By now, job seekers hopefully know the two cardinal rules of interview questions:

1. When the interviewer asks if you have any questions, you better have something to ask.

2. You should walk into the interview room prepared to answer the classic questions, such as, “What is your biggest weakness?” or “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

But there’s an often overlooked rule that you should remember for your own good:

3. You should be asking important questions at every step of the hiring process — from the first time you speak to the hiring manager to the last conversation you have with him.

Have a list of questions ready before you start. You don’t need to ask these questions to look good to the employer; you need to ask them to learn about the employer. You are interviewing employers just as much as they’re interviewing you.

Here are 11 questions you should be asking employers throughout the interview process:

When you receive the first call before the in-person interview:

No. 1: Whom will I be interviewing with?
The best way to adequately prepare for an interview is to know whom you’ll be speaking with. You’ll likely have different questions for the hiring manager than you would for the entire team or the department head. You’ll also want to do some research on the interviewers so you can ask them personalized, insightful questions.

Plus, if the employer can’t give you specific names, you have to wonder if they’re taking the situation seriously and are even a legitimate business. For all you know, you could end up in a room with 30 other applicants on the receiving end of a sales pitch. If a serious employer calls you for an interview, they’ll already have interviewers lined up and should have no problem sharing their names.

No. 2: Does the opportunity involve commission sales or purchase of a sales kit?
If you get a call out of the blue for a position you never expressed interest in, you have a right to be skeptical. If the position sounds confusing, or their description is too vague, dig deeper. If you get the feeling the position requires you to purchase a sales kit or there is no base salary, and you’re not interested in that type of role, ask them up front. A reputable employer will answer directly and trust that you’ll know if the position is right for you.

No. 3: Can you tell me more about the opportunity and why you think my qualifications are a good fit?
You’ve spent a lot of time customizing your résumé so that employers know you’re serious about their specific role. You used keywords and quantified results to prove your worth. If employers can’t pinpoint what attracted them to you, then they’re probably not looking for a great worker to help grow with the role. They’re looking for anyone who will accept the offer and won’t hesitate to make a replacement if it doesn’t work out.

During the interview:

No. 4: What are your short- and long-term goals for the position?
Employers will probably ask about your career goals, but you should ask them what they want the person in this position to achieve. Are they concerned with increasing revenue, visibility, leads, improving morale, or any number of other things? You want to know that they have a purpose for this position and aren’t just looking for a temporary solution.

No. 5: Can you tell me why the last person left this role?
They might not tell you, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. If the person got promoted or even took a better job elsewhere, that’s a sign that the position is a good way to advance a career.

No. 6: Who are the primary people I’ll be working with on a daily basis?
Where does this role fit in the overall structure of the team and even the business? Will you get face time with people who can help your career? Will you spend most of your days in silence, typing on a computer? All that matters is that you receive an answer that  appeals to you.

No. 7: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the person taking this role?
No position is perfect. In fact, some roles are created to address a problem that needs to be solved. That could very well be what attracted you to the job. An honest employer will tell you what struggles lie ahead. That’s your opportunity to turn the answer around as a challenge you’re happy to accept and present some ideas of how you would tackle the obstacles. If the employer makes it sound too good to be true, it probably is.

No. 8: Do you have any doubts about my fit for the position? I’d be glad to clear anything up for you.
Not all interviewers ask direct questions or are even very good at interviewing, so you might have to prompt them to tell you what their concerns are. Now is the only chance you have to clarify anything, so make sure you leave no question unanswered.

No. 9: What is the timeline for filling the position?
You deserve to know when a decision might be made and what the next steps are. Hiring managers have a ballpark idea of how long the interviewing process will take, whether candidates will have to come back for another interview, and when a decision will be made. It might not be exact, but at least you have an idea of what to expect.

After the interview:

No. 10: Have you made a decision? (If the given deadline has passed)
If the hiring manager says it will be a week before you hear back, wait an extra day or two (or even three). Then follow up to see if a decision has been made. Don’t pester her and don’t show up at the office — that won’t win you any points. A quick email to ask how the process is going is enough.

No. 11: Do you have any recommendations for how I could improve my interviewing skills?
If you don’t get the position, you’ll be disappointed, but use it as an opportunity to improve your interviewing skills. Some employers won’t give you tips, but others might give you feedback that will help you on the next interview.

Courtesy: The Work Buzz

New Delhi: The government’s pledge to review plans to introduce curbs on Internet freedom persuaded the opposition to join the treasury benches in defeating a statutory motion that sought to annul the intermediary country’s information technology, or IT, rules.

Seeking consensus: Technology minister Kapil Sibal. By Pradeep Gaur/Mint

The motion in the Rajya Sabha came on a day when activists hacked the websites of the Supreme Court and the Congress party to register their protest against the government’s bid to curb online access after several video sharing websites were banned by a legal order.

This attack came amid the censorship debate in the country sharpening dramatically, with the government’s various attempts in the past to regulate Internet content being construed as measures towards impinging freedom of speech and expression in the country.

The statutory motion was moved by P. Rajeeve, Rajya Sabha member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and sought to annul the so-called IT (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, alleging they would lead to “private censorship”.

The rules were notified in April 2011 but led to outrage in India’s Internet community as they require the hosts or the owners of the websites to take action against “objectionable content” within 36 hours of receiving a complaint.

And though the rules are aimed at ensuring due diligence by intermediaries—including telcos, Internet and web-hosting service providers and search engines—they could also lead to censorship with some intermediaries complying with requests to ban websites in a bid to avoid litigation.

Rajeeve’s motion was defeated after communications and technology minister Kapil Sibal assured the house he would seek the views of members of Parliament, industry bodies and other stakeholders on the rules and take action after a consensus emerges.

“Under the new media, there will be new challenges and we will need to be ready for the challenges,” Sibal told the House. After the consultations, he will present an agreed position before Parliament for further decision.

The websites of the Supreme Court and the ruling party were attacked.

The following message was posted on Twitter: “Anonymous Operations@Anon_Central: Namaste #India, your time has come to trash the current government and install a new one. Good luck. #SaveTPB #Anonymous (official twitter handle of anonymous).”

The Anonymous Internet hacker group retaliates against anti-digital piracy campaigns, including bans or censorship of some torrent (peer-to-peer networking) and video-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay and Vimeo.

In a video posted by Anonymous and telecast by NDTV, the group said, “The department of telecom, has ordered all Internet service providers in India to block access to all file-sharing websites… We cannot let any censorship happen.” The video said this was similar to actions by the UK high court.

It signed off by saying: “We will not let this go, we are Anonymous… Expect us. Operation India engaged.”

Mint reported on 10 May that Reliance Entertainment Pvt. Ltd had got a court order to block these sites ahead of its coming film releases to combat piracy.

Court-decreed bans are implemented by the department of telecommunications, or DoT. A Reliance Entertainment official had earlier told Mint that even though the directions are only for blocking content related to the company’s films, Internet Services Providers, or ISPs, sometimes block entire websites in response.

While Pirate Bay is a torrent website, Vimeo is largely used by independent filmmakers to share their work.

“This attack should not be seen as a very routine attack,” said cyberlaw expert and Supreme Court lawyer Pavan Duggal. It takes place as the intermediary rules under the Amended Information Technology Act 2000 (now known as IT Act 2008) have come into sharp focus, in terms of being very broad in their ambit.

“By and large, the impression is that India is going in the direction of censorship,” he said.

The issue of censorship came to prominence in December last year when Sibal said the government will evolve “guidelines” for social media companies after they had refused to comply with the government over banning “objectionable content”, some of it pertaining to senior Congress leaders such as Sonia Gandhi.

Criminal proceedings followed against companies such as Facebook and Google in the Delhi high court.

“These attacks (by hackers like the Anonymous group) are nothing but a symbolic representation from a group, which believes this is one way of drawing attention of not just the Indian government but the nation as a whole,” said Duggal. He added that though India as a democracy is not committed to Internet censorship, there are certain rules and regulations that “I distinctly believe need to be appropriately tweaked. At no point of time, the Internet as a phenomenon can be completely controlled by the government”.

Campaigns by Anonymous in India are not new. According to digital media news website MediaNama, Anonymous’ last one was in June 2011, when it hacked the National Informatics Centre website because of the police action against Baba Ramdev’s anti-corruption campaign.

The group had also announced its plans for Operation India Against Corruption on Twitter and Facebook.

The hacking of government websites in the country has increased with around 112 such instances in the first three months of the year, which included those of the ministries of finance, health and human resource development, besides the Planning Commission.

This compares with the 117 government websites targeted in the six months between January and June last year.

The blocking of video-sharing websites through court order is the latest tack of the entertainment industry to curtail piracy of films and music over the Internet.

surabhi.a@livemint.com

Courtesy: LiveMint

Grade-school students often welcome tornado and fire drills as unexpected escapes from class. Every few months, students practice what to do in case of an emergency, and for a few minutes they get to chat with friends and maybe even skip a test. Hopefully they never actually encounter a real fire or tornado, but it is the school’s responsibility to ensure that everyone knows what to do should one occur.

As adults who spend most of our days at work instead of school, we don’t always have that same level of preparation. A new CareerBuilder survey on disaster preparedness finds that many companies do have some form of a disaster-recovery plan, but many aren’t ready for the variety of crises that could come their way. Check out the infographic below to see if companies are as prepared for a cyber attack as they are for a fire.

Courtesy: The Work Buzz