6 Questions to Ask the Job Interviewer

Being curious about a potential employer can not only improve your chances of landing the role, but also help you decide whether you want to take it. 

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Angela Galle Sylvester

Leadership Coach, Korn Ferry Advance

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Sunny Levitt

Career Coach, Korn Ferry Advance

January 20, 2025

All of your networking and résumé tweaking has paid off: You’ve landed a job interview. Now you get to meet with your potential future boss and a couple of possible colleagues. You get to be peppered with questions, and to answer them all. All done, right?

Not so fast, experts say. A critical part of that job interview is you asking questions of your potential employer. We’re not talking only about questions like “What’s the salary?” or “What’s the next step after the job interview?”, either. “Preparing specific questions helps show the interviewer that you are genuinely interested in the role,” says Korn Ferry leadership coach Angela Galle Sylvester.

More importantly, asking questions at the job interview will help you learn if the organization is the right fit for you. In a survey by career website Glassdoor, 77% of workers across the United States and Western Europe say that they would consider a company’s culture before accepting a job offer, and 56% said a good workplace culture was “more important than salary” for job satisfaction. You’re probably not going to learn much about an organization’s culture, however, if you don’t ask any questions during a job interview.

Experts say that the following types of questions, which address both work and culture, are essential for candidates to ask during a job interview.

What are the top three priorities for the person in this role?

This question lets you know what the company’s expectations are if you take the role. For example, the job description might say “senior marketing manager,” but the answers to questions about it might make it sound more junior level. Follow up by asking what the job’s top three challenges are, suggests Sunny Levitt, a Korn Ferry Advance career coach. The answer to the first question should provide insight into what the employer aspires to, she says, and the answer to the second question “may indicate what the role actually entails.”

What does success look like in this role within the first six months or year? 

This question, like the one about the role’s top three priorities, focuses on what needs to be done. However, it can encompass everything from a potentially vague “grow sales” to a much more tangible “sales should grow by 10%.” Now you, the candidate, know what metrics the company will use to evaluate your performance. Learning all this will in turn allow you to determine whether your knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences give you a good shot at delivering, says Jennifer Zamora, a principal at Korn Ferry Advance.

Getting this question answered also gives a glimpse of the company’s—or at least the department’s—culture. The atmosphere at a place where success means growing sales 10% in six months likely will have a far different feel than one where success means growing sales 100% over the same period.

What does a typical week look like in this role?

Asking a question that mentions work-life balance can be tricky, says David Meintrup, a career coach for Korn Ferry Advance. For one thing, some employers are leery of candidates who use the phrase, assuming—often unfairly—that the interviewee wants to know how little work they can do to get by. Phrasing the question in terms of the workweek can get around this potential awkwardness, and will help you learn whether the expectation is more or less than 40 hours.

The employer’s answer to this question also can hint at how the job balances working solo with working in a team.

Why is this job open now?

The answer to this question, experts say, can give candidates a sense of the company’s current situation. Perhaps the company is growing fast and needs more help. Or maybe the last person who held the job got promoted to another role. Those types of answers can give a candidate confidence in the organization. Conversely, it’s not particularly inspiring if the job interviewer can’t—or won’t—answer the question directly. 

What brought you here, and what keeps you here?

“This helps you assess the company’s culture and vision, and whether it aligns with your own values,” says Zamora. Everyone has their own reasons for staying at an organization, but it can be telling when all the people you meet on a job interview give the same couple of reasons. Maybe everyone at the organization becomes good friends. Maybe the organization prioritizes training people. Or maybe the place just pays really well. Whatever the reasons are, it’s good to know what keeps your potential colleagues from leaving the company you’re considering joining.

What was the most recent thing the company celebrated?

This isn’t a question about whether or not coworkers get a cake on their birthday. This question goes straight to a company’s values. Some firms throw celebrations—or at least send out a laudatory email—when their customers are successful. Others celebrate when an individual employee does an outstanding job. Some firms don’t highlight individual successes, but instead throw big celebrations when a team hits a milestone or multiple teams collaborate successfully on a project.  

 

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s career development capabilities from Korn Ferry Advance