Stefan Molyneux speaks with a listener about anxiety surrounding an upcoming job interview including the questions to ask, finding job security by adding value, finding out where you'll fall on the organizational chart, the values of the company and much much more. For those wondering, he got the job.
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|---|---|
| Yeah, congratulations on the job interview. | |
| It looks interesting. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Yes, it does. | |
| It's a full-time opportunity with a large company. | |
| It's got a lot of stakes in other businesses, other markets. | |
| Kind of a dream job, right? | |
| Kind of, yeah. | |
| Yeah, pretty much, especially with my background as well. | |
| But first thing I wanted to say was that I really appreciate your taking time and a last minute notice to discuss this with me. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Oh, it's my pleasure. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Half an hour of my time, if it helps you get a job of your dreams, that's a pretty good payoff for me. | |
| So I'm happy to help. | |
| Darn tootin'. | |
| Is it entirely technical work? | |
| I couldn't really tell from the brief job description. | |
| I guess there would be client contact. | |
| You're not just going to be handed stuff and told to fix it. | |
| Would you be interfacing with the clients at all talking with them? | |
| As far as dealing with other individuals, I don't get the sense that that's what they need. | |
| But I could be wrong. | |
| These are questions that I would ask in the interview. | |
| Frankly, are you looking for a guy with square eyes and fast fingers who's going to laser it on the computer all day, or are you looking for someone who's got some client skills, some social skills, some negotiation skills? | |
| Definitely. | |
| Those are questions that I was hoping to have answered. | |
| If, I mean, a boss is going to want someone, ideally, the most efficient thing, I would assume, is interface with whoever the customer is. | |
| Now, maybe the customer's internal, but it seems like a bit of a wasted layer to have you say to someone, check with the client if this is okay, and then the person goes and checks with the client, then comes back to you and say, no, they want more of this. | |
| Oh, and this, oh, I don't know, I'll go back and check, right? | |
| For you to actually talk to the clients would be ideal. | |
| I would assume. | |
| It's so efficient, right? | |
| Definitely. | |
| And it's experience that I have. | |
| Right. | |
| So I would focus on that. | |
| And I'll tell you why. | |
| Because the closest analogy that I can come up with is when I would hire programmers. | |
| And some programmers just never wanted to talk to the clients. | |
| I mean, they just hated it. | |
| And that was okay. | |
| We put them in R&D or whatever. | |
| But they just weren't as valuable, at least at the short run, as the people who could actually talk to the clients and figure out what they wanted and write it up and Sure. | |
| Sure. | |
| So I would definitely ask about that. | |
| And, you know, if they say, well, no, we just want, you know, someone with square eyes to stare at a computer like a laser all day. | |
| Fine, you know, okay. | |
| But at least then they know. | |
| Because you can say, well, you know, if it does come up, I'm happy to chat with clients. | |
| I really enjoy the collaborative creative process. | |
| And I'm good at resolving conflicts if there's missed expectations or something like that. | |
| So, you know, if it's not necessary, that's fine. | |
| But I just, I have that skill set for the future if there's, If that becomes part of the job or if I can grow into a job, but that is part of it, that's great. | |
| And what they'll remember is that you're someone who likes to talk to clients, which means that your boss has to do less of it. | |
| And I imagine that's going to have some value to them. | |
| For sure. | |
| Yes, I would agree. | |
| I mean, your technical skill, I mean, I have no way to judge. | |
| I don't know whether or not that will... | |
| That will sell them. | |
| But what I would ask, which is something that I always liked to be asked when I was hiring, what I would ask is, what are the metrics for success in the job? | |
| How will I know if I'm really succeeding or not? | |
| Like I said, I've never liked jobs where you just kind of, you wait, and then, you know, at six months or a year, you get a performance review, and then you find out if you're doing okay or not. | |
| Because it just makes you kind of paranoid, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, you know, my question would be, you know, okay, so what's the profit driver for this job? | |
| How do I know if I'm succeeding or not? | |
| How do I know if I'm really adding value to the company or not? | |
| Like, what are the metrics? | |
| I mean, it's not like I'm a private guy who's bidding my services out and making money, but I'm part of an organization, part of a team. | |
| So what are the business drivers for the position? | |
| How am I going to know if I'm making the company money or not? | |
| Because obviously that's pretty important for the company and it's pretty important for me because if I make money for you, I have job security and I'm adding value and you have profit. | |
| So giving them some sense that you have some interest in the business side I think is important. | |
| Excellent. | |
| That's an excellent point. | |
| I appreciate that. | |
| You can, of course, ask about the profitability of the company. | |
| You can ask about the philosophy of the company, the culture of the company. | |
| You know, if there are conflicts in the company, how is it resolved and so on, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Is the customer always right? | |
| I mean, that's a basic question to ask because, I mean, there's nothing right or wrong about that answer. | |
| It's just that, you know, these are important things. | |
| You know, if the customer is unreasonable, is there pushback? | |
| Do we try to please every customer no matter what? | |
| I mean, these are, you know, and these are all valid, you know, and you can say, like, I'm not wed to any particular philosophy. | |
| I'm just curious what the company philosophy is here. | |
| Right. | |
| Those are very good points. | |
| The, um... | |
| Yeah, whether they're internal clients. | |
| I've had experience with internal clients where it was kind of like a clown car. | |
| I was given this small little room and there were just like streams of account teams coming into this little room where I was working, creative teams coming into this little room where I was working, production people coming in, and I was being Kind of ground up. | |
| I was really being ridden like a horse at this one company. | |
| Which is fine, as long as there's only one rider, right? | |
| But it sounds like you had like 19 guys saying, go this way, right? | |
| Yeah, there were several riders at the same time, and I would have to handle them with kid gloves, because I was the only guy working on their multi-million dollar account. | |
| Yes, so I would also ask, what... | |
| I would also ask, where would I fit on the org chart? | |
| Where would I fit on the organizational chart? | |
| Yeah, just, you know, if there's a whiteboard or whatever, they can just draw it on a piece of paper. | |
| That's a great question. | |
| You know, like, so where do I fit on the org chart? | |
| Right. | |
| I think that's important. | |
| And if they, you know, if they don't know, that's fine. | |
| It's just good to know that they don't know. | |
| Right. | |
| But, you know, and I would also ask, you know, everybody knows, in organizations there's like the org chart, which is somewhat bullshit. | |
| I mean, it's got value, but... | |
| There's the solid lines, which is what goes to HR, and there's all that dotted line shit, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Right, which is what you had in the last place, right, where you had the clown car coming and eating your brain, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, you know, what are the dotted lines? | |
| You know, where are the real reporting relationships, which is fine. | |
| Those are the ones I want to honor, and I assume those are my performance reviews and all that kind of stuff. | |
| But where do the dotted lines show up? | |
| As well, so I can get a sense of all of that. | |
| I think that would be... | |
| Because that shows that you've got some experience, you've got some understanding, and you really want to know where you fit in the organization. | |
| Right, right. | |
| So when you're saying dotted lines, you're using that, just to be so unclear, you're using that as a metaphor for sort of, you know, situations where there's some flexibility involved, where... | |
| Just indirect reporting. | |
| Interacting. | |
| Like, I'm sure when you got your last job with the clown car, They didn't say, well, there'll be 19 guys that you'll have to satisfy. | |
| Hell no. | |
| Right. | |
| So it turned out that there were other people who could come and directly tell you what to do. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Right. | |
| But they don't show up on the org chart. | |
| That's what I mean by dotted lines. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Like somebody, anybody who can come into your office and tell you what to do. | |
| Right. | |
| And you do it. | |
| Right. | |
| Those are the dotted lines. | |
| Because, you know, obviously, if you try to have an org chart with 19 managers, I mean, you would never be able to get anybody but an idiot to take that job, right? | |
| Right. | |
| So there are straight lines and there are the dotted lines. | |
| Right. | |
| You don't have to assume that they're there. | |
| Maybe it's a very, you know, no, no, we don't allow that to happen. | |
| Everyone has to come through your boss or whatever. | |
| But that's, you know, usually it's like a spilled paint bucket. | |
| You know, it just spreads. | |
| Especially if you're, you know, personable and competent. | |
| That's funny. | |
| Oh my gosh. | |
| But no, I appreciate those. | |
| Those are excellent points and really good questions to consider. | |
| And the other thing too, I mean, you're going into a kind of an artistic area, right? | |
| I mean, it's an artistic kind of job? | |
| Yeah, it's essentially, it's digital retouching and, you know, they're giving an original asset and then you have to, there's somebody else that has certain specifications that they mark up that they want to see in the piece, in the final piece. | |
| And sometimes what happens in most places that that's kind of considered to be the brief for the project. | |
| And then you'll go over any fine points or details that may not have been mentioned in the brief. | |
| So the other thing as well, I mean, I'm going to assume that some people in this industry are frustrated artists. | |
| It's like, well, I really wanted to be a Picasso, but unfortunately I learned how to use a mouse, so I got sucked into something that actually made me money. | |
| And so I know that one of the things in Apple or Google is you have to have a passion for the art. | |
| Right. | |
| Right, and so my suggestion would be, and this is something you can kind of explore, but, you know, is it, you know, are we producing beauty to make money, or are we making, do we happen to get paid for making money for producing beauty? | |
| Right. | |
| You know, like, what is the artistic philosophy of the organization? | |
| What is the, you know, in In Apple, they really care that you're obsessed with, like you're really into it, right? | |
| Like I know a guy once who was really good at marketing and he got a job interview at Gillette. | |
| And, you know, they were really, you know, we're all about making the man beautiful and attractive and giving him confidence. | |
| And, you know, they really were, you know, and he was like, yeah, no, I get all of that. | |
| It just seems kind of weird to be thinking about. | |
| Maybe spending the next 10 years of my life thinking about armpits and deodorant. | |
| You know, and with that, he never got a call back, right? | |
| Sure. | |
| So is it, you know, male confidence and sexiness and, you know, being all that you can be or is it armpits and deodorant? | |
| Right. | |
| And I think that's an important thing to explore what the artistic goals or drive is for this. | |
| And again, these are all things that you feel out in the interview. | |
| I just want to sort of read, because I know the job interviews in the morning, right? | |
| So I want to make sure I'm sort of clear about the stuff that I'm suggesting. | |
| I appreciate that. | |
| And let's hope I'm not fucking you up. | |
| It's ultimately my interview. | |
| It's your call, but these are the things that I haven't hired in this industry, but I've hired in a lot of technical industries in a wide variety of areas. | |
| So, how am I going to make money for you guys? | |
| Basically, that's important. | |
| What's the profit drivers for the job? | |
| You can say I'm not the kind of person who wants to sit and wait for 6 to 12 months to find out what my performance review is going to be like. | |
| I want to know That I'm producing value and providing value as quickly as possible. | |
| Who gets to tell me what to do? | |
| There's formal and informal. | |
| How much client-customer contact is there going to be? | |
| I have skill, experience and pleasure in dealing with customers, so I'm happy to take on that. | |
| I find it much more efficient than going through other channels or waiting for feedback and blah-de-blah-de-blah. | |
| So you sort of point that kind of stuff out. | |
| What is the artistic philosophy of the organization? | |
| And just let them answer it. | |
| Don't say, is it this or is it that? | |
| You have to have the confidence to just ask the question and let them answer it. | |
| They might say, we don't have an artistic philosophy. | |
| We just like making money by producing pretty or something, which is fine. | |
| Nothing wrong with that. | |
| But I would say that. | |
| They may, of course, ask where you want to be in five years or ten years or whatever, right? | |
| Sitting where you are, punk. | |
| Yeah. | |
| You can also ask, what has the company's growth been like? | |
| You may be able to find something over that on the internet. | |
| Is it publicly held? | |
| Is it privately held? | |
| What's the employee count? | |
| What was the employee count a couple of years ago? | |
| And is this the kind of company where, you know, ah, no, that may be a bit esoteric. | |
| I was going to say, like, if you've got really good technical skills, people may not ever want to move you into management because you're just so good at the technical stuff. | |
| But asking about that might be kind of premature in this kind of job. | |
| I mean, so I've given you a couple of points. | |
| Very good. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And is there anything else that I can help you with? | |
| I know you've got a hot stop at 11, which is like five minutes from now, and I want to obviously make sure you get good sleep. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Yeah, I don't really have anything else to add other than I hope I can maybe... | |
| I don't know. | |
| Can I touch base? | |
| How do you feel about the interview? | |
| I'm shitting in my pants. | |
| I'm really scared. | |
| Well, I've never made... | |
| The salary is $70,000 to $85,000 a year. | |
| So I'm scared of the money. | |
| No, no, that's not the salary. | |
| The salary you have to understand. | |
| I hate to be annoying about this, but they are not giving you any money. | |
| You know that, right? | |
| I mean, you are not going to be paid $70,000 to $85,000 a year You are going to be generating $150,000 or $200,000 a year, which you're getting a small cutoff. | |
| Right, right. | |
| We've got to remember that because otherwise salary feels like a gift. | |
| Like, wow, I'm getting twice the money. | |
| And it's because you're producing more than twice the value. | |
| So it's because you're able to produce so much value for them that they're going to pay you a percentage of what you can produce. | |
| Right. | |
| So, if you genuinely believe, and it sounds to me like you can, if you genuinely believe that you can produce the value, then the salary is appropriate. | |
| I couldn't. | |
| I mean, I just sit there going like, hey, does this thing play Doom? | |
| But you can produce the value. | |
| And so for you, I mean, it's not a gift. | |
| You're simply getting a small portion of the value that you're creating for them. | |
| Right, that's a great point. | |
| And that's why I say, talk to them about how you're going to create value for them. | |
| I mean, because that's what you want to create value for other people, that's how you get paid. | |
| I mean, that's how I get paid, donations or whatever, is creating value for people. | |
| And so, I mean, the salary is, you know, you get paid a million dollars a year, or Brad Pitt, you know, gets paid, what, 15 million dollars for a film or something like that. | |
| But that's because having Brad Pitt's on the name is going to generate 80 million dollars of business. | |
| Right, right. | |
| Yeah, that's... | |
| I gotta work on that. | |
| Okay, yeah. | |
| Yeah, just so you know, it's not like you're going like Icarus too close to the sun and you're gonna crash. | |
| As you get older, as you get more skilled, you produce more value, which means that you need to get paid more. | |
| I mean, that's, you know, that's supply and demand, right? | |
| This is the economics we live. | |
| Right. | |
| There's a part of me that's... | |
| There's a part of me that's I'm afraid of, I don't know if it's an ecosystem or something, but I'm afraid of some weird ego part sneaking in there and saying something really stupid. | |
| Now, does this mean that you're going to put your feet up on the guy's desk like a stogie and say... | |
| You're off for stings. | |
| I'm going to say that before you even open your mouth. | |
| Of course you're not. | |
| You're not that. | |
| I know, but I don't know. | |
| I don't know what it is. | |
| I don't know. | |
| It's some weird fear thing. | |
| I guess I've got a journal about it or something. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| Sorry. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| But no, it's simpler than that. | |
| You see, you grew up, if I remember rightly, you grew up in an environment where mistakes were not particularly acceptable, right? | |
| Understatement, but yeah. | |
| Right, yeah. | |
| I mean, perfectionism and, you know, red-faced, oh my god, I said the wrong thing kind of thing or, you know, that kind of stuff, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| But in the real world, right, in the world where people aren't insane, you can say something completely stupid. | |
| And you know what you can say then? | |
| Oh my god, I just said something completely stupid. | |
| I must apologize. | |
| Let me try that again. | |
| Right. | |
| And if they're the kind of people who are like, well, that's unacceptable. | |
| Right. | |
| For a million dollars a year, you don't want to work there. | |
| Right, exactly. | |
| Like, I'd rather live under a bridge than work at a place like that. | |
| It's so fucking true. | |
| Because then it's going to be a refamily for you all over again, right? | |
| That's so true. | |
| That's a great point. | |
| Yeah, let me pay you $75,000 a year so I can take 10 years of your life. | |
| Wait a minute. | |
| That's no good, right? | |
| So, no, if you say something stupid, which we've all done, right? | |
| You say something stupid, you say, you know what? | |
| That's not what I meant. | |
| That came out all wrong. | |
| Let me try that again. | |
| You're right. | |
| What I meant was blah, blah, blah, blah, right? | |
| Sure. | |
| And they'll probably laugh. | |
| And you know what that shows? | |
| A lot of confidence. | |
| That you are okay with yourself saying something stupid. | |
| Whereas if you feel like if you say something stupid, it's unrecoverable, and you have to pretend like it didn't happen, and then you have to hope the other guy didn't hear it, then you just get all tongue-tied, and the rest of it becomes real stupid, right? | |
| But if you simply say, well, that was stupid. | |
| That's not what I meant to say. | |
| Let me try that again, right? | |
| Then you're showing that you're okay with your own mistakes and that you will acknowledge them and you will fix them. | |
| What more could they want in an employee? | |
| That's a good point. | |
| Whereas if you make a mistake and you try to cover it up or try to pretend it didn't happen, it's going to send them all kinds of red flags, right? | |
| Because that means that's how you're going to do it with your work too, right? | |
| Nobody wants that. | |
| Right. | |
| Whereas if you just say, yeah, fucked up. | |
| Basically, I made a mistake. | |
| Let me fix it. | |
| Then that shows that you're going to be responsible with your mistakes, which are inevitable in any career, and you're going to correct them, right? | |
| So, I mean, I hope this helps, and I hope that you will drop me a line and let me know how it goes. | |
| Maybe I'll shoot you an email and just give you a quick overview. | |
| Oh, please do. | |
| I will thank you. | |
| I promise. | |
| I will thank you. | |
| Good thoughts. | |
| I appreciate that. | |
| I will really look forward to hearing how it goes. | |
| And relax and have fun. | |
| It's like a date. | |
| You're not desperate. | |
| You're interviewing them to find out if you want to work there. | |
| And you're not just like, dear God, give me the money and I'll clean the... | |
| Crap off your boots with my tongue or whatever, right? | |
| You're going in there. | |
| It is a negotiation. | |
| You're trying to find out if you want to work there. | |
| And, you know, so ask the questions that are going to make you feel comfortable that it's going to be a productive work environment. | |
| And, of course, what you can do is you can go in, you know, a fine joke. | |
| You know, go in and just bellow at everyone and say, oh, A pre-screening interview. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| I thought it was a pre-screening interview. | |
| No, I'm kidding. | |
| This is why I'm out of the business world. | |
| And you're glad you are as well. | |
| And as are they. | |
| But yeah, listen, best of luck. | |
| Get some great sleep. | |
| Thanks. | |
| And enjoy it as best as you can tomorrow. | |
| I'm sure it'll be fun. | |
| And if you can get into a relaxed chatting state with the people, I think that will give them the best view of who you are. | |
| And they'll be lucky to have you. | |
| I'm telling you, they will be lucky to have you. | |
| I appreciate that, sir. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Thank you so much. | |
| Take care. | |
| Best of luck tomorrow. | |
| Let me know how it goes. | |
| Thanks, Steph. | |
| Good night. | |
| Bye. |