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Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

The title is very true and very often forgotten. Other advice is helpful too.

I've been part of interviews on company / hiring side for a decade now,and had hiring authority and lead interviews for half that time. Less than 10% of people ask any meaningful questions,and I'm not sure anybody ever came as prepared as the author suggests (while some interviews have indubitably been practice / uninvested ones, that's a given percentage only). At least for last 3-r years I've been actively inviting questions at multiple opportunities. At this point, asking good question at an interview is a meaningful data point to me because even will all of this advice, few people do it :-/

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See here's the thing. I believe that you believe this :). But be honest. How open and truthful would your response be if a question was close to home. (I am guilty of this too as an interviewer). For example, what was the most political thing you had engaged in that resulted in surprises (a polite way of saying been thrown under the bus) or a game of thrones for someone you were close to (in the org). Id be very surprised if you actually did not invoke leadership principles somewhere.

Or if somebody asked you about getting to the next level id be very surprised if the answer was diverting from the script and did not mention (or read out) the different role specific rubriks?

Oh fair enough, but Honest Answer - If asked a pointed question, I'll put my answers in diplomatic language, but give it fairly straight. The reason why I'm reasonably confident about this is that even without their pointed questions, I do about 25 minutes of project challenges and constraints in 2nd interview typically. I've been accused of "trying to scare the candidates" lol, but I believe (rightly or wrongly!) that the right candidate for the right role will be excited to undertake challenges and opportunities if given the right information. I've been on the same team for a long time, so clearly I'm a bit of a believer, even if I try to be open / aware of downsides as well.

Mind you, I took the same approach to dating... be your best self, sure, but do be yourself, not somebody else. So I was clearly geeky starting minute 1 of first date. I took the long-game approach and it, eventually, worked out for me :). So I believe if you're looking for an actually right, long term fit, initial transparency is positive.

Heh, most people give me 5 minutes at the end of an hour long interview to "ask questions of the company" - there's no interest in a meaningful discussion; many people think you should be coming to the company with hat in hand.

Whenever scheduling interviews I tend to ask them to add 15-30 minutes to the expected time so that I'm sure to have time for my own questions.

Do you have a repository of questions you like to ask? Or are you able to come up with them at will?

Both, actually.

Most candidates I see don't even have 5 minutes worth of questions. Maybe it's just time budgeting based on the median expectation.

If I'm SUPER interested I might ask a question or two that came up organically in the interview. But it's the tinder swiping strategy: Swipe right on all, then spend time on those that already filtered you out. I'm not going to investigate deeply EVERY company that does an initial interview. By second round, sure, at that point there's an actual possibility I'll work there and I need to know what I'm getting into, but a good job search for me usually includes about 40 initial phone screens (I'm picky).

Here I was thinking the question, "Do you have anything to ask us?" was simply another opportunity for someone at Google to belittle you by demonstrating how they already know everything you could possibly ask.

After all, you are being interviewed because you should already know everything if you want to work there, as they do and so does everyone else who applied.

Not sure exactly how much sarcasm and where it is placed (always tricky in internet comms:), but yeah - I ask that question very genuinely and at several points in the interview. Questions may be about client relationship, team or technical challenges, progression, overtime, whatever.

I have read the rules enough that I feel confident I won't commit to anything I'm not authorized to commit to, but can share realistic good/bad/ugly to ensure a good fit.

What's a meaningful question to you? Genuinely asking. All I care about is what's the pay and what's management like. What do you feel I should care about and ask about in an interview?

Good question. If I were to craft a definition, I would say "genuine question not asked for forms sake or because a website said I should" :). A question that enhances our mutual understanding of the role and fit.

If those are the only two questions that are meaningful to you, that's fair enough.

(Depending on the role, one can take this any length of levels; anything is a data point! To your second question, there are roles where I am OK with person just caring about pay; and there are roles where I expect person caring about other things. FWIW, I have never even remotely hired or eliminated somebody based on questions they do or don't ask to any large percentage of the decision - but we are all human and everything is a data point, so I'd rather be conscious/upfront than subconscious/biased).

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