Interviewing Is NOT A Two Way Street (Hall of Fame Guidance)

The common wisdom these days says that "interviewing is a two-way street." In other words, the candidate is evaluating you and your company and your opportunity at the same time. Unfortunately, like most common wisdom - wisdom not being common - this is very bad advice! Candidates should not be trying to interview you while you are interviewing them. Here's what to do when they start asking questions. They'll get their chance to ask questions, but not just yet.

So, you're in the middle of an interview, you don't know enough to say yes yet, and your candidate asks you, "Can you tell me more about the role? How many will I be supervising? What kind of management training does your company provide?"

What do you do? Thanks to the common wisdom, and fear of losing a good candidate who surely will want to know the answers to those questions, many managers would go ahead and answer the questions. And that's the wrong answer. Interviewing is NOT a two-way street. But that doesn't mean candidate questions aren't important. It's a matter of timing.