Stupid Interview Tricks: The Topper
Continuing my series on Stupid Interview Tricks I'll describe a series of interviews I had late last year with a prospective boss I'll call Topper.
That nickname comes from a minor recurring character in Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. Topper is a guy who has to one-up everyone. Whatever they say, he'll go one further. Whatever they do, he's done better. Here's an example:
[bonus link: List of "Topper" appearances at dilbert.com]
My Topper was a senior VP at a late stage software startup company. I knew a lot about his company. They were a marketing partner at a former employer. I presented at upwards of a dozen seminars along with a counterpart from their company. I was quite familiar with who used their product and how, as many of my big customers were also big customers of theirs. In fact it was often the same team who bought & managed their product as bought & managed mine. So I entered their interview process with a lot of confidence that I was a great candidate, and I used that to push for consideration for a larger role than the one they were advertising.
A Colleague in Common
Although I knew a lot of people from the company I didn't know Topper personally, so as part of our mutual introductions at the start of the call I mentioned the names of several people I'd worked with. Topper keyed in on Wester, a sales guy whom I really liked at my then-current company who'd worked at Topper's company previously. "What do you think of Webster as a sales guy?" he asked.
In answering questions like this in an interview I strive to follow two principles. First, be brief. Not necessarily single-sentence brief, but state a point, support it, and wrap up. Second, be positive. Being positive wasn't hard because I genuinely liked working with Webster and rank him in the top 20% of all the salesguys I've worked with. And that's what I said.
"Webster could've been a lot better..." Topper began.
I actually agreed with Topper on that point. Well, not a lot better, but a little better. I purposefully hinted at that when I said "top 20%" as opposed to "best ever" or even "top 3". Honestly I was hoping Topper would ask me about that. But he didn't ask, he climbed up on a soapbox and told how Webster was imperfect because he wasn't aggressive enough.
I wasn't bothered by this in the moment because it was our first exchange, but as I looked back later I realized that what Topper did there laid the pattern for every single topic we discussed. Every answer I gave, Topper responded with a correction. Even if everything I said was right, it was incomplete. Topper would add something, and he'd always stress it was critical, and he always explained it in a way that emphasized how brilliant and successful he, personally, was. This went on for a two-hour long interview!
The Awkward Money Talk
Ultimately we deadlocked on salary. Now, salary's a strange thing to deadlock on, especially in a first or second interview. I deliberately try not to get hung up on it that early in the process. I'll discuss it enough to confirm that my expectations and theirs are in roughly the same range, and leave further negotiations for much later in the process.
Sometimes salary expectations are a bit mismatched. That's what happened here. Topper stated the range he was looking to pay. I stated the range I was looking to make, which started just above Topper's high end. In pretty much every other case like this I've encountered-- as both a job seeker and a hiring manager-- this would not be a deal-killer. There's almost always room for the employer to bring their number up for a stellar candidate, or for a candidate to bring his number down if the job conditions are especially appealing. Keep in mind, Topper's range and mine were only 5% apart. I've seen a half dozen situations where we closed a signficantly bigger gap than that.
But that wasn't okay with Topper. He had to be right. He needed me to agree to his range and not a dollar more.
Mind you, this was before I spoke to anyone (else) at the company whom I'd be working with. Before I took their technical skills test. Before they called any of my references. Et cetera. Basically, before Topper had any legitimate capability to assert what my maximum value to his company would be.
But that didn't matter, because I couldn't be right and he couldn't be wrong.
In Retrospect
As I hung up the phone with Topper I wondered, did I just blow it? As I said above, I felt the company and its products were a great fit for me. I second guessed my salary research. Should I have accepted a figure below my target range?
But in retrospect I decided it didn't matter: I would never be happy working under Topper. He'd be the kind of jerk boss who'd always find fault with whatever I did. No thanks.
That nickname comes from a minor recurring character in Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. Topper is a guy who has to one-up everyone. Whatever they say, he'll go one further. Whatever they do, he's done better. Here's an example:
[bonus link: List of "Topper" appearances at dilbert.com]
My Topper was a senior VP at a late stage software startup company. I knew a lot about his company. They were a marketing partner at a former employer. I presented at upwards of a dozen seminars along with a counterpart from their company. I was quite familiar with who used their product and how, as many of my big customers were also big customers of theirs. In fact it was often the same team who bought & managed their product as bought & managed mine. So I entered their interview process with a lot of confidence that I was a great candidate, and I used that to push for consideration for a larger role than the one they were advertising.
A Colleague in Common
Although I knew a lot of people from the company I didn't know Topper personally, so as part of our mutual introductions at the start of the call I mentioned the names of several people I'd worked with. Topper keyed in on Wester, a sales guy whom I really liked at my then-current company who'd worked at Topper's company previously. "What do you think of Webster as a sales guy?" he asked.
In answering questions like this in an interview I strive to follow two principles. First, be brief. Not necessarily single-sentence brief, but state a point, support it, and wrap up. Second, be positive. Being positive wasn't hard because I genuinely liked working with Webster and rank him in the top 20% of all the salesguys I've worked with. And that's what I said.
"Webster could've been a lot better..." Topper began.
I actually agreed with Topper on that point. Well, not a lot better, but a little better. I purposefully hinted at that when I said "top 20%" as opposed to "best ever" or even "top 3". Honestly I was hoping Topper would ask me about that. But he didn't ask, he climbed up on a soapbox and told how Webster was imperfect because he wasn't aggressive enough.
I wasn't bothered by this in the moment because it was our first exchange, but as I looked back later I realized that what Topper did there laid the pattern for every single topic we discussed. Every answer I gave, Topper responded with a correction. Even if everything I said was right, it was incomplete. Topper would add something, and he'd always stress it was critical, and he always explained it in a way that emphasized how brilliant and successful he, personally, was. This went on for a two-hour long interview!
The Awkward Money Talk
Ultimately we deadlocked on salary. Now, salary's a strange thing to deadlock on, especially in a first or second interview. I deliberately try not to get hung up on it that early in the process. I'll discuss it enough to confirm that my expectations and theirs are in roughly the same range, and leave further negotiations for much later in the process.
Sometimes salary expectations are a bit mismatched. That's what happened here. Topper stated the range he was looking to pay. I stated the range I was looking to make, which started just above Topper's high end. In pretty much every other case like this I've encountered-- as both a job seeker and a hiring manager-- this would not be a deal-killer. There's almost always room for the employer to bring their number up for a stellar candidate, or for a candidate to bring his number down if the job conditions are especially appealing. Keep in mind, Topper's range and mine were only 5% apart. I've seen a half dozen situations where we closed a signficantly bigger gap than that.
But that wasn't okay with Topper. He had to be right. He needed me to agree to his range and not a dollar more.
Mind you, this was before I spoke to anyone (else) at the company whom I'd be working with. Before I took their technical skills test. Before they called any of my references. Et cetera. Basically, before Topper had any legitimate capability to assert what my maximum value to his company would be.
But that didn't matter, because I couldn't be right and he couldn't be wrong.
In Retrospect
As I hung up the phone with Topper I wondered, did I just blow it? As I said above, I felt the company and its products were a great fit for me. I second guessed my salary research. Should I have accepted a figure below my target range?
But in retrospect I decided it didn't matter: I would never be happy working under Topper. He'd be the kind of jerk boss who'd always find fault with whatever I did. No thanks.