C2 Workshop is on a recruitment spree. So the last few days have been particularly delightful for me because I got to spend a great deal of time doing one of the things that I enjoy most… interviewing candidates! I just love meeting new people, exchanging views and ideas with them, understanding what makes them tick, and assessing if we share enough synergies to enter into a mutually beneficial professional relationship. It’s a truly exciting and enriching process!

However, over the years I’ve learnt that a large percentage of candidates don’t seem to understand one basic principle of a job interview – that it is as much about the interviewee interviewing the interviewer as it is about the other way round. After all, shouldn’t the interviewee be as concerned about choosing the “right employer” as the interviewer is about selecting the “right employee”? Therefore, isn’t it imperative for a candidate to evaluate whether the organization, its leadership, its vision, its work culture and its values/ethics match their expectations?

As an interviewer, I am as interested in a candidate’s questions as I am in their answers. As Naguib Mahfouz famously said, “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions“.