Professional Practice for Interior Designers. Christine M. Piotrowski
your expectations of me during the first year?
What are the job responsibilities of this position?
Will I be working with only one designer or several (for an entry‐level position)?
How many people work in the company?
What are the company's plans for growth or expansion?
Are many other people being interviewed?
How will I be evaluated for raises and promotion possibilities?
When will you be making a decision?
Salary discussions might occur during the course of the interview or more likely near the end. Employers are going to want to know what kind of salary you are looking for. Be prepared to give a salary range, but if possible wait to do so until the employer has indicated what the salary will be. If you are already employed in the profession, they will ask what you are currently being paid. If you ask for too much, you probably won't be given an offer. If you ask for too little, they may believe you don't have any confidence in your skills and thus drop you from consideration.
Employers, of course, want to hire you at as low a salary as is reasonable for the position. But do not sell yourself short. If the salary offer is way below what you need to live on or is way below what you understand the competition is paying, say so. Compensation levels are often based on several factors. Most commonly, compensation is based on years of experience in the profession, along with other beneficial and relevant experience. Education and technical skills also affect compensation.
Benefits are also part of compensation. Benefits such as health insurance, reimbursement of professional association dues, and employee discounts are important parts of the compensation package. If it is not brought up, ask about benefits like NCIDQ fees and professional dues payments. You should read the section in Chapter 29 on compensation and benefits.
Finally, if you are interviewing in a city with which you are unfamiliar, research the cost of living there before you go for an interview. Investigate costs of housing, food, gas, and other items of daily life. You might be able to get this information from a local bank or the chamber of commerce. These costs can have a major impact on the actual salary level.
ILLEGAL QUESTIONS
U.S. law states that some types of questions are inappropriate to ask during an interview; the laws prohibit interviewers from using them, and they cannot appear on a job application. These questions relate, but are not limited, to age, sex, religion, race or national origin, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, and disability. For example, the employer cannot directly ask you how old you are, your date of birth, your religion, or your native tongue.
There are ways in which certain normally illegal questions can be asked so as to make them permissible. This is especially true if the question has a direct bearing on an individual's ability to perform the job. It is legal for an employer to ask something like, “Are you between the ages of 23 and 50?” or “Are you a citizen of this country?” The key, of course, is whether the questions and the way in which they are asked are being used to discriminate against potential employees.
Questions directed at women, such as asking whether she is single or married, what her husband does for a living, or whether she plans to have children, are all considered illegal. Sometimes these questions come up in very casual ways, such as, “Are you going to be able to work evenings and weekends when needed?” This question could be innocent or actually a ploy to find out if you have children and child care responsibilities. These discriminatory kinds of questions must not influence the employer's decision as to whether to offer a job to an individual.
When you are asked a question that you believe to be illegal or that you feel uncomfortable answering, you must be prepared to say something. Many of the job‐hunting books suggest that you answer the question; others suggest not offering personal information. Another way of handling this situation is to say something like, “I do not understand what that has to do with the requirements of the job or my qualifications to do the job.” Wait for a response and then decide whether to answer or not without necessarily detailing or revealing personal information.
If the interviewer asks too many of these kinds of questions or ignores your hesitancy in answering them, you always have the right to terminate the interview and obtain a job somewhere else. It is sad to say, but discrimination in hiring decisions does occur. However, if you feel you have been denied a job based on discrimination, you have recourse should you choose to pursue it. “You may have a cause of action if you can prove that you were discriminated against in the job application process. … If you feel you have a legitimate gripe, the first step is to file a complaint with your state human rights commission or the EEOC.”1 Of course, you can hire a private attorney and file a civil suit if you wish. Only you can decide whether you want to work for a firm that appears to discriminate.
You can find information on the Internet concerning illegal questions and ways that the information can also be obtained. A review of the books by Lewin G. Joel III, Fred S. Steingold, and Steven Mitchell Sack (see the General Reference list) or others can also help you understand specific ways in which questions can and cannot be asked during interviews or on job applications.
FOLLOW‐UP
So what's next? If you were offered a position and accepted, you might have additional paperwork to complete at the office. More likely this will be done on your first day on the job. You will also likely have some additional questions concerning that first day.
Perhaps you have been offered a position but you have asked for time to consider the offer. It is best if you call the interviewer promptly and follow up with a refusal or acceptance letter. In most situations, the employer is hoping for an immediate response. Depending on the situation, you can ask for 24–48 hours. Waiting longer can be a problem and can indicate to the prospective employer that you are not interested. When you respond within a reasonable time frame, the company knows whether you are interested in the position and, in the case of your refusal, has a letter for the company's records.
You have to be careful to ask for time to decide if you have other interviews scheduled. If you have another interview that day, do not keep one employer dangling to see if someone else might have a better offer. Be sure to consider the offer in front of you carefully, comparing it to your goals, to help you decide whether to accept. A highly qualified designer is likely to get more than one offer or be speaking to more than one firm, and the employers know this. If you are interested, let the person in front of you know that fact, as well as that you are also interviewing with other firms. In all honesty, this is a delicate situation in which there is, unfortunately, no perfect answer.
More likely, you will not receive an offer immediately because the company is also interviewing other people. An important task shortly after the interview is to prepare notes detailing what was talked about, as part of your job search recordkeeping. If an offer was not made or you were rejected, these notes will help you determine and understand what might have gone wrong so that you can correct the errors during future interviews.
If an offer is made and you accept it, a written summary from your perspective is also important. Notes related to salary, benefits, and expected performance levels will be essential in the future to remind you of the agreed‐upon responsibilities on which you will later be evaluated. Many designers now request that offers be put in writing. This writing does not have to be a formal employment contract, as described in Chapter 29, but it should include key points concerning salary, benefits, and work responsibilities.
As soon as reasonable after the interview, prepare some notes on how the interview went. This is naturally very important if you do not get an offer so you can correct any issues in your presentation. But it is also important when you get an offer. Your notes concerning salary