Your interviewer is going to expect that as an interested applicant to their company that you’ve done some homework and will come prepared to ask some insightful questions. However, what many job seekers refuse to acknowledge is that the primary purpose of the interview is to make the interviewer comfortable and confident in their hiring decision. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Most of the questions that should never be asked during an interview are focused on what’s in it for the job seeker. Asking these questions portrays the job seeker as interested only in their own interests, not in the company’s interests and can torpedo your chances to secure an offer.

1. What does your company do? There is simply no excuse to arrive for any job interview without thoroughly researching the company and understanding their company, their history, their products and something about their industry and their position in that industry.
2. Do you do background checks? This question will sound the alarms in the interviewer’s head, immediately triggering concerns about what you may be hiding. Assume that all companies will investigate your background, confirm your academic credentials, check with your references and validate all periods of employment.
3. Do you do drug tests? Like the previous question, asking if they do drug tests raises concerns that you might not be prepared to pass a drug test or need some advance notice. Again, assume that every company will require a drug test and adjust your lifestyle if necessary to pass the test.
4. Do you have any other jobs available? If it becomes apparent during the interview that the job you’re interviewing for is well below your qualifications or anticipated compensation, it makes sense to interrupt the interviewer and inform them that you need to understand the growth potential of the position since you have 15 years of experience, have managed people and earned 25% more. That allows the interviewer to either explain the potential of the position or shift gears and present another opening that is more congruent with your experience.
5. Can you guarantee me that I’ll still have a job here a year from now? There are no absolutes in business, and there is no guarantee of future employment. Asking this question suggests that you have an expectation that the company owes you your job, not that you owe them your best effort. Work hard, demonstrate your value and you’ll likely still have your job in a year.
6. Can you tell me what public transportation is available nearby? Getting to work is your responsibility. So is learning how to get to work. If you require public transportation, investigate its convenience and timeliness before your interview. It’s not the company’s responsibility to show you how you can get to work on time.
7. Is (my/my spouse’s/my child’s) medical condition covered under your insurance plan? Although it’s illegal to ask you about any specific medical conditions you might have, if you volunteer that you or a family member has a chronic condition, that revelation may influence their decision to hire you. It’s perfectly fine to ask for a copy of their employee benefits booklet after a job offer is made, but it’s a bad idea to reveal any serious medical conditions during the interview process.
8. How many breaks do I get each day? Can I see the break room? Asking any questions about breaks implies that you’re more interested in those times when you don’t have to work than you are in performing the job itself. This prohibition also applies to asking anything about smoking breaks. Many companies prohibit smoking entirely and others recognize the additional health care burdens that frequently accompany smokers and prefer to hire non-smokers. Best to keep your concerns about breaks to yourself than provide a reason for an employer to reject you.
9. How many warnings do you give before someone is fired? Asking about any type of disciplinary process will raise immediate concerns about your suitability for the position. The interviewer will immediately wonder if you’ve had disciplinary issues in the past and if you will be difficult to work with. Better to avoid you altogether if there are any management concerns.
10. How soon can I transfer to another position? After spending the interview convincing the interviewer that you’re competent and interested in the job, it would be a huge mistake to imply that you’re more interested other potential opportunities. This question announces that you’ll jump at the first opportunity that presents itself and won’t be fully committed to the job that’s being considered.

Day 4 of our real-life, real-time job search with Cleveland sales executive Tim Krenn.

For those of you just tuning in, we’re documenting the real-life job strategies and efforts of a Cleveland-based sales executive whose looking for a new job.

So far, we’ve had Tim create his social media identities on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, we had him take a headshot that could be used as his visual identity across all his platforms, we created a professional blog bullgoosesales.com focusing on power sales and networking and we’re in the process of creating Tim’s personal brand.

Creating a distinctive and memorable personal brand may be the most important component of your entire job search. Every job seeker is armed with the same tools: a resume, cover letters and a lot of hope.

But, not matter how well written your résumé is or how thoughtful your cover letter is written, you still haven’t done enough to separate yourself from the rest of the people seeking the same job. You’ve got to stand apart. You’ve got to be distinctive. You’ve got to be memorable. Bottom line: you need to build your personal brand.

Your Unique Selling Proposition
At the core of your personal brand is your personal branding statement. What is it that separates you in your professional field? What makes you unique and desirable?

In sales, this would be called your Unique Selling Proposition. What is the one thing that will make a hiring manager tell himself that he’s got to meet you?

The problem most job seekers make when they define themselves is their definition is simple a restatement of their professional responsibilities. “I’m a recruiter .” Or “I’m a tax accountant.” But that’s not nearly enough. Your branding statement has to be much deeper than that. It must really reflect your core strengths and attributes that an employer will desperately want to have.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, when working with Tim, his first attempt at defining who he was resulted in the generic statement “I’m a sales executive.” Having known Tim for nearly 20 years and having worked with him professionally, I knew there was much more to him than that.

360 Degree Evaluation
I gave Tim an assignment to talk with his former managers, peers and clients and ask them how they would describe him. This process of getting feedback from people above, below and at your peer level is often referred to as a 360 degree evaluation and can be enlightening and revealing.

The feedback Tim received was pretty consistent and included descriptions like: genuine, passionate, empathetic, great listener, adjusts to anyone, understanding, personable, sincere, caring, achieving, personable and visionary.

The dominant theme revolved around Tim’s ability to connect with his clients and peers and build lasting relationships. And in sales, those relationships are crucial because people do business with people they like. Tim builds lasting friendships with everyone from the machine operator to the CEO and is able to convert these relationships into sales.

The Branding Statement
This recognition resulted in Tim creating his own personal branding statement:
I’m the guy who can build the relationships with the people you most want to do business with.

It’s simple, it’s focused and it’s intriguing. It’s the type of statement that invites the next question from a hiring manager: Tell me more.

Note what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a laundry list of everything that Tim can do. It didn’t include his record of achievement, though that record is impressive. It didn’t focus on his strategic sales and business development experience, though his skills there are also strong. But Tim focused on one thing. A single differentiator that leads to curiosity, interest and a face to face meeting where Tim can tell his whole story.

And that’s where we’re headed next. Telling the stories that illustrate who you are and why they need you. Stay with us as our real-life, real-time job search continues here on the Job Shopper.

The explosive growth of Facebook and its use for both personal and professional networking has revealed some cautionary tales from individuals who didn’t anticipate the damaging potential of too-familiar, vulgar or offensive profile content.

The destructive potential of an artless profile was revealed last week in a post written by Cleveland blogger clevelandsaplum. Her post detailed a candidate search for an addition to their public relations staff. After the first round of interviews, one candidate stood out as the clear favorite. But when the staff did a quick Google search and checked out his public Facebook profile, he lost any chance of being invited back.

Visible to anyone with access to Facebook, and shielded from no one was this stunning paragraph:

About Me:
I am awesome. I run sh**. I had relations with your girlfriend, and yes I got it on tape. I scoff at those less fortunate than me (read: everyone else). I tend to laugh at the handicapped as well as foreigners. I am a firm believer that women are without a doubt the weaker sex. I know more than you. I am a ridiculously huge deal. I’m utterly gorgeous, you (most likely as a result of terrible genes or an unfortunate run-in with the business-end of a shovel) are not. I make fun of ugly people, because they are ugly and they deserve it. My social life is clearly something that you will never experience because you are ugly, unpopular, or a severe combination of the two. I throw sh** onto my neighbor’s porch because I am better than them and they can’t do sh** about it. My friends are also better than you and they will let you know it. I break other people’s stuff. I do whatever I want without any regard for the repercussions. I intentionally ruin the environment via littering, not recycling, and other harmful action. I am an ass****.

Although it’s likely that this individual was attempting to be sarcastic and humorous, his description was highly offensive to those who viewed it within the company and it raised flags concerning his judgment and discretion. And in a heated competition with a dozen other qualified applicants, this was reason enough to eliminate him from consideration.

Now, go check out your own social media profiles and see if you’ve written anything that could offend or concern a potential hiring manager.

Then read these instructions to sanitize and protect your online reputation. Customize your privacy settings to restrict access to your personal information. Segregate all of your contacts into different lists, each with differing levels of access to your updates and photos. At a minimum, you should have a Personal list for your closest friends and a Professional list that allows you to connect with professional contacts but doesn’t grant access to all the intimate details of your life. Prevent photos tagged with your name from appearing in anyone else’s feed unless you specifically approve it. And restrict your personal updates solely to your close, personal friends.

Take control of your personal brand and online reputation before you become a cautionary tale yourself.

I hesitated, trying to figure out why he had asked. Then, almost in a what kind of idiot do you think I am tone I replied “Four”. Since he did not respond or nod right away I added, “Unless this is the kind of place where if you say it’s five, then it’s five. Or if the customer says it’s five then it’s five – but I have to tell you, even if you say it’s five – I’m the kind of guy who will work with five but I’ll probably still let you know I think it’s four.”

I got the job, but that answer was not the reason why. In fact a couple of years later the same guy (my boss) asked me to interview new applicants for a position and handed me his file of interview notes. I found his notes on my interview and examined the notes on that particular question. His notes: “Answered decisively – then went way too deep.”

One might argue that it was a great question to ask, replete with nuanced layers that most people don’t think of, but he actually just asked the question to test my reflexes. Unfortunately there are many ‘interviewers’ out there who either take behavioral interview or active listening techniques so literally that they miss the entire point of the interview. Or they wind up evaluating candidates on illegitimate criteria.

Even in an economy where the supply exceeds the demand, where cynicism runs rampant among those who have the jobs and are interviewing those that do not, and where companies are looking harder at ways to disqualify people than to qualify them there is still a great truth that gets overlooked time and again: the interview is a two way street.

Here is my advice to the interviewer on how to properly conduct an interview.

Step 1. Take the first few minutes to get to know the candidate and find some way to connect. This will put them more at ease and get you more honest and thoughtful responses. Perhaps you know people who live near where they live or grew up; perhaps you have friends who went to school where they went to school, or anything that has less to do with work and more to do with life.

Step 2. Discuss the opportunity (don’t run at the mouth or take too long to go over it since the candidate has presumably read the job description) and make sure the candidate has some understanding of what you’re looking for. Then ask them to tell you how they would approach the job. It’s very important to avoid interrupting, but do take the time to validate that you understand what they are talking about. DO NOT tell them things like, “you won’t be able to do that here” or “we’re not set up for that”. This disrupts their energy and enthusiasm and is counterproductive. Your goal is to determine the scope of the candidate’s vision, even if it doesn’t yet align precisely with yours.

Step 3. As they talk about what they would do, they’ll ask questions. Be prepared to answer them, and don’t be cagey. Sharing information goes a long way in building trust which will enhance the interview process immensely.

Step 4. Use the dialogue to take you to places you feel the interview needs to go. Interviews often end with the standard, “What else can I tell you?” or “Do you have any questions for me?” or “here is my card, call me anytime with questions.” While these are standard comments to end the interview, they often come across as insincere. So instead try, “Did we get to go over everything you had thought about before coming in?” or “Can I call you if I think of something else I wanted to ask you or talk about?” This simple twist may actually solicit some very important info that will help you make a decision about the next step. It will also make sure that, no matter how poorly the interview went, the candidate will likely have nice things to say about you and the company.

Step 5. Follow up. Even as you jot down your notes on the interview take a moment to send a quick email while you have the resume in hand. A “thanks for coming in; it was a pleasure meeting you.” goes a long way in making the candidate experience complete. That experience is key to the growth and morale of the company overall. These steps not only will help you become a better and more effective interviewer, but will also be instrumental in building your new employees’ morale.

The mistakes she details are pretty common, and can generally be categorized in two broad categories: lack of preparation and failure to focus on the company’s needs, not yours.

With all the information available on the web (including our own series of videos How to Handle the Toughest Interview Questions) there is no excuse for a job interviewer to be unprepared to handle some tough, probing questions. Even if the interviewer doesn’t ask the precise questions that we pose, your preparation and practice answering these tough questions should provide you with a concise understanding of your strengths, accomplishments and personal characteristics that make you attractive to a new company.

There’s also no excuse for any job candidate to arrive at an interview without knowing about the company. There are simply too many tools and sources available online that can provide a wealth of information not just about the company, but about the company’s executives as well. What message are you sending to the interviewer if you haven’t made the effort to learn anything about their company, their products, their culture or their staff?

Landing a job provides you with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of income, health care coverage, retirement savings and other benefits. If you can’t be bothered to invest at least several hours researching the company, then they’re likely correct in their assessment that you must not have wanted the job very badly. Do your homework.

Job seekers need constant reminders that the job interview isn’t about them. It’s all about the company.

When interviewing for a job, your first priority is understanding precisely what the company needs and then convincing them that you can fulfill these needs. By demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of their needs, you can differentiate yourself from the other candidates they’re talking to. And differentiation is crucial. Not just by the set of skills you have, but by the enthusiasm and energy you display. They want to hire someone who is genuinely excited by the prospect of working with them, so make sure you present yourself as someone they’ll want to work closely with.

One final thought that the writer left out of her piece: send a thank-you note immediately after the interview. Not an e-mail. Not a tweet. A real note on genuine paper. It sets you apart from the 90% of candidates who don’t ever send a follow up note of any kind and provides you with an opportunity to reinforce your skills and demonstrate your enthusiasm. And isn’t a new job worth the 44 cent stamp?

By the time you get to the 5th toughest interview question, you should have already addressed your professional qualifications and your desire to work for the company.  Now the interviewer will try to get a feel for your personal goals and aspirations with the question: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

The first thing you need to understand is what the interviewer is looking for. They want to know if you’re serous about their company. Do you intend to be there long-term or are they just a stepping stone to a job that you really want? Are you serious about your career? How does this job help you achieve your career objectives?

The bottom line is that this question provides you with an opportunity to show your commitment to the job and your knowledge of the company’s vision and your role in achieving that vision. So, you have to have done your homework about the organization, its structure and its strategy in order to provide a thoughtful response.

Whatever you do, don’t answer that you see yourself in the interviewer’s job. You might think it’s amusing, but you have no way of knowing how insecure the interviewer is and they may not hire someone who they fear would undermine them. Keep your answer serious and relevant.

There are very few careers that provide a clear path of advancement that everyone follows. Almost everyone I know advanced their career through a series of unforeseen opportunities and fortuitous breaks that they were able to exploit and channel into professional advancement.

The keys, though, were their abilities to identify these opportunities, apply their professional talents, learn new skills and propel their projects to success. They took charge, they showed initiative and they demonstrated their value.

These are the same qualities that your interviewer is going to look for, so your response could be something like:

In five years I would like to have progressed to the point where I have responsibility for all the marketing activities dealing with the company’s mobile software products and am actively engaged in determining product development and marketing strategies.  I’d like to be involved in the company’s efforts to expand their social media marketing efforts and create your industry’s first truly interactive marketing presence.

There. You’ve stated your desire to pursue greater responsibility and accountability without getting too specific about job titles, and you’ve demonstrated your commitment to engage in new pursuits that can add real value to the company. They may never happen, but your response demonstrates your thoughtfulness, your ambition and your commitment.

With luck, in 5 years, you’ll be seated behind the desk celebrating your career successes.

During most of the job interview, the interviewer is trying to determine a few key issues. First of all, are you capable of doing the job? They probe your background, explore your accomplishments and try to gain some understanding of your potential value to their company.

Eventually, they’re going to extend their questioning beyond your skills and capabilities and try to determine your motivations. They know you want to work somewhere, they’re just not sure why you want to work for them.

So, how do you prepare for the inevitable question: Why do you want to work here?

First of all you need to understand what they want to hear. They want to know that you’ve investigated their company. That you know their products and services. You’re familiar with their position in their industry. That you know something about the company’s background. In short, they want you to show that you care enough about the company and the job to have done your homework.

So, do your homework.

Start with the company website. Read about their company background. Know who started the company and whether or not those individuals are still with the company. If there is a management page, read the bios for each major executive. Check out their profiles on LinkedIn to see where they went to school , where they worked before and what titles they’ve held. You never know when you might have shared contacts that you can ask to put in a good word for you.

If there’s an annual report, read it. See how they’re positioning themselves publicly. Are they in a fast growth mode or are they apologizing for lackluster performance? Check out their revenue and profit trends. And read the letter from the president to gauge the character and personality of the company.

Read about their products. Not just on their website but on other sites that review their products or on user forums where consumers talk about their products and services. The user forums provide enormously valuable information since their participants provide unvarnished feedback about the company, their products and their responsiveness.

Check the newswires for press releases or any press mentions at all. How actively do they promote new products? Have they had any recent acquisitions? Have they been involved in any scandalous behavior?

Search the blogosphere for mentions of the company, its products and its executives. There are blogs that deal with every single industry and they frequently provide the best source of inside information on industry trends, company perceptions and feedback from industry insiders.

Once you done the research, you’re ready to answer the question.

I read in last month’s Fast Company that your company is leading your industry in design innovation and its focus on the overall user experience. The product reviews I’ve read on CNET and the Wall Street Journal have been terrific, and the company seems poised to dominate their sector. I’ve always enjoyed working in entrepreneurial and innovative environments, and believe that my experience in consumer packaging and point of sale design can help your company stand out in the retail space that you’re poised to enter.  Can you tell me a little about your efforts to get into the big box chains?

There. You demonstrated that you did some research, you read about their company, its products and its plans. You positioned yourself as a potential contributor to their future success and you kept the conversation going by asking about a specific initiative that they’re pursuing. All of which leads the interviewer to conclude that you really do want to work there.

One of the most dreaded interview questions that virtually every interviewer asks is: What are your greatest weaknesses?

So, what makes this one of the most uncomfortable questions to handle? As a job seeker, you understandably want to highlight your positive attributes instead of introducing personal characteristics that could eliminate you from consideration for a job.

You have to be thoughtful and careful with your response. If you admit that you have trouble getting to work on time and resent being told what to do by your superiors, you’re interview is going to be pretty short.

So, what’s the best way to handle this question?

First, understand that as humans we all have weaknesses. In fact, your career choices have likely been guided as much to avoid your weaknesses as to play to your strengths. Your interviewer knows this and wants to gauge how honest you are with your own shortcomings.

The keys to answering this question lie in doing your homework so you understand clearly what your real strengths and weaknesses are so you can prepare an answer that reveals an appropriate, relevant weakness, tells the interviewer how you deal with it and how you leverage your strengths to compensate for any professional shortcomings.

Stay away from the trite response that your greatest weakness is that you work too hard or you’re such a perfectionist that you have to make sure that everything you produce is spectacular. Your interviewer is looking for something, honest, truthful and insightful. They want an answer that indicates that you have some capacity for introspection and honest personal assessment.

If your weakness is a lack of organization, or difficulty attending to detail, your response could be:

I recognized back in school that I have trouble staying on top of a lot of details. After some missed class assignments I realized that I need an easy system to stay organized. My system has evolved over the years and I now use a combination of tools on my PC and my phone to write down the tasks I need to perform, track projects and assignments and set alarms to remind me throughout the day when I need to meet a project deadline, attend a meeting or make a call. I’ve also learned to delegate specific tasks to my assistant to ensure that contracts and other important documents are signed and filed properly, meeting confirmations are made and my calendar is kept up to date. The system is part of my daily routine so it’s effective and lets me focus on business development.

With the right preparation you can reveal a weakness without appearing weak and get on to more important things, like salary negotiations.

With the advent of business casual workplaces, the dress code for many job interviews has changed, confusing many job seekers who used to understand the rules of business dress.

What should you wear when you’re told that the business environment is business casual? This video from NESCO Resource provides some guidance.

The granddaddy of all job interview questions is still, surprisingly, the one that proves the most difficult for the majority of job seekers to answer.

Tell me about yourself.

It’s really more of a request than a question, but it can put you on the spot and knock you out of contention for the job if you don’t respond appropriately.

The most important thing to recognize is what the interviewer wants to hear. They don’t want to hear about your childhood, your college years or your hobbies and interests. They want to get a feel for your skills, experience, talents and accomplishments.

Do not ask the interview for clarification on the question, or whether they’re interested in you personally or professionally. You’re not responding to Match.com you’re in a job interview. You ought to know what they’re interested in. And you can be pretty sure that they want to hear about your technical writing skills and not your tennis game.

You should walk into every interview ready with a 90 second to 2 minute response that contains the key elements that they want to hear:

1. A brief introduction
2. Your key accomplishments
3. Your primary strengths demonstrated by these accomplishments
4. The importance of these strengths to the employer
5. How you see yourself developing these talents further for the employer

I’ll assume you’ve already done the groundwork and have taken a complete inventory of your personal strengths and professional accomplishments. And you’ve determined which of those attributes are MOST important to the employer.

Let’s assume you’re interviewing for a position as project manager for a software development company. You’ve got the skills and experience necessary to do the job, now you’ve got to convey, concisely, how you can help the employer achieve their business objectives by hiring you.

I’ve spent my entire career in software development, loving the challenges of staying on top of the latest technologies and creating thoughtful software solutions that help businesses perform better.
Although I’ve always loved the process of coding applications, I discovered early on that I enjoy the strategic elements of software development even more. I’ve always been extremely organized, and I’ve discovered that my ability to envision and organize complex tasks is crucial to successful software development. At my last job, I was responsible for the mobile applications group that was preparing to launch mobile applications for the Blackberry and iPhone that would synchronize with the company’s desktop software. When I arrived, the software was already 3 months late and costing the company both in lost revenue and damaged reputation. With help from the marketing group I established new priorities, set benchmarks for our developers on both platforms, created a reporting system that enabled everyone to see daily progress and delivered the new mobile apps in 45 days. These mobile apps have now been adopted by over 60% of the company’s clients and generated over $150K in revenue.
As the leading software company in the social media space, I can bring the same commitment, organization and structure to your development projects to ensure that you maintain first mover status. How are your new mobile applications coming along?

There. I’ve introduced my primary professional strengths, illustrated how I’ve applied those strengths in a previous position, demonstrated the value of my experience and opened the interview to discuss their specific projects to explore specifically how I can contribute to their business objectives.

And if they want to know about my tennis game, we can chat about it over lunch. After I’m hired.