7 Killer interview questions to ask an interviewer (and 3 questions to avoid at all costs)

According to experts, employers care more about the questions that you ask them during the job interview than they care about your answers.

When I first read this, I thought it was just some exaggeration used for clickbait.

But, when I became a hiring manager a few years ago, I was astonished to find that it’s actually true for several reasons (which I’ll explain in just a second).

In this post, I’ll share the best questions to ask an interviewer at the end of an interview. These questions are based on doing hundreds of interviews with candidates and recommended by some of the top career coaches on LinkedIn.

I’ll go over:

1. Why employers care about the questions you ask
2. 3 Questions you absolutely shouldn’t ask an interview
3. 7 Great questions to ask an interviewer
4. And a few extra tips to set you up for a successful interview

If you’re about to go on an interview soon, I also recommend reading my ultimate guide to prepare for an interview.

So, without further ado, let’s jump in!

Why employers care about the questions you ask during an interview?

It’s pretty obvious that people are on their best behavior when they go on an interview.

If you’ve prepared for your interview properly, chances are that there will be very few questions that will surprise you. Which, as it turns out, presents a problem for an employer.

I experienced this problem first hand when I was tasked with hiring new employees for our team.

I interviewed several candidates. I went through my list of interview questions. And do you know what I learned?

Almost nothing.

Almost all the candidates I interviewed were so well prepared for the interview that asking the typical questions yielded very few real answers.

Side note: This is why some employers will ask you trick interview questions, which you should also be prepared for.

This is when I realized why interviewers like to ask, “so, do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?”

The questions that the job candidate asked were SO much more eye opening than the answers they had given me prior.

For example, if a job candidate only asked about salary, bonuses, and other compensation related questions, it would raise my suspicion.

I would think:

“Is this person actually interested to work with us or are they just after the biggest paycheck? And what will happen in a year if another company offers them a bigger paycheck? Will they just leave us?”

The questions you ask an interviewer reveal A LOT about your priorities.

This is why it’s so important to make sure that the questions you ask at the end of an interview are the correct ones.

So, before we jump into the best questions to ask an interviewer, let’s talk about the questions NOT to ask.

Questions you should NOT ask an interviewer

If you’ve Googled “best questions to ask an interviewer,” you’ve probably seen lists like, “38 smart questions to ask during a job interview.”

These lists, while well intentioned, tend to give some pretty poor advice.

The reason these lists may mislead you is because they don’t take into account the extremely limited time you have to ask questions.

During a job interview, you’ll typically have about 10 minutes to ask the employer your questions.

That means realistically you’ll only get about 2–3 questions. Those 2–3 questions will make a big impression, so choose wisely.

Here are a few questions you should NOT ask the employer:

DON'T ASK: What does a typical day look like in this role?

Why you shouldn’t ask this: This question is bad for two reasons. First, it’s a waste of a question. But, more importantly, you’re actually making a bad impression.

If you have any amount of experience in your role whatsoever, you should already know what your typical day looks like. If someone asked me this question, as a hiring manager I would think, “does this candidate even know how to do this role?”

DON'T ASK: How often do people get promoted?

Why you shouldn’t ask this: This question comes from a good place, and I actually used to ask this question during interviews myself. What I’ve realized over the years is that this question actually raises some immediate red flags.

As a manager, one of the most frustrating things is working with an employee who is obsessed with being promoted as quickly as possible. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly normal to expect a promotion after a couple of years and I’ve written about how to get a promotion faster here.

The problem occurs when an employee wants to get a promotion after just 6–12 months and then complains when they don’t get it. Sometimes the manager has no control over this and then is stuck with an aggravated, impatient employee. That’s why this question could raise red flags, so it’s best to steer clear of it in my opinion.

DON'T ASK: What is the turnover rate like at the company?

Why you shouldn’t ask this: Believe it or not, this is actually a recommended question on many interview question lists. But this is a TERRIBLE question to ask.

It not only puts your interviewer on the defensive, but it also makes you seem like someone who is a pessimist rather than an optimist. I understand why this question is recommended.

After all, you don’t want to work at a place with a high attrition rate especially if you may have recently been laid off. But, this question isn’t going to help you determine that and it will most likely burn the bridge you’ve been building the entire interview.

When you’re trying to figure out what questions to ask an interviewer, make sure your questions:

1. Don’t waste their time with a basic question
2. Don’t put the interviewer on the defensive
3. Don’t raise any red flags

To explain what I mean by good vs bad questions to ask an interviwer, I invited interview expert, Ricklyn Woods. In the video below she’ll explain why you should avoid asking the same interview questions that everyone else does:

Alright, now that we’ve covered the questions to avoid, let’s jump into which questions to ask an employer that will actually impress them.

7 Questions to ask an employer that will impress them

Below I’ll share my favorite questions to ask an interviewer that I’ve seen impress them time and time again. The following questions work well because they serve two purposes: 

First, they demonstrate positive qualities that you may not have been able to show during the rest of the interview.

These positive qualities include:

You’re willing to learn

You’re willing to work hard

You’re willing to grow with the company

You’re willing to expand beyond your responsibilities

The second purpose of these questions is to demonstrate that you’re an expert at your field. These go beyond the basic questions others will be asking and showcase how you’re an experienced and thoughtful job candidate.

Here are the 7 questions I recommend to ask an interviewer:

1. What’s the biggest problem you’re facing that you’re hoping the person taking on this role to solve?

This should be the absolute #1 question you ask an interviewer. This interview question works like magic because it gives you the blueprint, not only for this interview, but for all the follow up interviews too.

As I’ve talked about before, prepare for an interview by researching a company online can actually mislead you in some pretty big ways. That’s why this question is so important.

It will tell you the real problems that the team faces.

What’s more is that after the employer answers this question, you’ll have a direct opportunity to address how you can solve their biggest problem. 

Not only that, but you can also use this information for your follow up interviews. After all, the average interview process includes 3–5 interviews. So this one question sets you up for success for multiple interviews, which is why I recommend it as the must-have question to ask an interviewer.

2. This role seems to include both X skill and Y skill. How would you say those two responsibilities are split up for this role? 50/50? 70/30?

This is a great question to ask an employer because it lets you understand which area of your expertise you should focus on.

Most jobs these days require multiple skill sets. The problem is that it can be hard to figure out which of your skill sets you should focus on during the interview.

I talk about this phenomenon (which is called the Benjamin Franklin Generation) in our free resume course.

Here's a short video from the course that explains it:

It’s pretty much impossible to cover all the things you can do during an interview. 

And that’s the magic of this question.

It lets you highlight how you’re well suited for the job in multiple ways.

For example, when I use this question for a marketing role, I’ll ask, 

“This role seems to be partly focused on content creation and partly on analytics. How would you say this person will be splitting their time between those two responsibilities?”

Usually the response will be something like, “we’re really looking for someone who can own the content creation side of things, but can also work with our analytics team to…”

Which perfectly opens the door for me to talk about how I’ve worked with analytics teams before, maybe highlight a few notable projects, etc.

3. Who else is on the team? How would you characterize how you work together?

This is a super useful question to ask an interviewer because it gives you the chance to showcase your collaboration skills in addition to your qualifications.

As I cover in our free interview course, an interview is just as much about how well you’ll get along with the team as it is about your experience.

A lot of job candidates forget to talk about how they work well on a team during their interviews and this question helps with that.

After the interviewer answers this question, you’ll want to follow up by talking about the previous team you worked on and what a positive experience you had.

4. What’s your management style?

This is a good question to ask a manager for two reasons. Firstly, it gives them a chance to talk about themselves. Studies have shown that when people talk about themselves, they tend to have a positive impression of the person who they’re talking to.

Secondly, it helps you see if they’re a good manager. If the manager you’re talking to is a good manager, they’ll have an answer to this question immediately. If they don’t, then that could give you some red flags that maybe they’re not very experienced.

Once the manager has answered this question, I also recommend you talk about how you’d like to be a manager someday (if that’s true). You’ll want to add how you’re studying up to be a good manager. You can mention books you’ve read or courses you’ve read.

This will help showcase those two valuable qualities we mentioned earlier: 

a) That you’re willing to grow with the company

b) You’re willing to expand beyond your responsibilities

5. What’s your favorite thing about the team you work on?

Although it might be tempting to ask “tough” questions, experts have explained that asking tough questions can actually make people feel insecure. The truth is that pretty much everyone thinks others are doing better than them, and this includes people working at a company

When you ask tough questions, you might make the person you’re interviewing with feel inadequate, which could make them have a negative association of you.

But, the opposite is also true.

Asking a simple question like the one above can give your interviewer a chance to brag. Simply by letting them say what they like about their job can create a positive association between you and them.

Here’s a short video from our free interview course that explains this in more detail:

One of the biggest mistakes I see talented job seekers make is to try to show off too much during an interview. 

And this is only natural.

After all, an interview is structured a lot like a test you might have taken in school.

But this can be misleading. Of course the people you're interviewing with care about your qualifications, but they also care about whether you're pleasant to work with.

Don't forget to spend at least as much time building rapport as you do showcasing your accomplishments (if not more).

6. What learning and development opportunities are there to further develop in this position?

This is a perfect question to ask an employer to show that you’re eager to grow in the role. On the surface this question might seem similar to the “how often to people get promoted,” but it’s actually a much better question.

That’s because the phrasing here shows you’re interested in learning and developing, not simply chasing bigger titles and salary.

This is also a very important question to ask in order to see if there truly is room for growth at the company.

Interviewing expert, Adam Broda, has interviewed hundreds of job candidates over the years. In a recent LinkedIn post he explained,

“Don’t hesitate to be bold with your questions and get the info you need before making a big career decision. Who you work for is critical to your career growth, and let’s be honest…your general happiness and health.”

7. Is there anything I didn’t cover in our conversation today that you would have liked me to touch on?

This is a great question to ask the interviewer at the end of an interview. If you’ve left any gaps or missed anything, this question helps you cover your bases.

Interviews are tricky things to go through and that 30 minute conversation goes by so fast it can be easy to leave out some of the things you wanted to tell them. You would be surprised by how often this one question can salvage an entire interview.

Of course, after the interviewer answers this question, you should reply to fill in the gap that you had previously missed.

How to Choose which Questions to Ask your Interviewer

As we discussed earlier, the questions you ask an interviewer reveal a lot about your priorities. The best way to choose which questions to ask at the end of an interview is by thinking about which way you wan to steer the conversation.

Feel like you didn’t show your interpersonal skills enough? Ask them a question about the team.

Not sure you covered your loyalty and work ethic? Ask them a question about growth opportunities.

As you start honing your interview skills, you’ll naturally start spotting gaps in your interviews. You can use the questions you ask at the end of the interview to fill those gaps and make sure each and every interview is successful.

If you’d like to learn more about how to prepare for each step of the interview process, check out our free interview course, which goes through each step in great detail.