Three Critical Questions to Turn the Tables During Technical Interviews

Questions for when your interviewer says “Do you have any questions for me?”

I get really obnoxious and opinionated about how we interview potential new hires. The interview is often the best signal candidates have about what it’s like to work with us. Especially valuable candidates who are likely to have competing offers from other companies. Our interview experience should show us at our best.

And that thought process carries over when I switch to the other side of the table. I expect people interviewing me for a job to both assess my skills and sell me on why joining their organization is the right move for me.

But it’s not always obvious how you do that as a candidate. Especially if you’re in the earlier stages of your career. When you’re on the other side of the table, how should you best use your time in interviews to collect the most valuable data on how well the company and role might fit?

The answer lies in making use of the point in the conversation when the interviewer says, “Do you have any questions for me?”

Round after Round

You should have a standard set of questions you plan to ask every interviewer at every stage of the interview loop. Often I go as far as telling the interviewer this outright. I have a set of questions I’m asking everyone. It’s interesting to see the different perspectives.

The only exception is the recruiting screen. Recruiters rarely have much exposure to the day-to-day of the role and their function is more logistical. They’re there to guide you through the ins and outs of the process and make sure you don’t get lost. When a recruiter asks you “Do you have any questions?”, keep your answer to that scope.

In hiring, we standardize questions to help mitigate bias and make more accurate comparisons across a group of candidates. When seeking a new role, standardizing your questions helps you figure out how the organization behaves both in internal politics and in how it incentivizes teams. It isn’t that I expect to get different answers, it’s more the attitudes of the answers themselves. Some people will acknowledge hard problems or admit mistakes, some people won’t. It’s really…