When you finally land a job interview, it's easy to think that the only thing you need to worry about is impressing your potential managers or peers. And if you've been out of work for an extended period of time, you might even feel super desperate. You just want the whole process to be over with.
When interviewing for a job, it's important that you make it a two-way conversation because, in essence, it's a two-way transaction: They need your talent, training, and experience. You need to get paid for those three things. And you're valuable. I mean, the only capital almost as important as human (when it comes to business) is time.
Knowing this, these are four smart questions you should be asking at any job interview this year:
1. "How does the company evaluate my performance and award great work?"
This question is huge. It's a great way to find out more about the company's values, how they see productivity and results, and whether you might be signing up for a toxic environment where there's hardly any fulfillment. Good work should be acknowledged, and depending on what motivates you at work, the way in which it's noticed should be in line with your values. If you're motivated by more pay, then it might not be great if the interviewer says, "We throw a pizza party quarterly," or "We offer product discounts with our corporate partners." If they really don't have an answer for this, try to deflect, or their answers are super-vague, go ahead and raise that mental red flag.
I once worked for a company where I had to sell six figures worth of a certain product. We had to meet monthly KPIs (key performance indicators), and we were paid a little more than minimum wage while the company made millions from us closing sales.
They'd reward those who met their KPIs with a pat on the back and a potluck lunch. Yeah. That didn't end well for me because the math wasn't math-ing. I made my KPIs 90% of the time, but never got any tangible (i.e., monetary) reward for it, drove a used car, couldn't afford rent at that time (so I was living with family), and was one of their top sellers in my quad.
If I ever go into a sales-focused job again, I want one that offers commissions and paid bonuses for meeting targets. So, ask those questions early in the interview process.
When interviewing for a job, it's important that you make it a two-way conversation.
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2. "What additional benefits (other than PTO and healthcare, which are mandated by law) are available to me?"
Today, as we all focus more on wellness and self-care, it's important to get to know how much more you can get than 10 days off a year. (For some jobs or industries, more than this just might not be a realistic ask, but for many, it is). You'd probably be surprised how much more you can negotiate when it comes to benefits. It could be taking Mondays off, going home an hour earlier, or a free gym membership. It could be payment for wellness classes or resources that you can use while at work. It's anything beyond the usual "package" offered to someone.
Some companies really offer scraps, and then you're responsible for actually asking for the true basics of benefits. Ask about these things before you take a job and find out when it's too late that you can't even get a paid sick day off because you've been at the company less than six months.
This question also reflects the values of the company as well. Are they more into squeezing blood out of a turnip and treating their workers like robots, or do they put humanity first and know that people work at their best when they not only feel valued but are shown through actions and dollars that they are. Here's a great checklist you can use, via Indeed, to consider what additional benefits you might want to ask about.
3. "Could you tell me more about the educational or additional training resources made available to me, supported by the company?"
Any innovative and thriving company wants to be able to keep its best employees, and a big part of doing this is offering educational and training opportunities that will help its professionals continue to grow with the company. It's great to be able to go back to school, take online courses, get mentorship opportunities, or be placed with other leaders at the company without having to leave or dip into your own pockets to do so. Many leading companies that are among the favorites of millennial women offer such resources, so ask.
4. "What's a day in the life look like in the role?"
This is another huge question that will give you all you need to know about the company's values, culture, and ways of treating its employees. When you're interviewing for a job, the manager should be able to very clearly let you know what's expected in terms of duties. This is a great way to also find out if you've been catfished by a job posting because they literally have the opportunity to reinforce what was already included there.
If they slip up and start adding duties, seem confused, don't really know, or describe something totally different from the job posting, quietly decide that you'd rather mop up the ocean for a living than take that job. You'd be in for a disaster.
I've already told the story of how I'd interviewed for a dream job, went through three rounds of interviews, got the job, and on the first day, was told I'd be managing an additional department full of very disgruntled professionals (mourning the loss of their manager who was laid off a short while before they hired me). Oh, by the way, the pay would remain the same. And when I pushed back about it, they gaslit me and downplayed why they'd totally flipped the script on me just after I'd signed my paperwork. Yep, that didn't last. I unapologetically walked away.
So, save yourself the disappointment, heartache, and stress and ask the important questions about job duties up front. I'd ignored the signs during the interview because, again, it was my dream job. There were red flags like a very bewildered interviewer who answered the question but wasn't head of the department I'd be working under, nor was she experienced in the type of work I was interviewing to do.
Let's kill the practice of getting a job to do one thing but being manipulated into doing three different jobs without the pay increase or the courtesy of giving us the opportunity to decline.
When you're interviewing for a job, the manager should be able to very clearly let you know what's expected in terms of duties.
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BONUS (If applicable): "Are there opportunities to work remote? If so, what does this look like?"
Remote work is not some "privilege" that companies are bestowing on their workers. It's becoming a norm. Don't let any manager fool you. If you're a parent and need to be there for your kids, ask about this option. If you don't thrive working in an office and do better work while away from a cubicle, ask this question. If you have a health issue where commuting makes things unnecessarily difficult for you, ask about this. If you simply want to have one or two days to be out of the office for hybrid work, you know what to do.
Again, for some industries or jobs, this is not possible, and for very good reasons (i.e., cybersecurity being a great one), but if you are working in an industry or are interviewing for the type of job that lends to this, speak up about it at the onset of the interview. For many of us, remote work saved our lives. It provided more wellness benefits than HR could ever offer.
Advocate for yourself so that you can be the best professional and you can grow in order to be a leader in your industry.
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak