Owner

Zach Hill

Verification

Questions You Can Ask in an Interview

Asking thoughtful questions during an interview is just as important as answering them. This section serves as a guide to help you prepare your own questions so you can better evaluate whether the role, team, and organization align with your goals.

Interviews are a two-way conversation. While the employer is determining if you’re a good fit for the position, you should also be assessing if the company is the right fit for you. The questions you ask can help uncover potential red flags, clarify expectations, and provide insight into the work culture, team dynamics, leadership style, and future opportunities.

Use this guide to build a list of meaningful questions that will help you make an informed decision about your next step. The answers you receive can reveal things that aren’t always obvious in the job description or during the employer’s initial pitch.

Questions About the Job

What are your expectations for me in this role?

What are your expectations for me in this role?
What’s the most important thing I should accomplish in the first 90 days?
What are the most immediate projects that I would take on?
How long before I will be… [meeting with clients, have responsibility for my own accounts, interacting with other departments, etc.]?

Questions About the Team

What types of skills is the team missing that you’re looking to fill with a new hire?
What are the biggest challenges that I might face in this position?
Do you expect my main responsibilities in this position to change in the next six months to a year?
Can you tell me about the team I’ll be working with?
Who will I work with most closely? What other departments or units will I interact with?
Can you tell me about my direct reports? What are their strengths and the team’s biggest challenges?

Questions for the Manager or Director

How long have you been at the company?
How long have you been a manager?
What’s your favorite part of working here?

Questions About the Organization

What are the current goals that the company is focused on, and how does this team work to support hitting those goals?
What gets you most excited about the company’s future?
How would you describe the company’s values?
How has the company changed over the last few years?
What are the company’s plans for growth and development?

Additional Questions with Breakdowns

What direction do you think the company is headed in the next 5-10 years?

If you are planning to be with this company for a long time it is important to understand the direction the company is headed to make sure that fits in line with what you’re looking to achieve.

What are the biggest challenges facing the I.T. Department in this organization?

This can help you understand what issues you can potentially be facing as well as give a preview into prioritization and planning on the company’s part to see how organized they are.

What do you enjoy most about working here?

It’s always a good idea to ask your interviewer what they enjoy about working at this company. Their initial reaction and answers can be very telling into what it’s like working there. They shouldn’t really stutter or give any ominous looks; you should generally get a straightforward answer when they truly enjoy working there.

What is the typical path for advancement in this role?

This question can help you learn how the company advances their employees. Do they promote within often? Do they give raises for good performance? This question can really help determine how long you will be at this organization or whether you will be at the organization at all if you are looking to be promoted within the company.

Tell me something positive about working here that I wont find with many other employers.

The purpose of this question is to help determine the type of employee culture you will find as well as any perks you might be privileged to.

What is an average daily routine for this position?

Asking this question can help understand what your day-to-day work life will be in the position you are filling. It is important to make sure that the person you are interviewing understands what someone in your position will be doing. Typically the more detailed information they can give you in regards to your daily work life the better it will be to help you understand if this is somewhere you would like to work.

I’ve seen your mission values, but tell me in your own words what are the goals of this company?

There are two possible outcomes to this answer.

You will get a generic regurgitation of their mission values you’ve already learned from their website.
You will get an authentic response which will be clearly understandable.

What this question does is gives you an idea on how much corporate policy and culture is present. If you get a generic regurgitation of their values you will know that this organization takes corporate culture and policy very seriously. Meaning they don’t mess around.

If you get an authentic response this is generally a good sign when they have nice things to say. This helps you understand the positives of these organizations' missions.

Asking this question also shows that you take value in what the company places value in.

What do you like about working here?

What you’re looking for here is a quick response about what this person enjoys. Typically the longer they wait and think about this question the worse it could potentially be. Pay attention to how their demeanor is when they are answering this question.

You should be looking for an authentic answer and most importantly look for answers that relate back to the culture and how they talk about their peers, other management, and how things are done within the company.

What is the culture of the office like?

One of my favorite questions to ask. This question should really define what working with other people will be like. You’ll typically hear things like its “fast paced” “we’re a family” “a great group of people to work with”

Obvious things to watch for is how their demeanor when answering and unsure answers. IF they are having trouble answering their company culture they might not understand what is happening at the ground level and how employee moral is.

Could you walk me through an average day/week in this position?

This is a variant of a previous question, however what you are looking for here by asking this specific question is what types of priorities are placed on projects and overall day to day tasks.

What would success look like in 30/60/90/180 days?

This is important to understand how your first inital months will play out. How much time do they expect it will take for you to be onborded and comfortable with the environment. This is an important question to ask as it will tell you what they are looking for in a successful candidate and what steps you need to take to become sucessful in this posiiton.

What would a career trajectory or advancement look like in this position?

Another important question to ask because this will really help you understand what your future looks like if you choose to stay with this company for an extended amount of time.

Why is this position open?

This is a more bold question to ask but it is important to understand as much as you can why this position is open.

Did the previous person get promoted? Did they leave for another job?

Did they get fired?

Understanding why the position is open can lead to other questions on what they got promoted to, why they left for another job, why they got fired(you most likely wont get an answer to this but its still something to ask and understand)

IT’s good to understand why they have this position open and based on their answers it can help you determine what to look out for.

What problems will I be solving while here?

This question can give you an understanding of what type sof issues they are currently facing and where they see you making an impact. This is just another question to understand your greater place within the organization.

What don’t you like about the company ?

Another bold question to ask but it should help give you a better idea on what the culture within the organization is like and helps you understand what if any challenges you, your team, and supervisors might face.

What would you change about your team ?

This another question that will help you understand the team culture, what challenges your supervisor faces, and what improvements they are looking to make within the team and organization.

What is the most frustrating thing you have faced while working here?

Again brings more perspective into the day to day life of working there and what challenges they are facing.

Asking questions such as these generally give you a better understanding of the overall worklife and culture within the organization. Just as much as you are being interviewed it is important to also interview that organization to be sure you are a good match.

How would you describe morale in your workplace and what does the company do to help build morale?

This is a great question to help understand what this company does to help employees' workplace and the overall environment and health of employees. What you’re looking for here is any answer that positively impacts employees.

What would your employees say about you as a boss?

I love asking this question because it helps give you an idea of what your potential boss THINKS they are doing right. This is a great question to ask during a panel interview when employees of said boss are in the room with you. This is a great way to read the room and based on answers and body behavior determine if this is a good boss or not. The idea here is to understand the type of person you will be working for.

What qualities would define the perfect employee for this position?

Asking this question ultimately helps answer exactly what the employer is looking for in the position you are applying for. Based on what they are looking for you can always follow up with more information about yourself that became available through this question.

Example: If they mention having someone who is well organized now is a great time to share how you document things and what process you take to create good documentation.

On the flip side this can ultimately rule you out if you don't fit the mold of what they are looking for.

How did you get where you are within the company and how did you get started in the industry?

This questions shows interest in the person or persons you are interviewing with. If you have the time in the interview this is a great question to ask. People love talking about themselves. Giving them an opportunity to share their story is a great opportunity for you to listen and understand what it took for this person to become successful not only in the company but their overall career. It also gives you an idea on what you can do to achieve further success within the company.

Interview Questions(You Can Ask)