All these people saying they would never ask that question - what would you ask then?? Saying "are you serious" and then no helpful follow just sucks.
I've never asked the question and I don't have anything against it but what I have asked the interviewer is " what do you like about working here?"
In one interview it threw my interviewer off and she got a shifty look and after hesitation stumbled out an answer. The next month that company was bought by another company.
This is a perfectly good question. It also shows you the values of the interviewer--do they value competition? Teamwork? If you don't share the value stated, you may want to ask a follow-up question.
It's a confident question that gets the interviewer a little off balance and likely gets you a little insight into how they are thinking about you. It also invites a pretty honest dialogue.
I think this is risky. It would depend on industry/position. Do you really want to throw an interviewer off balance? Maybe for a position that involves a lot of conflict/negotiation. But in many positions, you just want the interviewer to like you. Maybe it is appropriate to ask a Sr Director, but not a peer level interviewer?
That's where again it comes back to being sincere and really targeting each question you ask to the interviewer and the specific job.
I would never answer the " how do I stack up" question. If you say they are great then hire someone else you've opened the door for the person to wonder why they weren't hired. Was it because I'm a woman? Over 40? Because I'm not white?
No good can come to the employer for answering that question.
Exactly.
And I already stated I hate the other question. I interview regularly. I would guess 200 or more people in my working career for jobs from entry level to Sr Mgmt. It's a bullshit question. The interviewee
is trying to make herself look better with bullshit phrasing. I already addressed my concerns in the interview. That's the whole point of any interview!
I am impressed when people actually ask questions about the job duties, or our company, or our style of management. Surprisingly few people those. I want a candidate who wants to work for me/my company--not just a job because those folks don't stay long.
For example--I work in a highly regulated industry if someone asked questions about how we execute our commitment to ethics or safety, that would be great. They could ask questions regarding what opportunities they would have for growth within the position and to contribute to the team outside of basic responsibilities (this has a different tone than growth in the company though that is a fine question too, but ordinary.)
The problem with both of the questions posed have a sense, to me, that the interviewee is asking for feedback which I am not obligated to give and I basically shouldn't give due to the reasons above.
People have asked me these questions. And they all get the same answer. To the question above they get "well, based on your resume (or prior conversations with you) we were certainly interested in speaking with you more. We have many qualified applicants that we are currently speaking with and will be reaching out to finalists/preferred candidate at X time."
And the question regarding concerns is always "no. We really appreciated the opportunity to speak with you. Do you have any other questions for me/us?"
See, here's the whole thing about interviewing. You can't use these cure-all questions. They are insincere. The best questions come from carefully thinking about the position/company/industry and asking sincere, thoughtful questions.
Well, yes, it wouldn't be the *only* question I asked, lol. But, after asking industry-type/job specific questions, asking if there were any further issues that they wished to address with me worked well IME. Keep in mind, though, that most positions for which I've interviewed have had the process completed either by direct superiors or panels of selected employees, not an HR team or person whose primary function is to conduct interviews. So perhaps that skews things.
Yeah, y'all misunderstood what I wrote a bit. I meant when a candidate asks how they fare against what I'm looking for, not "how do I compare against all the others."
I stand by it being a good question. Like the question in the OP, which would never occur to me to be controversial, it's another way to ask if they're a good candidate. It fits well in my company's culture, in that I think it shows self awareness, confidence, and directness.
As an aside, I actually did have someone ask me how they stood up against the other candidates once, which I thought was too forward. I answered more along the lines of, yeah, here's what I like about you and here's what I have concerns about. Funny enough, as much as I didn't love that part of the process, she was hired, and over a decade later, she is still one of my top hires ever. I did tell her after she started that that was a bit too aggressive for my tastes, lol.