Questions to ask the interviewer

Why the questions at the end matter

Almost every interview ends the same way: “That’s everything from me. What questions do you have for us?” It is not a formality. The interviewer is still assessing you, and what you choose to ask shows what you have been paying attention to for the past hour.

MIT’s career office puts it simply: a few well-thought-out questions let the interviewer know you are fully engaged and interested in the role. The same guidance makes a second point that is easy to forget, which is that the interviewer is the driver of the interview and you should not dominate it. Three or four questions, asked well, beat a list of ten.

There is another reason to ask, and it has nothing to do with impressing anyone. You may be about to spend the next two years with these people. The closing questions are the only part of the process where you get to interview them, so use them on the things that would actually change your mind.

Questions about the role and what success looks like

Start here, because this is the group that most often changes how a job looks. Adverts are written to attract people; the day-to-day work is what you sign up for. Ask what a normal week involves, what the first ninety days would look like, and which parts of the job take the most time. If the answer does not resemble the advert, you have learned something worth knowing before you accept.

Then ask about the standard you will be measured against. “What would a good first six months look like in this role?” does a lot of work in one sentence. A team that has thought about the job answers it immediately. A team that has not will improvise, and the hesitation tells you how clear your objectives are likely to be.

MIT’s list of sample questions suggests asking which skills the interviewer sees as most important in order to be successful in the position. It is a strong closer for two reasons. The answer is usually specific, and it hands you the exact detail to pick up in your thank-you email later that day.

For a technical or specialist role, go one level deeper. Ask what the current tooling, codebase, caseload or client mix looks like, and what the team would change if they had a spare month. Specialists tend to answer that one honestly, and the answer is often the most useful thing you hear all interview.

Questions about the team, your manager and the culture

You are joining people, not a company. Ask who you would work with every day, how the team is structured, and who you would report to if that is still unclear. If you are talking to the person who would manage you, ask how they like to work: how often they meet their reports, how they give feedback, what they expect you to bring to them and what they expect you to decide on your own. A supervisor who can describe that clearly is usually a good one.

Culture questions go wrong when they are abstract. “What is the culture like?” invites a brochure answer that tells you nothing. Ask something that can only be answered with an example instead: how the last difficult decision was made, how a disagreement between two teams gets resolved, what happens when a deadline is clearly going to be missed.

MIT’s sample questions include two worth borrowing for this purpose. One asks what the most significant challenge facing the staff is at the moment, which gets you an honest picture of where the pressure sits. The other asks what the interviewer likes best about the job or the company. The content of that answer matters less than how quickly it arrives.

Questions about next steps and the hiring timeline

Always close on process. Ask what the next stage is, who else you would meet, and when they expect to make a decision. The National Careers Service, the UK government careers service, suggests that at the end of the interview you might want to ask when you will hear back. That date is the single most useful thing you can take away: it tells you when a follow-up is reasonable and it stops you refreshing your inbox for a fortnight.

Two more are worth asking if the conversation has gone well. “Is there anything in my background you would like me to expand on?” gives you one last chance to repair a thin answer. MIT’s list includes a bolder version that invites the interviewer to name anything that would give them concern about your candidacy. Ask that one only if you can take the answer without getting defensive, because a flinch undoes any credit the question earns.

Write down what you are told. The date you are given is the date your follow-up email will be built on, and nobody remembers it accurately two weeks later.

Good interview questions to ask, and what each one tells you

These are examples to adapt, not a script to read out. The right-hand column is the point: a question is worth asking only if the answer would tell you something you cannot find out any other way.

Pick the five or six that matter most for this particular job, write them on the page you take in with you, and cross off the ones that get answered during the interview. Noting your questions down before the interview is standard advice, and the National Careers Service recommends exactly that.

How many to ask, and what to avoid

Prepare six to eight, ask three or four. The gap between those two numbers is the whole trick. A good interview answers half your list as it goes, and a candidate who asks about something already covered looks like they were not listening.

If you genuinely have nothing left because everything was covered, say so in a way that proves it: name the two things you had planned to ask, note that they were already answered, then ask about next steps. A flat “no, I’m fine” is the one response to avoid, because it reads as indifference even when it is just nerves.

The questions to leave out are the ones you could have answered yourself. Anything sitting on the careers page, the product page or the advert makes you look unprepared. Pay, holiday, remote days and notice periods are all fair questions, but they belong at the offer stage, unless the interviewer raises them first or the advert asked for your expectations. Do not ask whether you got the job, do not ask how you compare with the other candidates, and do not ask anything about a named colleague’s personal situation. Steer clear of questions that are really complaints in disguise, such as asking why the company’s reviews are so poor.

One more, and it catches people who have over-prepared: do not ask a question you have no interest in the answer to. Interviewers can tell, because you stop listening halfway through the reply.

Adapting your questions to who is interviewing you

The same question lands differently depending on who is in the room, so sort your list by who can actually answer it.

A recruiter or first-round screener knows the process, the salary band, the timeline and the team’s reputation inside the company. Ask them about the stages, who you will meet, why the role was opened and what the hiring manager is really looking for. Do not spend a screening call on deep technical questions; you will get a relayed half-answer and lose the chance to ask the things only a recruiter knows.

The hiring manager is the person to ask about the work: priorities, how success is measured, how they manage, what the first project would be. Your two best questions belong here, because this is usually the person who decides.

Peers and future teammates give you the truth about the day-to-day. Ask what surprised them when they joined, what they would warn a new starter about, and which tools or processes get in the way. Keep it friendly rather than forensic, since they will be asked for their view of you afterwards.

On a panel, spread your questions around rather than aiming them all at the most senior person. Pick one question per interviewer, pitched to their role, and use their name when you ask. If a founder or executive joins the final round, raise your altitude: ask where this team sits in the plan for the next year, or what would make the role a success from where they are sitting. Note who said what, because the detail you quote back in a thank-you email should come from the person you are sending it to.