Is it rude to ask the position of the person interviewing you?

Question

I had a phone interview yesterday. From the beginning of the call I sensed the interviewer was unhappy or in a bad mood or something. The only real question she asked me was "tell me about how you got to where you are now?". At the end of the interview she mentioned she will pass my application on to the hiring manager.

I asked her what her position was and she deflected the question. Why would someone not want to answer? I take it as a sign of a bad work environment if people automatically deflect questions. I asked her again and she said she was the "district corporate recruiter".

Part of why I asked was I was wondering if she was non-technical and that's why she didn't ask many questions. The other part is I was wondering if I'd be working with her (I did ask this more directly but she deflected it too).

Is it rude to ask the position of the person interviewing you?

I didn't ask her what her position was immediately after she said she would pass the application on to her manager. I asked her when I did as it was the end of the interview and she asked if I had any questions.

Answer 1

Well, if immediately beforehand she said that she would pass your info to the hiring manager, your question of her position within the workplace hierarchy sort of implies that you view her as someone without power within the hierarchy itself and therefore they're sort of under qualified to conduct the interview or make hiring decisions.

So, in general, no it's not. But in this instance it might've come across negatively.

As DavidK says, it's not about the question itself, it's about your motivation for asking the question, or really, what it appears your motivation is. If it sounded like you were asking me my position because you think you need to talk to someone more important, then yes, I will be offended

Answer 2

The fact that there were no technical questions asked, that would pertain to how you would do this job, were you to be given it, means this was most likely just an introductory interview. An interview to ask those generalized questions like "where do you see yourself in 5 years", or "name a time where you were in charge and had to make a difficult decision".

In this instance, the position of the interviewer is irrelevant. Since she was just conducting the introductory interview, there was simply no reason to question her position with the company. It may not have been meant as an insult or meant to offend, but that's probably how it came off, especially after she said "I will send your application to the hiring manager", it's clear she wasn't the one making the hiring decision, she was just getting those common questions out of the way.

In my experience, the phone interview is generally just an "introductory" interview, kind of see how you may fit into the workplace, a few generalized questions that they ask to get them out of the way so the next interview can focus solely on the technical side.

Next time, just worry about answering the questions(and no it doesn't mean you can't ASK questions), and let them decide who is going to interview you. If they're interviewing you with unqualified people, maybe that's not a company you want to work for anyway.

Answer 3

No its not rude, although some people may take offence and you cannot stop that - you are entitled to know with whom you are discussing the position with, as you can tailor your demeanor and depth of response to the level that the other person is at.

While I would be doing the same job either way, the way I sell myself to a senior manager would be entirely different to how I would sell myself to an immediate team lead - the senior manager may be less interested in intimate technical knowledge and be more focused on deliverables, while the team lead may be more focused on technical knowledge and whether I would fit into the team.

Remember also that an interview goes both ways - while they are interviewing you, you are also interviewing the company, and you should ask the questions you want to ask in order to decide whether you want to work there.

For example in your case, the demeanor of that person may have a bearing on whether you ultimately decide to pursue the position - asking what their position within the company is allows you to determine whether they are someone you would be working with day to day, which may tip the decision one way or another.