[pklausler]

I conduct a lot of technical interviews, and I always make "Do you have any questions for me?" the first and last question that I ask every candidate.

Mostly this is to provide an opportunity to just answer a question, of course. But it's also true that a candidate's questions, or lack thereof, can affect my evaluation of them.

So, my advice: have a couple of good questions on tap. If you don't, you run the risk of seeming unprepared or lacking confidence.

[p4wnc6]

How much time do you typically allocate for this? I generally feel frustrated when an interviewer hammers me with difficult questions for 55 minutes and then leaves me with less than 5 minutes to ask questions. I don't think I have even one single question that matters to me which an employer could answer in less than 5 minutes of discussion. For example, my top question would probably be "how is my performance evaluated / does your company have direct or indirect stack-ranking, etc.?" That's a critical question, but not one that can be easily answered in 5 minutes. And that's only one out of about 10 or so such questions for which I would require detailed answers before considering taking a job.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

In an hour interview I'll do about 30 minutes of asking them questions, then give them a little 5 minute spiel about either the company in general or my team in particular, depending on what position I'm interviewing them for and who they've talked to already, and after that I'll take questions. I certainly do not have an upper threshold for this, and if they ask so many questions we can't get to the coding part of the interview, then we can't get to the coding part.

[pklausler]

Spend the limited time of a technical interview on technological matters.

[p4wnc6]

No, it's too critical to make sure you're not wasting time with open-plan office nonsense, stack ranking nonsense, or many other other kinds of systematic dysfunction that are frequent in tech jobs.

If you only focus on tech details, you waste your own time and the interviewer's time.

[pklausler]

There are other people who are better targets for your non-technical questions than the senior engineers with whom you have a brief opportunity to talk. Use that time wisely.

[p4wnc6]

The HR staff will say misleading things and present a rosier picture than the technical staff. The technical staff are the ones who know what the sociological issues are really like, and the degree of happiness you experience in the job is likely a lot more related to how the other technical staff answer the questions than non-technical staff.

Saving all this stuff for HR is a huge mistake. You won't get any useful info.

[tgb]

How many questions is too many? I'd want to ask something like half the questions listed here but that seems burdensome to the interviewer.

[pklausler]

The interviewer controls the use of time, so don't worry about imposing a burden. In my case, anyway, I'd rather have a fascinating technical conversation than ask my usual programming challenge and algorithm design questions, so your great question might seem more like a gift than a burden. I'm serious! With me, anyway, ask big questions like "what should/will HPC hardware and programming languages look like in 10 years?" and then tell me why you think my answer is crazy.

[mjbellantoni]

As a hiring manager I can never get too many questions from a candidate. If there's something specific I want to ask you, I'll make sure I get my question in.

[beachstartup]

i do hiring. limit it to 15 minutes.

[jsmthrowaway]

Because that 16th minute shows too much eagerness, right?

[vonmoltke]

16 minutes is desperation. 14 minutes is just looking for a paycheck.

[beachstartup]

let me ask you a serious question, notroll -- have you ever been asked more than 15 minutes of questions by a candidate, in an interview? i have not, and i've interviewed probably 300-400 people in my life.

i interview almost exclusively over the phone, and we don't fly people out to waste days of their life, or have more than 3 rounds of phone discussions, so maybe that's where this disconnect.

[vonmoltke]

That seems like a really odd way to interview. If you really are relying on phone interviews to make a decision, then you bet my ass I'm asking you more than 15 minutes worth of questions over the phone (if I have them).

[beachstartup]

why is this odd? we hire remote workers. after 90 minutes of conversations (30 mins. x 3 rounds typically), it pretty much covers everything just fine. more than 15 minutes is half the scheduled time for each call.

occasionally a very good candidate will talk for an hour or more, but that's an actual conversation, not a Q&A session.

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

also, i didn't ask "theoretically would you ask more than 15 mins. of questions", i said, have you been asked more than 15 minutes by a candidate, that you were interviewing.

in the real world, most people don't ask any questions. it's exceptional that we'll get thoughtful questions, and those are usually the people we hire/offer. and of those people, nobody has more than 15 minutes worth. and people who can't even answer basic questions like "how do you list the network connections on a linux machine" aren't given the opportunity to ask questions, because the call is over.

again, a long-winded technical discussion is a different thing, i'm talking about "tell me about your enterprise ticketing system and how many pointless meetings per week you have" type of questions.

[sib]

I do the same. And I contextualize it by saying, "this is a two-way process - we both have to decide whether this is a good fit," specifically to help candidates feel at ease to ask questions and that I am honestly interested in answering them.

[danielweber]

You are checking for how far a candidate is through the process.