Questions for Interviewers

At the end of an interview, there is almost always at least a little bit it time when the interviewer asks you if you have any questions for him (or, rarely, her). Clearly, since you are already trying your hardest to impress the interviewer with your dazzling brilliance and cutting insight, you'd like to squeeze all you can out of this opportunity. Personally, I have not found a magic bullet question that would turn a bad interview around (if you have, please let me know!). But I have found a few ideas that work pretty well.

1. What is your favorite thing about (working at) [company]?
(Caveat: there are times when this question seems inappropriate, as with highly efficient, question-drilling types like Morgan Stanley or Bridgewater Associates.) Of course, it's one of the standards, so I'm not saying anything new here. But taking a page from Dale Carnegie, what this question is really doing is letting the interviewer talk about him/herself. I mean, your interviewer has sometimes spent the entire day listening to people just like you talk on and on about themselves. He might be thinking, "oh, you little punk, you think you're soooo much better than anybody else, don't you?" Or not - that might be an exaggeration! In any case, your interviewer is narcissistic, maybe a little bored and lonely; I have actually seen interviewers' faces light up when they got to talk about themselves. And if your interviewer feels happy immediately after your interview, I think you might just have boosted your chances.

2. What kinds of projects do the interns at [company] work on?
If you still have time after the last question, this is often a good filler. (Caveat: I have had this fail in situations when the recruiter doesn't ever actually work with or see interns.) This seems to work well whenever you aren't super-familiar with the intern program at a company, especially if you kind of skirted around the "why do you want to work here" question in the first place. This is a good time to insert intelligent questions and look genuinely interested and excited about the projects they describe.

3. What do you hate about (working at) [company]?
This one is really all for you. I've been told that this question can elicit some of the most candid responses and can help you decide whether [company] is a place you really want to work at or not. Personally, I prefer to see the offer before I have to make that decision and go off my intuition and reading up on the internet, but it's another good question to ask.