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How to Turn “Do You Have Any Questions for Me?” Into a Job Offer
Asking the right questions at the end of a job interview
In nearly every interview setting, there’s a set time at the end that you, as the candidate, can completely own and guide. Many of us don’t take advantage of it. It starts with:
“So, do you have any questions for me?”
You control the questions, the follow-ups, and the direction. The types of questions you ask can both provide you valuable information about the job, and provide the interviewer valuable information about you.
I have turned down job offers because I asked the right questions at the end and learned the right information from these questions. You should have 3–5 solid, insightful questions prepared from each category below:
- Questions specific to the company
- Questions specific to the role
- Questions specific to what you value in your job
To ace this section, it’s good to show a thoughtful and considered approach.
Don’t Ask Filler Questions
Each question should be doubly useful — useful for you as a candidate, to answer questions you had, and useful to the interviewer, to show them how you think.
Questions like “What’s a typical day like?” should only be asked if that’s something you’re genuinely curious about on a broad level.
You can tweak this to be much better too.
For example, as a software engineer, I will ask every team I interview with what customer support or “on-call” looks like. In a way, I am asking what a typical day might be like. But I want to get a very, very good idea of what their customer support model looks like because that has a tangible impact on my work-life balance.
Avoid
- What‘s the company’s mission? You should know this beforehand.
- So, will I get an offer? Not useful, and you won’t get the answer you’re looking for.
- No, I don’t have any questions! Oof.
