How do you feel about reporting to a younger person (minority, woman etc)?
“I have great respect for a company that employs and advances employees on merit alone. This is the best philosophy as of course it would also apply to me. The person I would be reporting to is obviously good at his/her job and fully deserves the position they’re in. Their (age, gender, race etc) therefore would make no difference to me.
Whoever has a position within a company obviously deserves it and is good at their job. All employees in a company deserve respect and work best when their talents, abilities and effort are respected and rewarded. You think highly of a company that recruits and promotes on merit since that would also apply to yourself. This is the best kind of work environment that you could hope to find.
On matters related to confidential information…
There are two reasons why your interviewer would press you for information here…
An interview is the perfect way to research the competition. It’s easy for a good interviewer to get inside information from an unsuspecting candidate on the competitor’s plans, research, financial condition etc.
It’s a way of testing the integrity of the candidate.
The way to tackle this is simple. Never share any information that is truly confidential about a present or former employer. Be vocal in explaining your reluctance e.g. – “I want to be frank and share everything that you need to know but I need to respect the rights of those who have trusted me with their most sensitive and confidential information, just you would expect your employees to do when speaking with a competitor.”
Questions of this nature weigh your desire to be cooperative against your integrity. The latter being the more valuable commodity, always choose wisely. Along with the information you surrender you will also end up losing all respect that the interviewers might have for you at this point.
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