A reader writes:
I have recently reached the second round of interviews for a role that I am very interested in. This conversation is with a person who is leaving the role I’m interviewing for.
I’ve never been interested in the person who is currently in the job in question, but I take it to mean that she is leaving the organization on good terms and for her own reasons, and they trust her to recommend who will be her successor. Would you agree with this position, and if so, what types of questions do you think I should ask or expect? How can I sell myself for this role without being told “I’m going to be better at this than you”, which I’m sure will be a turn-off?
There are two possibilities:
1. The interview is primarily to evaluate you as a candidate and, while you will still have the opportunity to ask your questions, it will be more or less like any other interview and you should treat it that way.
2.. Or, the main purpose of this meeting is so you can talk to the person currently doing the job and get answers to your questions about the role. In this scenario, she will likely give the hiring manager feedback about you and other candidates, but that is not the primary purpose of the conversation.
Have they said anything to indicate which one it is? Sometimes an employer will say something like, “We’d like to give you some time to talk with the person doing the work now so they can tell you about the work in more detail” – and that’s a sign it’s more likely to be #2 (or at least mostly #2). Or she may not say anything like this in advance, but when you sit down with her she will make it clear that this is the main part of the agenda.
Either way, you should prepare for both scenarios – meaning you should come into this expecting #1, but be prepared with lots of questions of your own if #2 happens. (You should be prepared with lots of questions of your own – because in any case this is an opportunity to hear first-hand from the person who is doing the work right now – but if it gets to #2, you don’t want the conversation to stall because you only prepared a few questions.)
Questions you can ask the person doing the job you’re interviewing for include things like the best things about the job, the most challenging things about the job, the manager’s management style, secrets to success for performing well in the role, and whether there’s anything she was surprised by or wished she knew about before starting the job. You should also ask about workloads, what are the busiest times of year, and what they look like, as you may get a more accurate/honest answer than others. And depending on the job, you can also ask technical questions, like what software are they using for X, or how are they handling a particular known challenge with that software, etc.
As far as selling yourself without coming across as who you think would be better at the job than you are… I’d argue that you should never come across that way in an interview, even when you’re not talking to the person you’re replacing, because you can’t possibly know from the outside whether that’s true or not! Good interviews don’t sound like sales pitches; The best ones feel like a conversation between two potential collaborators who are trying to figure out whether a collaboration between them would make sense – and you should approach it that way, too. Listen to what they’re looking for, talk about how you can help, pull out things from your professional history that relate to their needs, and – while they’re evaluating You – Ask questions that will help you evaluate them.
