques and tips there.

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What are the company’s goals over the next few years?

Do you have strict procedures or do you fly by the seat of your pants?

What infrastructure do you have? How up-to-date are you with major software releases?

What was your last big project and how did it go?

What kind of customers do you have? What kind of customer would you like to have?

What kind of people will my colleagues be? Personality-wise, career-wise?

How do you deal with overtime and being on-call? What’s the average amount of hours people work here?

How easy/difficult is it to book vacation?

What are the salary ranges and how much growth can I expect over the years?

Can I expect to grow within the company or is it a stagnant job prospect?

What are the educational opportunities in this company?

What are your main competitors and how does this company do compared to them?

…

There’s so much you can ask. It’s important that you do as well. It shows an interest in the job/company and it takes time away from them to ask you annoying questions to fill up time.

Update:
Like Martin Hunt said, it’s probably better to wait with questions about vacation and salaries until the follow-ups. But that still leaves a whole lot that you can ask.

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Take a look at their website and get familiar with their demographic and what they may specialize in, Just to see if it will really be a good fit.

With this ask the questions that will benefit your job like what types of systems do they use? Are they a Windows, Linux, or Mac shop, or a mix. Team size, scheduling and coordinating policies or preferences maybe?

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Toby, Jan and Martin all have good questions. Pare it down to 3 and you’ll be good to go.

p.s. As a bonus question, you should ask what the policy is on going commando. Alright, just funnin’ ya but one day I’ll tell you what story I told when interviewing and got the job.

@janrubbrecht @tobywells @mhunt

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I’d go with basics.

What hours do you typically operate?

If I have to work extended time on a project, are allowances made to rebalance my work/ilfe schedule?

How many users/systems would I be supporting?

How many people are currently on the IT team?

Do you have documentation in place?

What is your timeline for filling this positions?

How do you feel about me as a candidate at this point?

Good luck!

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What is the average tenure for the employees?

What makes the company’s culture special?

Is the company family owned?

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All very good questions in deed, and I have been doing some interviewing of my own and always go blank when the HR person ask me if I have any questions at the end as well… I’m like yeah how soon are you making a candidate selection, and hate it when they ask how much are expecting to get paid, hell I dont wanna shoot myself in the foot by saying something to high… but then you dont want to say to low either or they will be like hell yeah! your hired!

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A few more:

  • What is the annual IT budget?

  • Does the IT department have control over their own spending?

  • To whom will I be reporting? (Position title, not person’s name). If you’re the only IT person, and you’re not reporting to the Big Boss, getting things done could be a challenge.

    Follow-up: How long has the current person been in that position?

  • What has the average turnover for this position been? Turnover in IT is often different than turnover in the rest of a company, as IT professionals tend to have different metrics for judging job satisfaction. High IT turnover vs what the rest of the company sees could indicate a nightmare position.

  • What is the company’s projected growth for the next 3 to 5 years? They should have a handle on this; if not, the company may not be growing at all or they management may be largely clueless. It’s also important to understand for proper capacity planning. Finally, continued massive projected growth is sometimes a red flag. Growing too quickly brings a huge number of challenges, particularly for IT.

    Follow-up: Is IT’s budget projected to increase at a similar or greater rate?

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At a previous job, IT was expected to do the monthly snack run for the office. Will something this wildly out of the scope of my career field be expected of me?

How would you rate the skill set of the other members of the IT department? Do any of these people have any specialties?

Does this company actively encourage continuing education? Beyond expecting individuals to fund their own continuing education?

If you were allowed to have one business operations problem fixed here, instantly and permanently without any cost, what would it be?

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I like this one.

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“Did you read about some other business doing this so that’s why you want me to go out of my way to ask you questions? Why not an essay contest about how awesome your company is?”

Obviously don’t ask that, but I really hate these pseudo-modernisation attempts where they try to force people to do really ridiculous things. I will say, one thing I hate even more is “so, why should we hire you?” Any company that asks that is run by morons, and I say that as a moron who runs companies.

This is working under the assumption that it is a company requirement, and not just something your headhunter is telling you to do.

Good luck at any rate.

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Ask them which way they would program an autonomous driving car?

Would they program it to take evasive action to save the occupant or those around the car? If it came down to run someone over or drive off a cliff which way would they program the car to behave.

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Is this a new position or am I replacing someone?

Why did they leave?

Can I talk to a prospective coworker?

How long do most people stay here?

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Google interview questions, you’ll find plenty. Find the ones you like, put them all in a Word doc and print it out and bring it with you to the interview. Review what questions you think you might want to ask before the interview based on any research you have done and mark them. This way you have it in front of you and won’t forget to ask something.

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