[christophilus]

That’s a great list. I also like to ask:

- When did you last miss supper / a personal event because you were working late?

- Think of the last person you know who left the company. Why did they leave?

- When was your last vacation, and how long was it?

These are essentially a way of asking, how’s the work life balance? In a way that avoids the BS answer, “great!”

[saudioger]

>Think of the last person you know who left the company. Why did they leave?

I don't think you'll get an honest answer for this a lot of the time, often team members might not even directly know why someone was laid off

>When was your last vacation, and how long was it?

This is a bit tough too, it's very subjective. I personally like working, and while I encourage my employees to use all of their vacation time, I rarely do so myself (I spread my time around as individual days rather than large chunks).

Also depends on your audience. Parents will answer this much differently than individuals.

[christophilus]

It does depend on your audience, but I've gotten good mileage out of these questions, so personally vouch for them. I got them from the book "Switch"[0], which has better phrasing than I jotted down in my comment. I highly recommend the book.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/038...

[haloux]

I'd argue against asking questions that have a clearly negative predicted response. Whenever a question is clearly skewed in one direction, the subject has a tendency to become suspicious and will often try to give the unintended answer. This is why tests like the MMPI use validity indicators and repeat questions.