Interviewing with a new company for a new role is a big choice, with bad odds. To make great career decisions, you need to find a way to conduct a reverse interview — flipping the odds and putting them in your favor.
Unfortunately, the consequence of a bad career decision is bigger for you as the individual than it is for the company. The brutal truth is that from some company perspectives, candidates are replaceable. Whereas for a candidate, the wrong career opportunity may cost you both future opportunities and valuable time.
A reverse interview can help remove the informational disadvantage you have when evaluating the company as a prospective employee.
In this post, we are going to discuss:
Elena Verna is a Reforge Partner/EIR, Growth Advisor at Miro and Netlify, and former SVP Growth at SurveyMonkey and Malwarebytes. Elena was a creator on both the Reforge Monetization + Pricing and Experimentation + Testing programs. She previously wrote Monetization vs Growth and The Hidden Freemium Advantage.
Crystal Widjaja is a Reforge Partner/EIR, and the former SVP Growth and Business Intelligence at Gojek, one of the largest super apps in Southeast Asia. Crystal helped Gojek scale from 20K orders per day to 5M. Crystal is also a co-founder and advisor to Generation Girl which is dedicated to helping young girls engage in STEM fields. Crystal previously wrote Why Most Analytics Efforts Fail and Scaling Data.
This post was co-written by Reforge Partners/EIR’s Elena Verna and Crystal Widjaja with contributions by Zainab Ghadiyali and Matt Greenberg.
Why the Odds Aren’t in Your Favor When You Interview Traditionally
Making your next career move is a big choice, with bad odds. Here’s why:
1. Your eggs are in one basket.
Most people have one job at a time. That means we have limited swings at the plate throughout our career. The consequence of a bad career decision is therefore bigger for you as the individual than it is for the company. Short term gigs look bad on a resume, and a series of them looks even worse. No matter what you hear, companies do screen for this.
For you, a bad decision can lead to bad quality of life, slower professional development, and more. The brutal truth is that from a company's perspective, candidates are replaceable, whereas for a candidate, the wrong career opportunity may cost you both future opportunities and valuable time.
As a manager, if I see someone with inflated titles who jumps companies, I wonder: What is stopping this person from doing this again? So the risk is always going to be - can I fully invest in this person, or am I going to be worried about them doing the same to me? — Crystal Widjaja (ex-SVP Growth and BI at Gojek)
2. You are at an information disadvantage.
For most interview processes, 90% of the time is spent on the company interviewing you. If you are lucky, you get the remaining 10% to ask them questions. In addition, the company is talking to you and multiple others across a standardized set of questions, and can make apples-to-apples comparisons. The interviewer also has the historical and day-to-day knowledge of the company and why they made a decision or prioritization. The interviewee doesn't, and would never have that information unless they knew someone on the inside or had to face a very similar or translatable situation to what is asked during interviews.
Some things like Glassdoor have emerged as an attempt to level the playing field of information for candidates. But companies have gamed them by pushing employees to write positive reviews. Or you get the disgruntled employee with an outlier negative perspective. Neither type of review paints an accurate picture. Even more so, companies aren't forthcoming with the most helpful information for your decisions. When was the last time a company proactively gave you their strategy docs, finances, teams, and more? You need to learn how to dig for that info with the limited time you have. - Brian Balfour (Founder/CEO at Reforge)
There is the perception of the role, company, and manager that you get from things like the job description and what the company tells you. But in most cases, there is a huge gap between that perception and actual reality.
3. The most common advice is useless.
Common advice is that you should ask questions of the company like:
What's the company culture?
What does career growth look like?
What is your management style?
While the answer to these things is important, asking them in this way leads to surface-level scripted answers designed to favorably pitch the company and role to you. However, you need to understand the answers to these questions in reality and how that will impact your ability to succeed.
What is a Reverse Interview?
A reverse interview is often defined as a process through which the candidate takes upon the role of the interviewer and asks questions of the company. The reverse interview puts more control in your hands, and helps you gain more information and shape the company's perception of you.
Here’s why that’s important:
1. Gain more real info on the company, role, and the system. Not their sales pitch.
Every career opportunity presents its unique pros and cons. You need real insights into the company and the career opportunity so you can make an informed decision on whether it's the right fit for you.
2. Proactively shape their perception of you vs. relying on their interview process
A successful interview process is a far better indicator of how the company perceives your ability to become successful at their company than your actual ability to succeed. The way companies design the interview process may not accurately reflect your true abilities. You can take control and help shape their perception of you by proactively managing the process, giving them the info you think they need even if they don't ask for it.
The 5 Steps of a Successful Reverse Interview
As a candidate, asking questions about the company is just one step of a more holistic process. A successful reverse interview process includes not just the questions you as a candidate ask the interviewer, but also the way you design the process and the research you do before and after.
Preparing for a successful reverse interview should involve each of these 5 steps:
Self + Personal Advisory Assessment: This step’s purpose is to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses through self assessment as well as assessment from your peers.
Determining What You Want: Using information from your self-assessment, you can identify what you are looking for in the next role and how you can frame your pitch to a prospective company.
Determine Companies That Are A Fit: Now that you understand what you are looking for, you can identify companies and roles that might match this criteria.
Filter Companies Based On Insider Info: When possible, connecting with an insider at the company will give you additional insights you can use to filter prospective companies and roles.
Come More Prepared Than They Do: This is where you have a large opportunity to impact the interview process. It allows you to come prepared to understand what you need to know to make a decision as well as tell the company what they should know but did not ask.
Reverse Interview Questions
Here are some areas of the company you might want to ask questions about, as well as some example questions you can use the next time you’re interviewing.
Company culture/values
You need to compare what the company values to your own values and how you work in order to thrive in that environment.
When was the last time you (or the company) used one of the company values to make a hard decision?
What was the value? What was the situation? What was the decision?
Scope of the role
The level of autonomy and decision making ability you have can affect your job satisfaction.
What are 2-3 examples of decisions you expect the person in this role to make autonomously?
What is an example of a decision you expect the person in this role to get input from you (or hiring manager) on?
What is an example of a decision that you (or manager) would make and expect this person to execute?
Organization and team structure
You are not given this information and it is not available anywhere. It is very important to understand the organizational structure of a company because it affects your ability to drive real impact.
How is this team organized?
Where does it sit in the broader picture of the company?
Have there been significant changes to this team's structure in the past year? If so, what were the goals of the change?
How do you anticipate the team evolving over the next few months?
Role history and progression
The information here can give you insight into how much elbow room you will have and capture where you can be impactful. This can also give you interesting insight into the challenges you might face.
Who else has been in this role that has progressed into other roles? What were the roles they progressed into?
What capabilities did they show that made you confident they were ready for the next level?
For people who have not done well in this role, what was their biggest challenge?
Company perception of you
When candidates ask about this, it becomes a very candid conversation very quickly, and helps bridge the reality vs. perception gap.
What is the biggest risk you would be taking by taking me on?
How You Can Be More Prepared Than Your Interviewer
Step 5 of the reverse interview process is the most important step, and the one for which you have the greatest limitations on time.
There are three key things you can do to come more prepared than the company:
Understand and evaluate the importance of company, team, and role
Ask great questions that get beyond their script
Dig deeper than what they give you
Understand and evaluate the importance of company, team, and role
To understand the opportunity, you have to evaluate all three: company, team, and role. There are two common mistakes that get made here:
Over-focusing on evaluating either Company, Team or Role without understanding how these things relate to one other. For example, candidates often ask about what the team culture looks like, which is important to know. However, you also want to understand how important the team's work is to the company strategy, and how the team operates within the broader company.
Overcompensating based on their last experience. For example, if in their prior role they were on a really toxic team, they will overcompensate by focusing on evaluating just the team, and have blinders to the other aspects.
From Impact = Environment X Skills by Bangaly Kaba, Bangaly says:
A second trap is thinking that you just need to work on yourself in order to grow your career. For example, "To progress, I just need to get better at [insert skill.]" But you are only one part of the equation.
There is a whole other part of the equation, which is your environment. Your environment either limits or amplifies your own ability to get better at a skill. Leaving this out of the equation when making career decisions leads to navigating yourself to very frustrating situations where you feel like you are getting better but that isn't translating to impact and career progression. Remember, the variables of your environment are just as important as the variables of you.
People underestimate the amount of impact company success has on their career trajectory.
Candidates will over-optimize for things like title, salary, etc., and as a result underestimate just how much company success influences their own success. A lower-salary, less senior role at a company with a high growth trajectory is going to have greater long term career impact than a more senior, higher-salary role at a stagnant or slow growth company.
There are a lot of reasons for this. When evaluating you, future companies tie company and personal success together (whether or not they are connected). But at a smaller, fast-growing company, you also get exposed to more problems, see more of the playing field, and get more experience.
As the company grows, so will the opportunities for you to grow in your career. For a company with a much more stable slow-moving growth curve, you will find limited opportunities and greater competition (internally and externally) for leadership opportunities.
People underestimate the amount of impact company success has on their career trajectory. Promotions happen when there is capability for the individual and need for the company. Fast-growing companies always have need, so then it comes down to individuals growing to tackle the problems the company has. Often, people get tapped to solve problems earlier than they are ready when nobody else in the company is more ready than they are. - Matt Greenberg, CTO @ Reforge, Former VP Eng @ Credit Karma
Success factors change depending on stage
You need to evaluate all three — Company, Role, Team — no matter what stage the company is in. But how important each individual component is in the decision changes depending on the stage. Company and team are more critical to career success at early-stage companies. Company success at early stage is less clear, so you are taking a bigger risk. As a result, you need to dig in more on the company and quality of the team.
This is different with a later-stage company. The success/trajectory is typically more clear. You will need to determine how you personally fit into that environment and if you are set up for success.
Everyone knows that the company you join matters — but they fail to realize just how much. Evaluating the company's strategy becomes more important at early-stage companies, since the growth of the company will more significantly impact your future opportunities at the company. As the company grows, the organization's strategy will become a more important factor.
Ask Great Questions that Get Beyond Their Script
Questions like "What is the company culture?" or "What's the 2-3 year vision?" won't get you anywhere. While you want to learn about those things, you need to ask questions differently to get to the real answers. You also don't help to shape their perception of you, because every other candidate asks those questions in the same exact way.
Instead, try this:
Give context in a way that explains why you are asking what you are asking and shapes their perception of you.
Ask about how the thing you want to know has been implemented or used in action. Better to start specific, and then zoom out vs. getting the high-level answer that doesn't tell you much.
Recast your understanding back to them. Doing this both shows that you are listening, but also helps deepen your understanding and alignment.
Let's walk through an example. Let's say that you wanted to know more about what the company strategy is. Do not ask "What is the company strategy?" Instead...
Context: "I try to connect all of my work to the bigger strategic picture of the company, so would like to understand more about how you think about [Company strategy]."
Note: The way this is framed shows them that you are strategic and starts to shape their perception of you.
Ask: “Tell me about a couple of the strategic pillars of the company. What specifically have you chosen not to do as a result of this strategy? What are things you have chosen to do that other companies have not done because it is your strategy?"
Note: This is asking to show the strategy in action, which will lead to a deeper understanding of what the strategy is, how clear it is, and how it might impact the work.
Recast: "What I'm hearing is that X and Y are core pillars of the strategy. As a result, you have chosen to A, and specifically chosen to not do B. Is that correct?"
Note: Recasting it back in this way shows you've listened, clarifies your understanding, and prompts them to go even deeper in the discussion.
Dig Deeper Than What They Give You
Follow up questions
If you ask a question for which you don't receive a good answer, dig deeper. Some simple phrases to help prompt people to go deeper:
You said "X." Can you tell me more about that?
I'm not sure I understand "X." Do you have an example?
You said X and Y. Anything else?
When they won't give you an answer
Sometimes you'll get to a question that a company won't answer. For example, let's say you were interviewing for a growth role and asked how many active users they had, the retention rate, and the growth rate. It's possible they decline to answer or they don't know.
If they don't know, then find out who knows: "Who would be the best person for me to follow up with to have a conversation about this?"
If they decline to answer, you need to explain why it's important in the context of the role and how they've defined success. "You said in this growth role that I would own improving X, Y, and Z metrics. Understanding where those metrics are today, where you want to get them to, and the possible problems that need to be solved to achieve that are important for me to make a decision if I'm the best fit. Is there a time or person in the process that would be best to discuss this?"
Asking for more time
Most companies will default to not giving you enough time to get all of your questions answered (if you are asking them correctly). If that is the case, always ask for more time and/or follow up to your interview with a list of questions that they can answer asynchronously. Your highest leverage moment is near the end of the process in the "sell" stage. If a company is not willing to give you time at this stage, will they give you the support and environment you need to succeed in your role?
I appreciate your interview process, but there are a couple of asks I have on my side so there are no surprises. I have X mins of questions that I'd like to get answered throughout the process. Is that factored in? What might be an appropriate way to do this? - Elena Verna, EIR @ Reforge, Formerly SVP @ SurveyMonkey
You also need to show that you are doing your homework. If you ask for more time but then show up with questions that you could have easily read about on the career page, then you are communicating that you don't value others' time.
I have spent 4-5 hrs on top of the interview process to close an exceptional candidate. Every time we met, they presented value in the questions they asked. They went back, did their homework based on my responses, and followed up again to discuss. There needs to be fair trade. If you are asking for a lot of extra time, you need to show the company you will use that time wisely! - Crystal Widjaja (Reforge Partner/EIR, ex-SVP Growth and BI at GoJek)
Back-channeling them
The company is going to back-channel on you through various means, including reference checking and online search. You should back-channel the company and the hiring manager as well. Back-channeling on the company can give you more information which might be missed during the interview process. Some ways you can do this is by messaging previous employees at the company or asking the hiring manager for references.
Why Don’t More Candidates Practice Reverse Interviewing?
They believe interview success is based solely on their skills
Unfortunately, interviewing is not a repeatable scientific process with guaranteed outcomes. It is a subjective process. Success with interviewing reflects not just on how good or relevant your skills for the job opportunity are, but also how well you can market this to the prospective employer. In reality, most people underestimate the marketing component. So they think it is 10% marketing and 90% your capabilities, when in reality the mix shift is more equal.
I interviewed for an engineering internship at Facebook with no real coding experience. During my reverse interview with the hiring manager at Facebook, I asked the hiring manager what their concerns would be around hiring me. I then addressed each concern by connecting my experience in other industries to the way they had described work at Facebook. - Zainab Ghadiyali, OIR @ Reforge, Formerly @ Airbnb, Facebook
They optimize for the wrong things (title, etc.)
Your career decisions can either expand or contract future career opportunities. Going after a fancy title or higher base compensation might seem like a win in the short run, but can hurt you in the long run. Not enough people weigh progress / tenure at a given company appropriately, compared to jumping companies to inflate titles every 2 years. Definition of career success is personal. It is important to figure out what matters to you and evaluate the career opportunity against your priorities. The priorities need not be limited to titles, compensation or work/life balance. For some, attributes of the role like flexible working hours might be more important. For others, attributes affecting the company, such as a company's long term growth potential, might be more important.
During the interview process, you can use reverse interviewing to understand how the current opportunity influences your long term future. These questions are usually directed to the hiring manager and a senior member of the team whose trajectory you can compare to opportunities that might be available to you.
When I was at SurveyMonkey, 2 years in I had a manager job offer from EA. I was a senior analyst then, and the offer was $40k more than I was being paid. 4 years later, FB gave me an offer which was $60K more. Had I optimized for $ and title, I would have jumped in both cases. In the long term, I don’t feel like it would have given me the foundation which eventually got me to a leadership position faster. Looking back at it, I am glad I optimized for long term. It was a difficult financial conversation with my significant other. It is not easy, obvious, or 100% a sure thing either. You have to be at a company that appreciates your worth and gives you opportunities to grow in order for this to be the right move. - Elena Verna, EIR @ Reforge, Formerly SVP @ SurveyMonkey
They don't value the decision as highly as they should
A lot of times, people don't go the depth they need to because they don't value career decisions as highly as they should. This quote from Elena captures this perfectly:
Early in my career I didn't trust my gut. I thought it would be fine, the company will figure things out, but they never got figured out. I would have never given the company $10k, but I was willing to give them my career. That is insane. - Elena Verna, EIR @ Reforge, Formerly SVP @ SurveyMonkey
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