Questions candidates should ask us

An interview at Color of Vietnam is not an exam. It is a chance for both sides to find out whether they fit, and the second half of the meeting belongs to the candidate. We want to be asked, and we want the hard questions. This piece suggests the questions worth putting to a small company like ours, explains what each one reveals, and gives our honest answers to a few of them.

Why we want to be asked

In a small team every new person changes how the whole team works. A wrong hire costs the person who joins and the people already there. The cheapest way to reduce that risk is to let candidates see the company as it really is before they accept. Their questions are the tool for seeing. And the way someone asks tells us a great deal too: specific or vague, asking to understand or asking for form, listening to the answer and following up or moving on.

Our value Speak Honestly applies from the first meeting. If the answer is not flattering, we give it anyway.

Six questions worth asking

• What does a normal week look like in this role? This reveals the real job rather than the job description. If the interviewer cannot say how Monday differs from Thursday, the role may not have been thought through.
• Who decides, and how long does a decision usually take? This tells you how much waiting and how much autonomy to expect.
• What does the company not have yet that it should? Every company has unfinished parts. The answer shows whether the company sees them, and whether you would be the one building them.
• What did the team learn from the last trial that failed? This checks two things: whether real trials happen, and whether failure is spoken about.
• How is feedback given, and how does the founder take it? In a small company you will work directly with the founder. How that person receives feedback shapes most of your days.
• What does doing well look like after three months? This forces the company to state expectations as results rather than adjectives.

There is no need to ask all six. Two questions with careful listening beat six questions with note taking.

How we answer some of them

On a normal week: the week opens with planning and a tasting, the middle of the week holds a visit to our partner facilities in the Thạch Thất – Quốc Oai industrial park or a sample review, and the week closes with a run through the task list. Everyone attends everything, including the marketing person at the tasting.

On decisions: most product decisions are made at the review table, in the same session. Decisions about money and about brands sit with the founder, usually within the day. We hold few long meetings.

On what is missing: a lot. There is no separate department for each function, no written procedure for every situation, and no export market announced yet. Whoever joins now will write procedures while doing the work. Some people like that and some do not, and both are right.

On feedback: it goes straight to the work, as soon as it is noticed, and the founder takes it like everyone else, including at tastings when the founder's sheet is outvoted by the whole table.

A candidate who asked to see a rejected sample

In an interview for the Fresher Product R&D role, a candidate asked something we had never been asked: could we show a sample that had been rejected, together with the notes from the session that rejected it. We opened the sample tracking sheet, pointed at a version of the Natural & Healthy seaweed and cashew bar that had been rejected because the seaweed drowned out the nut, and read the note aloud, including the next step and the person it was assigned to.

That question told us three things about the candidate: this person wanted to see real work, understood that rejecting samples is normal, and cared more about how things are recorded than about how they are described. It also taught us something about ourselves: the sample tracking sheet is something we should show candidates earlier, because it explains how we work better than any introduction.

What we ask in return

We usually ask three questions back: have you eaten any of our products, and what did you honestly think; tell us about a time you got something wrong and how you put it right; and what do you want to learn in your first year. The first tests Taste First, the second tests See It Through and Speak Honestly, and the third tells us which work to hand over first.

If you have reached this far and already have a few questions of your own, the Fresher Product R&D and Marketing Leader roles in Hanoi are open on our Careers page. Send your application and bring your questions to the meeting. We will answer them honestly.