You applied to your dream job, and you have landed an interview! Congratulations! Now it is time to start preparing for getting your dream job. However, the interview is not only about answering questions. One of the most crucial parts of your interview comes when the interviewer asks you “Do you have any questions for us?”.

Without asking any questions, you are in danger of losing the job. Even if you have answered all interview questions with confidence, the lack of questions at the end shows a severe weakness. Your questions can reveal to the interviewer your preparation, interest, creativity, and character.

In this article, you will learn the 10 best questions to ask in the interview and why they are important. You will manage to impress your future manager and also gather insights about the role and the company to help you decide on your next career move.

Why Asking the Right Questions Can Make or Break Your Interview?

The interview is all about selling yourself. This is the half-truth. The other half is about getting the right insights on whether your next career move is the right one. You have to think of yourself as selling and buying an opportunity at the same time.

So you must interview the company and the hiring manager. Your part of the interview comes at the end with asking your questions. Not asking questions, or asking weak ones, means you are missing a chance to gain insights and critical information. You need more in-depth information about the company, the hiring manager, the team, and the role itself.

The Company Culture

The first thing to think about is which company you would like to work for. You have to fit with the culture and values of the company. You need to understand the overview of the strategy and the direction of the higher management. If the company is public (like Amazon, Google, or Apple), then you can get a lot of information from the internet or the reports from the stock market. If the company is smaller or private, then you have to ask the key questions to get to know all this information.

The Hiring Manager

The most important person in the company for you would be your manager. Thus, you need to understand his leadership style, his expectations, and the fit with your style. Here, intuition plays a big role, but the right questions can reveal critical information about the manager. Studies show that most people do not quit due to the company, but due to their manager. Asking more personal questions is tricky, but in this article, you will learn how to get such information.

The Team

Next comes the team. It is about the people with whom you will spend at least eight hours a day. Some companies have a “buddy” system. A “buddy” is a more experienced member of the team who can support and assist you with everyday questions during your introduction period. Other important factors are the size of the team, the turnover, and the structure of the team.

Your Future Role

After the team, it comes to your future role. The job posting is the first information for the role you get. In most cases, the job posting is more generic and also includes several requirements. The purpose that companies write is to get as many as possible from a wide spectrum of candidates. Requirements and business conditions can change during the recruiting process. This helps the company and the recruiting team pivot. Thus, you need to get more insights into the role and understand expectations and details not provided in the job posting.

Your Values

Last but not least, it is all about you. You have to give your best talent to the company, but you also need to get a lot from the company. Aside from monetary benefits, you need to get development opportunities, improve your skills, or even learn a new language. Asking about other benefits, or even development opportunities, signals ambition and willingness to learn. This is very important for specific roles, especially where innovation and teamwork are highly valued. Focus on developing yourself and how you can grow in the next three to five years in this new company. You have to see your values and priorities. In some cases in your life, work-life balance can be more important than development.

Now you know why you have to prepare and ask the right questions. Let’s learn what the best questions to ask in the interview are to land your dream job!

The 10 Best Questions to Ask in the Interview to Impress

Here are the top 10 questions that will not only help you stand out but also provide you with the insights you need:

Starting to ask questions after a tedious job interview can be a difficult situation. You have to break the ice and change the interview tone. You have to turn the focus on the company to start smoothly. First, a more general question for the company helps the hiring manager think more broadly and get out of the details. This is an advantage for you, as by changing the tone you can drive the discussion better. My experience as a hiring manager is that it makes me relax and think positively about the company.

The answer can show the enthusiasm of the manager for the company, or reveal more information about the specific location. Some bigger corporations with more units promote a unified company culture and values. But in reality, every location has its own culture and values. These are driven by the local leaders and the history of the unit. My advice is to start general and then ask for more specific questions for the unit. Then you see the different reactions from the general corporate answer to the information for the local unit.

With this question, you have to understand if the company and the local unit share similar values with you. For example, you do not want to end up in a company that values only profits and high performance, and your values are work-life balance and teamwork. Try to think beyond the corporate language and listen carefully for more keywords about everyday culture and values.

This question is tricky for the hiring manager. Most hiring managers would appreciate this question because it is hard to answer. On the surface, it looks like your target is to learn about the role. But in reality, you must aim to learn about the hiring manager and their expectations (such as PMP certifications).

The quality of the answer will reveal if the hiring manager knows what he wants. If the answer is too generic and broad, it signals an inexperienced manager or that the role is not defined yet. Your main point here is to learn about the expectations of the manager for the future team member and her skills. This can reveal to you two main things: what your profile gaps are and if the manager considers you a top candidate.

Listen carefully and take notes as this will help you for the next questions. This can be a make-or-break question, also. If the hiring manager does not list your qualities and skills, you may feel demotivated and not confident in the next part of your interview. Everything is about expectations and looking for the best fit for the role. This question can also reveal the background of the role without asking directly. Is it a new role or a replacement one?

This is one of the best questions to ask at the beginning, showing interest and enthusiasm for the role and the manager. This question will shift the focus from the hiring manager to a more technical discussion. Remaining too much time focused on the hiring manager can be negative. She will start answering too generally and lose focus on you.

By asking about priorities for the role, you can reveal helpful information about the goals of your introduction period. Most companies set a probationary period for each new hire. During this probationary period, the manager and HR partner check performance, soft skills, and the fit of the new hire with the team. Thus, it is important to know what you need to deliver before you get into it.

This question sets the tone for hiring you and the expectations for the next day. Keep notes and remember the answer after you land the job. The goal is that the hiring manager must envision you in his team. You have to shift the discussion to the future and not speak about your past experiences. In that way, you create a mental model in the mind of the hiring manager that you are already part of his team and you can deliver. Your focus here is to gain the trust of the manager. You have to show confidence that you can deliver value. Also, you need to check that the priorities for the role are aligned with your future career moves.

This is a great question to get into more technical details of the role. You have to get a concrete idea of what your daily responsibilities are. The hiring manager may not reveal technical details on the projects due to confidentiality issues. But his answers and his tone can show you his vision, targets, and enthusiasm for leading his team.

This question can trigger more enthusiasm in you if the answer is very interesting for your next career steps and your development. Show your enthusiasm and do not hold back. This can create a better connection with the hiring manager, as you show interest in their projects and goals. The answers to these questions will help you visualize yourself in this role.

This is critical to think about how you feel about this question some days after the interview. Are you still thrilled to work on such projects, or is your enthusiasm fading? Do you feel that the projects and the goals are meaningful to you? Take some distance after the interview and check how you feel about that.

This question should come after the explanation of the specific project you may work on. The reason is that you would like to link the projects and goals with the way the hiring manager is measuring success in the role. If it is a technical role, expect to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the measurement of success. If the role involves customer sales, then it can involve conversions to sales. The question is more specific to the nature of the role, industry, and company.

Your main goal here is to get a clear understanding of how you can hit the goals and achieve a positive impact. How does the hiring manager assess success, and what is the company’s approach to progress monitoring and evaluation? It also shows your passion for delivering results and having a positive impact on the team’s success.

The main focus of the question is also to understand if the manager is measuring success in many ways. For example, you may hit the technical goals, but create conflicts in the team. Nobody would like to work with you on the next project, and this would be an issue for your future success in the team. Some companies measure success in many different ways and value your fit to the team and the company culture very seriously.

Now you move your interest from the hiring manager and the role to the team. You need a transitional question and also to keep a flow to the discussion. Remember not to change topics very quickly, as this can defocus and lose valuable time in your interview questions.

Every team has its challenges on a technical and personal level. This question must focus on both sides. You have to listen carefully to project technical challenges and other limitations the team is facing. A lack of resources is the most frequent answer, but do not stop here. Try to go deeper and ask for more insights. Challenges can be positive for you. As a newcomer, you can solve such problems and show your impact and value to the team.

Do not think only of technical details. Ask further about personal challenges in the team. Not everything is perfect on a personal level. A team is like a small community, with its culture, rules, conflicts, and sympathies. Expect to find easy-going people and not-so-easy-to-handle people in a team. Ask for challenges between the team members and how this can affect projects and performance. Listen carefully to how the manager is handling such issues, as this can reveal his leadership style. Is he an autocratic micromanager or a servant leader?

The main point of this question is how you can contribute from day one and how you can gain the trust of the rest of the team. Gaining acceptance from the team is important to fit into the role, the team, and the company.

With this question, you need more insight into the team and the people. Moreover, such a question’s main interest is understanding the team’s culture. With the team dynamics, you may expect to get more information about specific people. For example, some people in the team act as experts, and others as project managers. As for team dynamics, you may ask for the background of the people and their seniority in the team.

The collaboration style should reflect the values of the hiring manager. If you get a conflicting answer, try to get deeper into the question and understand the reasons. Your main focus should be to understand if you can fit into the team culture. If the manager shows you the team organigram, names, and structure, try to ask more specific questions about each member.

In general, this question should be used as a confirmation of the previous information. In case of not having enough information, try to rephrase the question in a simpler and more specific way for some team members.

Now the focus should shift to you and your career needs. Career growth is very important for many candidates. By asking such a question, you show your willingness to invest in the role and grow yourself. This will provide the manager and the HR partner with the confidence that you view the role as a long-term opportunity.

Especially if your profile is showing a lot of job changes in a short time frame. This will trigger a lot of questions for the hiring manager, especially if he would like to hire for the long term. By asking such questions, you show your ambition to grow in the role and your willingness to learn. Continuous personal improvement is important for any company. This is because the company may have invested in your development, and you can undertake more duties and responsibilities.

With this question, you stay focused on yourself, but you pivot out of the role. This is a broader inquiry, and the HR partner usually responds. HR partner can provide a list of benefits of the company, monetary and not. Work-life balance should be reflected in this list of benefits. For example, a contribution from the company for a gym membership, promotion of family benefits, maternity and paternity benefits beyond the law, etc.

Very important nowadays, especially after COVID-19, is the ability to work remotely or hybrid. Home office rules reflect the focus on work-life balance and flexibility. Especially in the latest generations, hybrid or remote work is an important factor in accepting a role in a company.

In that way, you can assess if the company, the team, and the role are sustainable for you. Also, it depends on the phase of your life in the following period. Maybe you had your first kid born a couple of months before, and you want to devote more time to your family. Maybe you are in the phase where you want to speed up your career and need to put more emphasis on work. It all depends on you, your situation, and your values.

This should be a closing question, as it puts the hiring manager in a personal tone and can bring some fun and humor to the interview process. It can break the ice and provide more information for the company. This question should also reveal characteristics of the character and values of the hiring manager.

Pay special attention if the manager is providing a typical corporate answer or if he is focusing on his team and the management of the local unit. Your goal is to get more information about the positive aspects of everyday life working in the company. It is a great way to assess employee satisfaction and the morale of the team.

Further Questions to Ask in the Interview

With the top ten questions above, you have done an excellent job in your interview. Below you find further questions that you can ask as a bonus. Moreover, many companies have a tedious recruitment process with many stages, and you may need more questions. These questions prove that you have done excellent preparation and think critically.

• What Are the Next Steps in the Interview Process?
• Can you tell me more about the other teams I’d be working with?
• How does the company approach feedback and performance evaluations?
• Is there any more information I can provide to help with your decision?

Final Thoughts: Turn the Tables in Your Favor and Get the Job