High Output Management

by Andrew S. Grove

group of managers provided me with what they thought were the best questions. They were: — Describe some projects that were highly regarded by your management, especially by the levels above your immediate supervisor. — What are your weaknesses? How are you working to eliminate them? — Convince me why my company should hire you. — What are some of the problems you are encountering in your current position? How are you going about solving them? What could you have done to prevent them from cropping up? — Why do you think you’re ready for this new job? — What do you consider your most significant achievements? Why were they important to you? — What do you consider your most significant failures? What did you learn from them? — Why do you think an engineer should be chosen for a marketing position? (Vary this one according to the situation.) — What was the most important course or project you completed in your college career? Why was it so important? The information to be gained here tends to fall into four distinct categories. First, you’re after an understanding of the candidate’s technical knowledge: not engineering or scientific knowledge, but what he knows about performing the job he wants—his skill level. For an accountant, technical skill means an understanding of accounting; for a tax lawyer, tax laws; for an actuary, statistics and the use of actuarial tables; and so on. Second, you’re trying to assess how this person performed in an earlier job using his sk...