Questions to ask in an interview (with a scored example)

Interviewers remember the close. Candidates who say “I think you have covered everything” look unprepared, not polite. Write five questions before you arrive, ranked. Use three. If they already answered one, skip it and go to the next — do not ask it anyway to prove you prepared. The goal is information you cannot get from the careers page. “What does the culture like?” is the careers page. “When someone fails here, what did they actually miss?” is a question.

The useful cluster is success, constraints, and the team. What does good look like at six months. Who else has to say yes for this role to work. What is the decision this person will own that nobody else wants. What did the last hire get wrong. Those questions show you have imagined the job. They also give you a reason to walk away. A manager who cannot describe success will not be able to defend you in a review. That is data. Write it down after you leave.

“We are a fast-paced, collaborative environment” is not an answer. Your next line is the test: “Can you give me a recent week where that was true — and one where it broke.” People who accept the slogan have stopped interviewing. People who poke once, calmly, look like they will poke at work. Keep the tone curious, not cross-examining. One follow-up per question is enough. Three follow-ups on the same slogan feels like a trap. Then move to the next thing you actually need to know.

Generic lists read as generic. Take their posting and the last thing they said in the loop and write from that. If they mentioned a messy migration, ask who owns the cutover and what “done” looks like. If they mentioned a new manager, ask how decisions get made in the first quarter. Steal their nouns. People who ask “what is a typical day” get a typical answer. People who ask about the actual constraint get a useful one — and look like they have already started the job.

If you need to know whether travel is real, whether the on-call is theatre, whether the “small team” is actually you plus a contractor, ask it. Do not save it for the offer call and then feel trapped. You can ask it without sounding like you are already refusing: “How often is someone from this seat on the road in a normal month?” That is a question. “I am not sure I can travel” is a negotiation you have not earned yet. Get the fact first. Write the answer in the lift afterwards. Memory will turn a shrug into a promise, and you will sign for a job that only existed in the last ten minutes of a good conversation. Two lines in your notes are enough: what they said, and what they would not say.

The hiring manager and a future peer will not tell the same story about success. That gap is the job. If you only have one slot, ask the manager. If you have a panel, spend one question checking whether the peer describes the same six-month mark. Disagreement is not a trick. It is the most useful thing you can take home from the last ten minutes.

Asking about holiday, salary, or hybrid policy before you have asked about the work — those belong after an offer, or in a one-liner if they brought them up. Asking “do you have any concerns about me” outsources the close to their diplomacy. Asking a question you could have Googled. Reading six questions from a phone without listening. Practise against a manager who is slightly evasive. If you can get a concrete example out of a slogan, you can do it when the job is real.