February 27, 2019 • 28 mins
The power dynamics in job interviews can make job seekers overly deferential. Don't do it! Today we talk about nailing your tone in an interview.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleagues, We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assist at people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep
taking credit for all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi,
I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where
I answer questions from listeners about life at work, everything
from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
perfume to what to do if you drink too much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
to the show. Last year, I did a couple of
episodes that were all about tone. One was just generally
about what kind of tone to use in tricky conversations
at work, and one was about getting your tone right
when you're a manager. Those were some of the most
(00:44):
popular episodes of the show, and I've had requests to
do more of them on tone and other specific work situations.
So I thought that today we would talk about tone
and job interviews, because that is an interesting situation where
a lot of people feel like they're supposed to be
pretty deferential, but where in fact you will usually come
across better if you drop that deference. Now, to be clear,
(01:08):
that doesn't mean that you should be aggressive or adversarial
and job interviews you of course should not be, but
you will usually come across as a more confident and
a more appealing candidate if your tone is more matter
of fact, more collaborative, something closer to peers. So I
thought we could talk about the tone that you want
to strike in job interviews in general, and then talk
(01:30):
through some specific tricky situations that you might find yourself
in when your job searching, and what an effective tone
of voice will sound like. So let's first talk about
tone and job interviews in general. Job interviews have really
weird power dynamics in a lot of ways, more so
than other work situations do. A lot of people go
(01:53):
into interviews feeling like the interviewer has all the power
and they have none, and they want something that the
interviewer has a job, and so they feel like they
need to be very deferential throughout the whole process, and
that is not the right way to approach it. If
you are a good candidate, you have some power in
this situation too. This is not a situation where you're
(02:17):
just waiting for someone to decide to pick you, like
on the Bachelor. You should be evaluating your interviewer right
back and thinking about whether this is a job that
you want and a manager who you want to work with,
and a company that you want to work for. You
don't need to be really deferential, like you're a subject
talking to the king or the queen. You need to
(02:38):
be polite, of course, but that is different from deferential.
The tone that you want to use is actually really
similar to the tone that you would use in most
other business meetings. Friendly, collaborative, and direct. Think of yourself
as talking to a colleague you don't know very well,
(02:59):
and where the two of you are thinking about working
on a project together, because that actually is the situation here.
You're both trying to decide, not just the interviewer. Both
of you are trying to decide if it makes sense
to work together. It's not just you waiting for the
interviewer to pass judgment on you, which is the approach
and the vibe that a lot of people take into
(03:19):
an interview room with them. So that means things like
you don't need to apologize excessively if you aren't available
at the very first interview time an employer suggests, or
you don't need to act like you're committing a major crime.
If you decide to turn down a job, you're an
equal partner in this conversation about whether or not to
(03:41):
work together, even if you really really want this particular job.
And it's important to remember that because it will lead
you toward using the right tone and toward sounding like
a confident equal. And that's a lot more appealing to
good employers than sounding overly deferential. Is now, I should
say there is actually an exception to that really bad employers,
(04:04):
because really bad employers sometimes do screen for people who
are overly deferential. Not deliberately, you know, it's not like
they're in their hiring planning process meetings and they say,
we really need to find someone who's going to cow
tow to us. It's generally more unconscious than that, but
at some level, bad employers often do screen for people
(04:25):
who are very differential because they want to hire people
who will accept very bad treatment as employees. So if
you're ever talking to someone who does some hiring and
they tell you, oh, no, I actually like to see
defference from job candidates, you know, I like it when
people really lean into the power dynamics of interviewing. That is,
someone who is revealing to you that they are probably
(04:45):
pretty terrible to work with. You want to screen them out,
and it is a good thing to do that. Now,
all that doesn't mean that there aren't still some power
dynamics in interviews that you need to play along with.
There are, and they usually show up as double stand
words like it's okay for your interviewer to answer their
phone in the middle of an interview, but it generally
(05:06):
would not be thought okay for you, as the candidate,
to do that same thing with being late. You know,
your interviewer can get away with being a little late
and you can't. And that is just how the conventions
on this stuff are. But it doesn't translate into meaning
that your whole tone and demeanor needs to be super deferential,
because it doesn't. Okay, let's do some specific conversations that
(05:30):
you might have while you're interviewing and what your tone
should sound like. So let's say that you're sitting in
the interview and you're asked a question that you're just
completely stumped by. You have no idea how to answer it,
So first, don't try to bluff your way through it,
because they will probably be able to tell and that
will make you look bad, far worse than if you're
just honest about it. But what is being honest about
(05:53):
it actually sound like? So it could be the say,
you know, I actually don't know the answer to that.
When I have encountered similar things in the past, I've
done X and Y, and that usually gets me pointed
in the right direction. So matter of fact and confident,
your tone isn't conveying that you're mortified or that you're
worrying that you've blewned the interview. Your tone is saying
(06:15):
that you are a normal human, and normal humans don't
always have answers to everything, and you're comfortable with that,
and that's actually pretty appealing, and in fact, that will
probably be very intuitive if you think about how you
want coworkers to handle it when they don't know something.
You don't want them to blow a bunch of hot air,
you know, you don't want them to just bluff their
(06:37):
way through it. You want them to give an answer
that is is a matter of fact about the fact
that they don't know, but also where they don't sound
totally shaken that they don't know. Now, obviously, if the
answer to that one question is very crucial to you
getting hired. Then that's not great, but you know that
was going to be the case no matter what you said,
so you might as well sound pleasant and matter of
(06:59):
fact and not freaked out by being imperfect. And for
most situations where one single interview question isn't make or break,
that's going to help you. Okay, let's make it a
little more nerve racking. Let's say that as you're talking
to your interviewer, one of you realizes there's a mistake
on your resume. Maybe they point out that your resume
(07:19):
says that you left your last job in two or
something like that. You don't need to run out of
the room and shame or beg forgiveness or let it
throw you off your game. The rest of the time,
you just say, oh, no, thank you for bringing that
to my attention so I can fix it. I am
normally a neurotic proof reader. So this is mortifying. Now.
(07:41):
Remember how with the example just before about not knowing
the answer to the question, I said you don't need
to sound mortified, But here I am actually saying the
words I'm mortified. And that is because in this case,
you need to convey that a mistake on your resume,
a document that is expected to be really polished is
out of character for you. You need to sound like
you take it seriously without sounding like you're gonna leave
(08:04):
and throw yourself down the elevator shaft as penance. Let's
do another one where you've messed up a bit. Let's
say you're stuck in traffic and you're you're realizing that
you're gonna be late to the interview. Now, ideally this
won't happen because you've allowed yourself a buffer, but you know,
sometimes it happens, and maybe it's your fault, maybe it's not,
but either way, now you have to call the employer
(08:26):
and tell them that you're running late, which no one
wants to do for an interview. The thing here, kind
of the same as with the resume mistake, is that
the interviewer has no way of knowing if this is
par for the course with you, you know, if you're
someone who's always late and as cavalier about it. So
you've got to convey with both your words and your
tone that this is not your normal MMO. So you
(08:48):
want to sound a little mortified, and you want to
make it clear that you take it seriously and This
is actually an example of one of those double standards
I was talking about earlier, because it is true that
your interviewer can stroll in twenty minutes late your interview
and not sound mortified about it. But convention says you
are supposed to be on time as the candidate. I
don't want that to undercut my message at the start
(09:09):
of the show about how your equals because you are.
This is just about recognizing the convention around this type
of thing. So when you call it sounds like this,
I'm so sorry about this. I had left with plenty
of extra time, but there is a massive traffic jam
on three that looks like it's going to make me
about ten or fifteen minutes late, and I realized that
is later than you had planned. Well, that's still work
(09:31):
for your schedule. So the tone is concerned and taking
it seriously, but also not you know, throwing yourself on
their mercy. You're still an adult equal. Let's do a
short break here. We'll come back with some examples where
you are not the one messing up your interviewer is.
(09:58):
Let's talk through more example of tone when you're interviewing.
Let's say that your interviewer asks you an inappropriate question,
like asking about your religion or your plans for having kids,
or something else they shouldn't be asking about. Now, I
do want to know that, despite widespread belief to the contrary,
it's actually not illegal in the United States for an
(10:21):
interviewer to ask you about those things. There's no law
that says they can't ask about your religion, or your ethnicity,
or whether you're married, or plans for kids. What is
illegal is for them to make a hiring decision based
on your answers to those questions. So the question itself legal,
Doing anything at all with the information illegal, and so
(10:43):
because of that, smart employers don't ask those questions. You know,
it's opening the door for you to think later if
they reject to you that maybe it was based on
your answers to those questions, and that's asking for legal
trouble um. You know. One exception to this I should
note is actually disability. It is it is goal for
them to ask direct questions about disability, But for the
other categories that people tend to limp in, there no
(11:06):
just using the info anyway. Some people will ask anyway,
as in some cases it's because they're ignorant of the law,
or they don't care about the law. But in a
lot of cases, they're just making small talk without realizing
that they're straying into dangerous territory. Like someone might ask
you if you have kids because you've just moved to
(11:27):
the area, and they're making small talk and they're going
to offer some helpful advice on their local schools or something,
and you're sitting there thinking, crap, are they weird about parents?
And they were trying to figure out if I'm going
to need to leave early for childcare pickup or something,
So it's all very fraught. What do you do when
you get asked one of these questions that you really
(11:48):
shouldn't be asked. Honestly, if your sense is that the
person really is just making small talk, they're just trying
to be friendly, you will generally get a better outcome
if you take it in spirit. But if you get
the sense that something sketchier is going on, one option
is to answer the question that you think they're really
(12:09):
trying to get at, Like if you think they're asking
if you have kids because they're worried that you won't
be at work reliably, you can sidestep the question of
kids and just say something like, oh, there's nothing in
my personal life that would interfere with my ability to
work the hours of the job and to make the
work a top priority, so breazy speaking directly to the concern.
(12:31):
If something is more overtly offensive, or if you just
can't figure out what they're really getting at, you can
always say why do you ask? The key here, though,
is that you have to say it in a friendly,
pleasant tone and just sound curious, not piste off. I
mean you don't have to, of course, but if you're
still interested in the job and you want to preserve rapport,
(12:54):
why do you ask? Is a good way to respond
that doesn't seem wildly adversarial. You could even say, I've
never been asked that before in an interview. What makes
you ask? So? Curious? Pleasant, not defensive? Just why do
you ask that? Let's do another tricky one. Let's say
(13:16):
that you're interviewing with a company and you found that
they have really awful reviews on something like glass Door.
Not like one or two bad reviews, because those can
be outliers, but a real pattern of just terrible reviews
from their employees. You can ask about that, and really
you should ask about it because unless you're in a
desperate position where you need to take just any job
that's offered to you, you want to know what you're
(13:38):
getting into and you want to see how they respond.
Do they just give you some public relations fluff or
do they engage with the topic in a serious way
that sounds like they're making real changes. But you've got
to ask about it in a way that doesn't sound accusatory.
You don't want to make them feel defensive or like
you're calling them out on something. You want to sound
(13:58):
like you're saying, basically, hey, I saw this thing that
concerned me. I know there might be more to it.
What can you tell me about it? So that might
sound like this, I've noticed that the company's reviews from
employees on glassdoor include a lot of concerns about culture
and work hours, and I'm curious what your take is
on that and if it's something that the company is
working to change. So inquisitive and curious, but not accusatory.
(14:23):
And really, if someone reacts badly to that, that's going
to tell you a lot. Okay, let's say that you're
interviewing for a job and You're talking to a bunch
of different people there, and as you do, you're hearing
conflicting things about the job. One person tells you that
the focus is X, and another person says, oh, X
isn't as important as it used to be. Why is
really where this person will will be focusing or whatever.
(14:45):
But the idea is you're hearing different things from different people,
and it's important enough that you want to get it
clarified before you could comfortably take that job. So maybe
you say something like this, I've noticed that I have
her different perspectives on the job from Jane and Bob
and Olivia, and it sounds like, on one hand, some
(15:05):
people want to see the job focus on X, but
other people really think it should be focusing on why.
Can you help me get a better sense of how
those are going to be balanced and whether there is
internal alignment about what people want to see from the position.
So again, the tone here, matter of fact, curious, here's
this thing that I've noticed, can you just help me
(15:26):
understand it better now? I took a look through some
past letters at the Asking Manager website that we're asking
questions about interviews where tone was especially important, and I
thought we could talk through some of those two. One
person wrote in about an interview that they had where
their interviewers all seemed to have some kind of problem
with the job itself, the job that she was interviewing for,
(15:48):
and they kept saying things like, well, what do you
think is missing from this job description? And what do
you see as problematic about this job? And she, of
course was wondering what is going on because it seems
like a red flag, but she wasn't sure how to
figure out what it was really about. So when something
in an interview is confusing you, it is okay to
(16:09):
ask about it. In a situation like that, you could
say something that sounds like this, I'm curious about the
questions that you're asking. It sounds like you might have
some concerns about how the role is structured. Am I
reading that correctly? Or maybe it's this I'm curious to
hear your thoughts on that question too. Do you think
(16:29):
there's something problematic about the role? You ought to be pleasant,
your tonys to sound curious, not annoyed, But you're there
to get information just as much as they are, and
it's okay to ask about what you're hearing. If it's
not clear to you. Another person wrote in asking if
there was a way to ask if they would have
to work much with one particular person. Apparently there was
(16:51):
someone who was just like rude and horrible throughout the process,
and they had heard bad things about them, and they
were wondering, is there a way to say, you know, hey,
I'm interested in the job, but how closely would I
be working with that guy? You can't say it like that,
of course, but you could say something that sounds like this,
I have so enjoyed getting the chance to learn more
about the job. Can you give me a sense of
(17:12):
how my role interacts with Bob? How closely would we
end up working together? If at all? The tone here
has got to be neutral the way I just did it.
You don't want it to sound like you're saying I
don't want to work with Bob. The person you're talking
to is probably going to figure out why you're asking,
but it's important that you do it in a way
(17:32):
that sounds professional. Well, we are zipping through these examples,
which is good because it means we can fit in
a bunch more of them. Let's do a final break here,
and then I want to come back with a whole
bunch more, including how to talk to a hostile interviewer,
and also how to talk about an especially sensitive topic
being fired, and lots more. I sometimes get letters from
(18:01):
people who encounter truly hostile interviewers, interviewers who are just jerks,
and you figure out during the conversation that there is
no way in hell that you would ever take a
job working for this person. If you are in that situation,
you don't need to stay and be abused. You are
allowed to end the interview early, just like the interviewer
(18:22):
is allowed to do that too. The most low key
way to do it is to say something like this.
You know, as we're talking, I'm getting the sense that
the fit here wouldn't be right. I really appreciate your time,
best of like filling the position, but I think we
should probably wrap up here. And that's the tone, polite
but matter of fact and firm. But if you want
(18:46):
to be more direct about it, and sometimes you might
want to, if you're not worried about burning a bridge,
it could be something like this. I have to be honest,
your tone is really throwing me here. I don't think
we would work well together, so I don't think it
makes sense to keep talking, but I appreciate your time
meeting with me, and I wish you the best in
filling the job. That's a or let's say you realize
(19:10):
during the interview you definitely aren't going to take this job,
but it's not because anyone's being a jerk. It's just
clear to you that it's not the right job for you.
In most of those cases, it does make sense to
just stay and finish it out, because you know, who
knows it's possible that they'll have an opening in the
future that you do want, so you want to make
a good impression. But if you're like in the middle
(19:31):
of an all day interview, it doesn't make sense for
you or for them to invest a bunch of hours
when you already know you're not taking the job. So
in that case, you can say something like this, you know,
as we're talking, I'm realizing this probably isn't the right
fit for me. I really appreciate the time you've spent
talking to me, but I wouldn't feel right taking it
more of your time now. Ideally, you would also say
(19:54):
something brief if there's something you're comfortable with that explains
what you're reasoning if you can capture it easily in
a sentence or two. So it might be something like,
you know, as we're talking, I'm realizing I'm looking for
something that's more X oriented. Or I hadn't realized the
job was so heavily focused on X, or it sounds
(20:16):
like we're much farther apart on salary than I had realized.
So again, matter of fact, pleasant, warm, but but direct
about what you are thinking. Okay, let's say you have
had multiple interviews with the company and they just keep
asking for more. I'm not talking about two or three interviews.
That's pretty normal, but some people end up with five
(20:38):
or six or even more interviews for the same job.
If that is happening and they have not clearly told
you what remains in the process, you can ask about it.
So it would sound like this, can you tell me
more about what steps are still remaining in the process
and what you're likely timeline is for a decision. Or
you could even say, I'm so interested in this position,
(21:01):
but it's becoming harder for me to take time of
work for additional meetings. Is there any way we could
consolidate some of the remaining steps so the tone there
isn't demanding, but it's a sort of it's pleasant, but
it's still as sort of. Now, let's say that you
go through the interview process and you get the offer
and you want to ask for some kind of perk,
(21:22):
like let's say, working from home on Fridays. It helps
to frame the request as would you be open to X?
Or I'd like X because of why is that an
option on your end? And that way you're being direct
about what you want, but you're not demanding it. So
if you want to ask about working from home, it
could sound like this, my current job is very work
(21:44):
from home friendly and I usually work from home a
few times a month. Would you be open to me
continuing to do that? So very matter of fact? Or
you could even tie it to salary, like if they
were not able to meet the salary that you asked for.
Maybe you decide that you want to ask for one
work from home to age week to make the offer
more attractive to you. So it could be this, I
(22:05):
do understand you can't go up to X. I would
be willing to accept the job for why if I
was able to work from home one day a week?
Since there's real value to me and cutting back on
my commute? Would that work on your end? So the
tone here is pleasant, it's a matter of fact. It's
not aggressive negotiating. It's not being very deferential and cow towing.
(22:26):
You're just two business people seeing if you can figure
out mutually agreeable terms. That's the tone. Speaking of salary,
I think people really struggle with tone when they're talking
about salary because mostly we're also freaked out by it.
There's actually a whole separate episode of the show that
is about what a salary negotiations should sound like, So
you might want to check that out. It's the episode
(22:47):
from April, and it's called what should Salary Negotiations Sound Like?
So if you want to listen to that, do But
I want to talk about a piece of salary discussions
that didn't get talked about there, which is how to
handle questions about what you have earned in the past. Now,
to be clear, your salary history is no one's business
(23:09):
but yours, and it's pretty ridiculous that employers, some employers
still expect you to share it. In fact, it's so
ridiculous that some states are actually making it illegal for
employers to ask which is great. Those states, by the way,
so you can see if you're in one of them, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts,
New York, Oregon, and Vermont. But in most of the US,
(23:33):
it's still legal for them to ask, and it's legal
for them to require an answer from you. So let's
talk about what to do if that happens, assuming that
you're not somewhere where it's legally prohibited. So if you
are asked what you've been making in the past or
what you're making currently, instead try just answering with what
you're looking for. Like it could just be someone says,
(23:56):
you know, what have you been earning in your most
recent job and you say, oh, well, right now, I'm
looking for something in the range of X to Y.
Sometimes they will accept an answer and not push to
know what you're making now. But if they do push,
you can try saying, well, that's actually covered under my
confidentiality agreement with my employer. We're not allowed to share
(24:16):
the company salary structure outside the company, but I'm looking
for X to Y because that is actually probably true.
Take a look at your company manual and there is
a very good chance that you will find that that
is in there, or at least that it's an unofficial expectation.
But what if you get an employer who's really pushing
this and just won't drop it. And what if you
know that you're underpaid and you don't want them to
(24:38):
tie a salary offer to what you've been making. In
that case, it could sound like this. Well, one of
the main reasons that I am looking to change jobs
is actually that I know I'm underpaid for the field
I'm leaving in part to get my salary back in
line with market rates, meaning X to Y for a
job like this one. Very early on in my career,
(24:59):
I is actually in this exact situation. I had been
working for a nonprofit earning hardly anything, and I was
interviewing for a job that would more than double my salary,
and when they asked about it, I said it this way,
let's see if I can recreate this. This was years ago.
I said something like, I've really loved the work that
(25:20):
I've been doing, and I was willing to do it
for well below market rates because I was so personally
invested in the organization and I was learning a huge
amount that I wouldn't have had the chance to learn
somewhere else. But now I'm ready to move on from
that stage. And part of the reason that I'm leaving
is because I want to be paid a normal market rate.
And it worked, got the job, doubled my salary. Okay,
(25:41):
let's do one more, and let's do when that. People
get really nervous about how to talk about a past
firing in an interview. If you get asked about why
you left a job that you were fired from, the
key to talking about it is to be calm, not defensive,
and not better and actually not a move sal at
all for that matter. And to be concise, you really
(26:04):
just need a sentence or two here. I think sometimes
people think they're supposed to give a really lengthy explanation
new Your interviewer does not need or want all the details,
just the upshot. So like, what are two sentences? Here's
some examples of what it could sound like. Actually, I
was let go. I reported to two different managers, and
I got conflicting instructions from each of them, and I
(26:26):
didn't speak up about it when I should have. I
just tried to make it all work, and ultimately I
dropped some balls. It taught me a ton about needing
to speak up early on when priorities aren't clear so
that it won't happen again. Or here's a different way
you could say something like, you know, it ended up
being a bad fit. They were looking for design expertise,
(26:47):
and I'm really an editor, not a designer. So ultimately
we agreed it didn't make sense for me to stay
in that job. Okay, those were a lot of examples,
and hopefully it helped to hear them out loud if
they're is another topic where you want me to tackle
tone right in and let me know. I'm at podcast
at ask a Manager dot org. And also I don't
(27:08):
normally make a big plug for my book on the show,
but if you have found this kind of sample language useful,
you might really like the Aska Manager book because it's
filled with sample language for all sorts of situations that
you might run into at work. And there's a whole
section on talking to your interviewer. In fact, I took
some of the examples today from the book, so if
you want to check it out. It's called Ask a Manager,
(27:29):
How to Navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the
rest of your life at work. And you can order
it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. Okay, that
is it for today. I will be back next week
with our more traditional Q and A format. Thanks for
listening to the Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like
to come on the show to talk through your own question,
email it to podcast at Asking manager dot org, or
(27:51):
you can leave a recording of your question by calling
eight five five four T six work. That's eight five
five four two six nine seven five. To get more,
ask a manager at ask a Manager dot org or
in my book Ask a Manager How to Navigate clueless colleagues,
lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of your life at work.
The Ask a Manager Show is a partnership with How
Stuff Works and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you
(28:13):
liked what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate,
and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
another one of your questions.
My colleagues, We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assist at people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep
taking credit for all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi,
I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where
I answer questions from listeners about life at work, everything
from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
perfume to what to do if you drink too much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
to the show. Last year, I did a couple of
episodes that were all about tone. One was just generally
about what kind of tone to use in tricky conversations
at work, and one was about getting your tone right
when you're a manager. Those were some of the most
(00:44):
popular episodes of the show, and I've had requests to
do more of them on tone and other specific work situations.
So I thought that today we would talk about tone
and job interviews, because that is an interesting situation where
a lot of people feel like they're supposed to be
pretty deferential, but where in fact you will usually come
across better if you drop that deference. Now, to be clear,
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that doesn't mean that you should be aggressive or adversarial
and job interviews you of course should not be, but
you will usually come across as a more confident and
a more appealing candidate if your tone is more matter
of fact, more collaborative, something closer to peers. So I
thought we could talk about the tone that you want
to strike in job interviews in general, and then talk
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through some specific tricky situations that you might find yourself
in when your job searching, and what an effective tone
of voice will sound like. So let's first talk about
tone and job interviews in general. Job interviews have really
weird power dynamics in a lot of ways, more so
than other work situations do. A lot of people go
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into interviews feeling like the interviewer has all the power
and they have none, and they want something that the
interviewer has a job, and so they feel like they
need to be very deferential throughout the whole process, and
that is not the right way to approach it. If
you are a good candidate, you have some power in
this situation too. This is not a situation where you're
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just waiting for someone to decide to pick you, like
on the Bachelor. You should be evaluating your interviewer right
back and thinking about whether this is a job that
you want and a manager who you want to work with,
and a company that you want to work for. You
don't need to be really deferential, like you're a subject
talking to the king or the queen. You need to
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be polite, of course, but that is different from deferential.
The tone that you want to use is actually really
similar to the tone that you would use in most
other business meetings. Friendly, collaborative, and direct. Think of yourself
as talking to a colleague you don't know very well,
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and where the two of you are thinking about working
on a project together, because that actually is the situation here.
You're both trying to decide, not just the interviewer. Both
of you are trying to decide if it makes sense
to work together. It's not just you waiting for the
interviewer to pass judgment on you, which is the approach
and the vibe that a lot of people take into
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an interview room with them. So that means things like
you don't need to apologize excessively if you aren't available
at the very first interview time an employer suggests, or
you don't need to act like you're committing a major crime.
If you decide to turn down a job, you're an
equal partner in this conversation about whether or not to
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work together, even if you really really want this particular job.
And it's important to remember that because it will lead
you toward using the right tone and toward sounding like
a confident equal. And that's a lot more appealing to
good employers than sounding overly deferential. Is now, I should
say there is actually an exception to that really bad employers,
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because really bad employers sometimes do screen for people who
are overly deferential. Not deliberately, you know, it's not like
they're in their hiring planning process meetings and they say,
we really need to find someone who's going to cow
tow to us. It's generally more unconscious than that, but
at some level, bad employers often do screen for people
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who are very differential because they want to hire people
who will accept very bad treatment as employees. So if
you're ever talking to someone who does some hiring and
they tell you, oh, no, I actually like to see
defference from job candidates, you know, I like it when
people really lean into the power dynamics of interviewing. That is,
someone who is revealing to you that they are probably
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pretty terrible to work with. You want to screen them out,
and it is a good thing to do that. Now,
all that doesn't mean that there aren't still some power
dynamics in interviews that you need to play along with.
There are, and they usually show up as double stand
words like it's okay for your interviewer to answer their
phone in the middle of an interview, but it generally
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would not be thought okay for you, as the candidate,
to do that same thing with being late. You know,
your interviewer can get away with being a little late
and you can't. And that is just how the conventions
on this stuff are. But it doesn't translate into meaning
that your whole tone and demeanor needs to be super deferential,
because it doesn't. Okay, let's do some specific conversations that
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you might have while you're interviewing and what your tone
should sound like. So let's say that you're sitting in
the interview and you're asked a question that you're just
completely stumped by. You have no idea how to answer it,
So first, don't try to bluff your way through it,
because they will probably be able to tell and that
will make you look bad, far worse than if you're
just honest about it. But what is being honest about
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it actually sound like? So it could be the say,
you know, I actually don't know the answer to that.
When I have encountered similar things in the past, I've
done X and Y, and that usually gets me pointed
in the right direction. So matter of fact and confident,
your tone isn't conveying that you're mortified or that you're
worrying that you've blewned the interview. Your tone is saying
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that you are a normal human, and normal humans don't
always have answers to everything, and you're comfortable with that,
and that's actually pretty appealing, and in fact, that will
probably be very intuitive if you think about how you
want coworkers to handle it when they don't know something.
You don't want them to blow a bunch of hot air,
you know, you don't want them to just bluff their
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way through it. You want them to give an answer
that is is a matter of fact about the fact
that they don't know, but also where they don't sound
totally shaken that they don't know. Now, obviously, if the
answer to that one question is very crucial to you
getting hired. Then that's not great, but you know that
was going to be the case no matter what you said,
so you might as well sound pleasant and matter of
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fact and not freaked out by being imperfect. And for
most situations where one single interview question isn't make or break,
that's going to help you. Okay, let's make it a
little more nerve racking. Let's say that as you're talking
to your interviewer, one of you realizes there's a mistake
on your resume. Maybe they point out that your resume
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says that you left your last job in two or
something like that. You don't need to run out of
the room and shame or beg forgiveness or let it
throw you off your game. The rest of the time,
you just say, oh, no, thank you for bringing that
to my attention so I can fix it. I am
normally a neurotic proof reader. So this is mortifying. Now.
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Remember how with the example just before about not knowing
the answer to the question, I said you don't need
to sound mortified, But here I am actually saying the
words I'm mortified. And that is because in this case,
you need to convey that a mistake on your resume,
a document that is expected to be really polished is
out of character for you. You need to sound like
you take it seriously without sounding like you're gonna leave
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and throw yourself down the elevator shaft as penance. Let's
do another one where you've messed up a bit. Let's
say you're stuck in traffic and you're you're realizing that
you're gonna be late to the interview. Now, ideally this
won't happen because you've allowed yourself a buffer, but you know,
sometimes it happens, and maybe it's your fault, maybe it's not,
but either way, now you have to call the employer
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and tell them that you're running late, which no one
wants to do for an interview. The thing here, kind
of the same as with the resume mistake, is that
the interviewer has no way of knowing if this is
par for the course with you, you know, if you're
someone who's always late and as cavalier about it. So
you've got to convey with both your words and your
tone that this is not your normal MMO. So you
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want to sound a little mortified, and you want to
make it clear that you take it seriously and This
is actually an example of one of those double standards
I was talking about earlier, because it is true that
your interviewer can stroll in twenty minutes late your interview
and not sound mortified about it. But convention says you
are supposed to be on time as the candidate. I
don't want that to undercut my message at the start
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of the show about how your equals because you are.
This is just about recognizing the convention around this type
of thing. So when you call it sounds like this,
I'm so sorry about this. I had left with plenty
of extra time, but there is a massive traffic jam
on three that looks like it's going to make me
about ten or fifteen minutes late, and I realized that
is later than you had planned. Well, that's still work
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for your schedule. So the tone is concerned and taking
it seriously, but also not you know, throwing yourself on
their mercy. You're still an adult equal. Let's do a
short break here. We'll come back with some examples where
you are not the one messing up your interviewer is.
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Let's talk through more example of tone when you're interviewing.
Let's say that your interviewer asks you an inappropriate question,
like asking about your religion or your plans for having kids,
or something else they shouldn't be asking about. Now, I
do want to know that, despite widespread belief to the contrary,
it's actually not illegal in the United States for an
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interviewer to ask you about those things. There's no law
that says they can't ask about your religion, or your ethnicity,
or whether you're married, or plans for kids. What is
illegal is for them to make a hiring decision based
on your answers to those questions. So the question itself legal,
Doing anything at all with the information illegal, and so
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because of that, smart employers don't ask those questions. You know,
it's opening the door for you to think later if
they reject to you that maybe it was based on
your answers to those questions, and that's asking for legal
trouble um. You know. One exception to this I should
note is actually disability. It is it is goal for
them to ask direct questions about disability, But for the
other categories that people tend to limp in, there no
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just using the info anyway. Some people will ask anyway,
as in some cases it's because they're ignorant of the law,
or they don't care about the law. But in a
lot of cases, they're just making small talk without realizing
that they're straying into dangerous territory. Like someone might ask
you if you have kids because you've just moved to
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the area, and they're making small talk and they're going
to offer some helpful advice on their local schools or something,
and you're sitting there thinking, crap, are they weird about parents?
And they were trying to figure out if I'm going
to need to leave early for childcare pickup or something,
So it's all very fraught. What do you do when
you get asked one of these questions that you really
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shouldn't be asked. Honestly, if your sense is that the
person really is just making small talk, they're just trying
to be friendly, you will generally get a better outcome
if you take it in spirit. But if you get
the sense that something sketchier is going on, one option
is to answer the question that you think they're really
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trying to get at, Like if you think they're asking
if you have kids because they're worried that you won't
be at work reliably, you can sidestep the question of
kids and just say something like, oh, there's nothing in
my personal life that would interfere with my ability to
work the hours of the job and to make the
work a top priority, so breazy speaking directly to the concern.
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If something is more overtly offensive, or if you just
can't figure out what they're really getting at, you can
always say why do you ask? The key here, though,
is that you have to say it in a friendly,
pleasant tone and just sound curious, not piste off. I
mean you don't have to, of course, but if you're
still interested in the job and you want to preserve rapport,
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why do you ask? Is a good way to respond
that doesn't seem wildly adversarial. You could even say, I've
never been asked that before in an interview. What makes
you ask? So? Curious? Pleasant, not defensive? Just why do
you ask that? Let's do another tricky one. Let's say
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that you're interviewing with a company and you found that
they have really awful reviews on something like glass Door.
Not like one or two bad reviews, because those can
be outliers, but a real pattern of just terrible reviews
from their employees. You can ask about that, and really
you should ask about it because unless you're in a
desperate position where you need to take just any job
that's offered to you, you want to know what you're
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getting into and you want to see how they respond.
Do they just give you some public relations fluff or
do they engage with the topic in a serious way
that sounds like they're making real changes. But you've got
to ask about it in a way that doesn't sound accusatory.
You don't want to make them feel defensive or like
you're calling them out on something. You want to sound
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like you're saying, basically, hey, I saw this thing that
concerned me. I know there might be more to it.
What can you tell me about it? So that might
sound like this, I've noticed that the company's reviews from
employees on glassdoor include a lot of concerns about culture
and work hours, and I'm curious what your take is
on that and if it's something that the company is
working to change. So inquisitive and curious, but not accusatory.
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And really, if someone reacts badly to that, that's going
to tell you a lot. Okay, let's say that you're
interviewing for a job and You're talking to a bunch
of different people there, and as you do, you're hearing
conflicting things about the job. One person tells you that
the focus is X, and another person says, oh, X
isn't as important as it used to be. Why is
really where this person will will be focusing or whatever.
(14:45):
But the idea is you're hearing different things from different people,
and it's important enough that you want to get it
clarified before you could comfortably take that job. So maybe
you say something like this, I've noticed that I have
her different perspectives on the job from Jane and Bob
and Olivia, and it sounds like, on one hand, some
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people want to see the job focus on X, but
other people really think it should be focusing on why.
Can you help me get a better sense of how
those are going to be balanced and whether there is
internal alignment about what people want to see from the position.
So again, the tone here, matter of fact, curious, here's
this thing that I've noticed, can you just help me
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understand it better now? I took a look through some
past letters at the Asking Manager website that we're asking
questions about interviews where tone was especially important, and I
thought we could talk through some of those two. One
person wrote in about an interview that they had where
their interviewers all seemed to have some kind of problem
with the job itself, the job that she was interviewing for,
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and they kept saying things like, well, what do you
think is missing from this job description? And what do
you see as problematic about this job? And she, of
course was wondering what is going on because it seems
like a red flag, but she wasn't sure how to
figure out what it was really about. So when something
in an interview is confusing you, it is okay to
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ask about it. In a situation like that, you could
say something that sounds like this, I'm curious about the
questions that you're asking. It sounds like you might have
some concerns about how the role is structured. Am I
reading that correctly? Or maybe it's this I'm curious to
hear your thoughts on that question too. Do you think
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there's something problematic about the role? You ought to be pleasant,
your tonys to sound curious, not annoyed, But you're there
to get information just as much as they are, and
it's okay to ask about what you're hearing. If it's
not clear to you. Another person wrote in asking if
there was a way to ask if they would have
to work much with one particular person. Apparently there was
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someone who was just like rude and horrible throughout the process,
and they had heard bad things about them, and they
were wondering, is there a way to say, you know, hey,
I'm interested in the job, but how closely would I
be working with that guy? You can't say it like that,
of course, but you could say something that sounds like this,
I have so enjoyed getting the chance to learn more
about the job. Can you give me a sense of
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how my role interacts with Bob? How closely would we
end up working together? If at all? The tone here
has got to be neutral the way I just did it.
You don't want it to sound like you're saying I
don't want to work with Bob. The person you're talking
to is probably going to figure out why you're asking,
but it's important that you do it in a way
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that sounds professional. Well, we are zipping through these examples,
which is good because it means we can fit in
a bunch more of them. Let's do a final break here,
and then I want to come back with a whole
bunch more, including how to talk to a hostile interviewer,
and also how to talk about an especially sensitive topic
being fired, and lots more. I sometimes get letters from
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people who encounter truly hostile interviewers, interviewers who are just jerks,
and you figure out during the conversation that there is
no way in hell that you would ever take a
job working for this person. If you are in that situation,
you don't need to stay and be abused. You are
allowed to end the interview early, just like the interviewer
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is allowed to do that too. The most low key
way to do it is to say something like this.
You know, as we're talking, I'm getting the sense that
the fit here wouldn't be right. I really appreciate your time,
best of like filling the position, but I think we
should probably wrap up here. And that's the tone, polite
but matter of fact and firm. But if you want
(18:46):
to be more direct about it, and sometimes you might
want to, if you're not worried about burning a bridge,
it could be something like this. I have to be honest,
your tone is really throwing me here. I don't think
we would work well together, so I don't think it
makes sense to keep talking, but I appreciate your time
meeting with me, and I wish you the best in
filling the job. That's a or let's say you realize
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during the interview you definitely aren't going to take this job,
but it's not because anyone's being a jerk. It's just
clear to you that it's not the right job for you.
In most of those cases, it does make sense to
just stay and finish it out, because you know, who
knows it's possible that they'll have an opening in the
future that you do want, so you want to make
a good impression. But if you're like in the middle
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of an all day interview, it doesn't make sense for
you or for them to invest a bunch of hours
when you already know you're not taking the job. So
in that case, you can say something like this, you know,
as we're talking, I'm realizing this probably isn't the right
fit for me. I really appreciate the time you've spent
talking to me, but I wouldn't feel right taking it
more of your time now. Ideally, you would also say
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something brief if there's something you're comfortable with that explains
what you're reasoning if you can capture it easily in
a sentence or two. So it might be something like,
you know, as we're talking, I'm realizing I'm looking for
something that's more X oriented. Or I hadn't realized the
job was so heavily focused on X, or it sounds
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like we're much farther apart on salary than I had realized.
So again, matter of fact, pleasant, warm, but but direct
about what you are thinking. Okay, let's say you have
had multiple interviews with the company and they just keep
asking for more. I'm not talking about two or three interviews.
That's pretty normal, but some people end up with five
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or six or even more interviews for the same job.
If that is happening and they have not clearly told
you what remains in the process, you can ask about it.
So it would sound like this, can you tell me
more about what steps are still remaining in the process
and what you're likely timeline is for a decision. Or
you could even say, I'm so interested in this position,
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but it's becoming harder for me to take time of
work for additional meetings. Is there any way we could
consolidate some of the remaining steps so the tone there
isn't demanding, but it's a sort of it's pleasant, but
it's still as sort of. Now, let's say that you
go through the interview process and you get the offer
and you want to ask for some kind of perk,
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like let's say, working from home on Fridays. It helps
to frame the request as would you be open to X?
Or I'd like X because of why is that an
option on your end? And that way you're being direct
about what you want, but you're not demanding it. So
if you want to ask about working from home, it
could sound like this, my current job is very work
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from home friendly and I usually work from home a
few times a month. Would you be open to me
continuing to do that? So very matter of fact? Or
you could even tie it to salary, like if they
were not able to meet the salary that you asked for.
Maybe you decide that you want to ask for one
work from home to age week to make the offer
more attractive to you. So it could be this, I
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do understand you can't go up to X. I would
be willing to accept the job for why if I
was able to work from home one day a week?
Since there's real value to me and cutting back on
my commute? Would that work on your end? So the
tone here is pleasant, it's a matter of fact. It's
not aggressive negotiating. It's not being very deferential and cow towing.
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You're just two business people seeing if you can figure
out mutually agreeable terms. That's the tone. Speaking of salary,
I think people really struggle with tone when they're talking
about salary because mostly we're also freaked out by it.
There's actually a whole separate episode of the show that
is about what a salary negotiations should sound like, So
you might want to check that out. It's the episode
(22:47):
from April, and it's called what should Salary Negotiations Sound Like?
So if you want to listen to that, do But
I want to talk about a piece of salary discussions
that didn't get talked about there, which is how to
handle questions about what you have earned in the past. Now,
to be clear, your salary history is no one's business
(23:09):
but yours, and it's pretty ridiculous that employers, some employers
still expect you to share it. In fact, it's so
ridiculous that some states are actually making it illegal for
employers to ask which is great. Those states, by the way,
so you can see if you're in one of them, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts,
New York, Oregon, and Vermont. But in most of the US,
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it's still legal for them to ask, and it's legal
for them to require an answer from you. So let's
talk about what to do if that happens, assuming that
you're not somewhere where it's legally prohibited. So if you
are asked what you've been making in the past or
what you're making currently, instead try just answering with what
you're looking for. Like it could just be someone says,
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you know, what have you been earning in your most
recent job and you say, oh, well, right now, I'm
looking for something in the range of X to Y.
Sometimes they will accept an answer and not push to
know what you're making now. But if they do push,
you can try saying, well, that's actually covered under my
confidentiality agreement with my employer. We're not allowed to share
(24:16):
the company salary structure outside the company, but I'm looking
for X to Y because that is actually probably true.
Take a look at your company manual and there is
a very good chance that you will find that that
is in there, or at least that it's an unofficial expectation.
But what if you get an employer who's really pushing
this and just won't drop it. And what if you
know that you're underpaid and you don't want them to
(24:38):
tie a salary offer to what you've been making. In
that case, it could sound like this. Well, one of
the main reasons that I am looking to change jobs
is actually that I know I'm underpaid for the field
I'm leaving in part to get my salary back in
line with market rates, meaning X to Y for a
job like this one. Very early on in my career,
(24:59):
I is actually in this exact situation. I had been
working for a nonprofit earning hardly anything, and I was
interviewing for a job that would more than double my salary,
and when they asked about it, I said it this way,
let's see if I can recreate this. This was years ago.
I said something like, I've really loved the work that
(25:20):
I've been doing, and I was willing to do it
for well below market rates because I was so personally
invested in the organization and I was learning a huge
amount that I wouldn't have had the chance to learn
somewhere else. But now I'm ready to move on from
that stage. And part of the reason that I'm leaving
is because I want to be paid a normal market rate.
And it worked, got the job, doubled my salary. Okay,
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let's do one more, and let's do when that. People
get really nervous about how to talk about a past
firing in an interview. If you get asked about why
you left a job that you were fired from, the
key to talking about it is to be calm, not defensive,
and not better and actually not a move sal at
all for that matter. And to be concise, you really
(26:04):
just need a sentence or two here. I think sometimes
people think they're supposed to give a really lengthy explanation
new Your interviewer does not need or want all the details,
just the upshot. So like, what are two sentences? Here's
some examples of what it could sound like. Actually, I
was let go. I reported to two different managers, and
I got conflicting instructions from each of them, and I
(26:26):
didn't speak up about it when I should have. I
just tried to make it all work, and ultimately I
dropped some balls. It taught me a ton about needing
to speak up early on when priorities aren't clear so
that it won't happen again. Or here's a different way
you could say something like, you know, it ended up
being a bad fit. They were looking for design expertise,
(26:47):
and I'm really an editor, not a designer. So ultimately
we agreed it didn't make sense for me to stay
in that job. Okay, those were a lot of examples,
and hopefully it helped to hear them out loud if
they're is another topic where you want me to tackle
tone right in and let me know. I'm at podcast
at ask a Manager dot org. And also I don't
(27:08):
normally make a big plug for my book on the show,
but if you have found this kind of sample language useful,
you might really like the Aska Manager book because it's
filled with sample language for all sorts of situations that
you might run into at work. And there's a whole
section on talking to your interviewer. In fact, I took
some of the examples today from the book, so if
you want to check it out. It's called Ask a Manager,
(27:29):
How to Navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the
rest of your life at work. And you can order
it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. Okay, that
is it for today. I will be back next week
with our more traditional Q and A format. Thanks for
listening to the Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like
to come on the show to talk through your own question,
email it to podcast at Asking manager dot org, or
(27:51):
you can leave a recording of your question by calling
eight five five four T six work. That's eight five
five four two six nine seven five. To get more,
ask a manager at ask a Manager dot org or
in my book Ask a Manager How to Navigate clueless colleagues,
lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of your life at work.
The Ask a Manager Show is a partnership with How
Stuff Works and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you
(28:13):
liked what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate,
and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
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