[rr808]

I usually try to ask these

What are the bad things about this job?

What's the average tenure on the team, how many people have left the team recently and why?

How does this team & company compare with other places you've worked?

(second or third round) How many other people are being interviewed and how do I compare?

[bradjohnson]

I like the middle two questions a lot, and I try to ask them as well. I think the other two are flawed, though:

> What are the bad things about this job?

Too vague. Most interviewers won't be ready to shit talk their employer with this question and will say "nothing." A better question would be some variation of "What would you change about the way your team works if you could?" Frame the question properly so that they don't set the parameters themselves.

> How many other people are being interviewed and how do I compare?

Comes off very insecure and gives you no useful information. It will only reflect poorly on you.

[eropple]

> Most interviewers won't be ready to shit talk their employer with this question and will say "nothing."

I'm not sure that's really true. I ask, verbatim, "what sucks about this job?" to everyone in the interview loop and I frequently get high-signal responses from it. What you're saying might be true in some places and for some (probably earlier-career) roles, but that's signal too.

> Comes off very insecure and gives you no useful information.

This one is true to a point, and probably depends on how it's asked (and whether you actually are insecure). Working mostly in smaller companies and startups, interviews have generally ended up at the CEO level, and a "what's your funnel look like for this role?" has never gone poorly while getting me pretty clear signal on whether I should toss this one in the trash or not.

[bradjohnson]

> "what sucks about this job?" [...] I frequently get high-signal responses from it

That's fair, it is your experience, but I think it's about whether you're on the same wavelength about what level of corporate suck is standard and acceptable. I don't love the framing of this being specifically an "earlier-career" issue but I'm an IC and ICs are not a borg that I have assimilated into (yet), so some have internalized varying amounts of corporate suck relative to me.

For example: I find in some places, low-autonomy is just considered par for the course, and when asked "what sucks?" certain ICs might respond "this job is the best one I've ever had, I have no complaints." But, if asked "what part of project delivery is most frustrating?" or another more specific question they might say "requirements change sometimes arbitrarily and we're expected to respond to any changes without changing the delivery target." The point I was trying to make is specificity helps to get higher signal answers when you don't understand your interviewer's baseline. One man's yuck is another man's yum or whatever.

> "what's your funnel look like for this role?"

I think this is a fine question to ask. It is fairly corpo-speak sounding, but it doesn't communicate the same "Do you like the others better than me?" vibe as the question you contrast it with. It communicates that you are evaluating them, not asking them if their evaluation of you is going ok or not. If you're interviewing with the C-levels then they also have enough information to give you a clear response, and the answer will give you details about how long it will take to reach a hiring decision.

[pavel_lishin]

> Most interviewers won't be ready to shit talk their employer with this question and will say "nothing."

I don't think that's true. During times I've been an interviewer, I've been open about the bad parts of the job.

And if everyone tells you nothing, then that in itself is valuable information - that they're all fucking lying to you.

[bradjohnson]

"Bad" is relative. Someone may believe that something is industry standard and not worth talking about e.g. crunch time in games. Also, plenty of people internalize the bad bits of their jobs and won't think to discuss them unless you ask specifically. It's like asking for feedback from colleagues to their face, unbounded requests for criticism are psychologically hard for humans to answer.

[mattlondon]

Plus any professional place will obviously have processes and rules in place to not discuss other candidates with a candidate. Sure you might be curious to know, but that is a waste of breath to ask an interviewer during a technical interview. Ask the recruiter if you must.

[alemanek]

I have asked “How do you feel I can improve as a candidate in the future?” Basically asking for a mini retro at the end of the interview process.

I have found it acts as a decent proxy for how strong/weak I have done. But it also allows me to get some feedback to improve for future interviews.

There has been at least one job that me asking this question directly resulted in an offer as well.

[bradjohnson]

Asking for feedback at the end of the loop is great. A bunch of mega corporations are specifically instructed to give you absolutely nothing, but it's always worth asking.

[sethammons]

I don't ask what is bad, I ask: if you had a magic wand and could fix something here, what would you fix and why?

It gives me insight into their recent frustrations and often company going-ons or culture. It then opens for a potentially interesting discussion on how changes are made at the company which is particularly relevant to working in leadership roles

[franciscop]

I had 3 different Engineers mentioning "X person who left" in the interviews of a company once, which triggered all sorts of red flags. Digging a bit deeper, the company had a major merger and it seemed it had gone from a super-nice environment where devs were trusted and empowered to a top-down, strict structure where they were all now fighting to stay hired.

[nopeYouAreWrong]

This describes T-Mobile incredibly well...

[RaftPeople]

> What are the bad things about this job?

A softer way to word this:

"What are some of the biggest challenges for this role?"

It won't get into all the dirt, but should give you some insight into things that aren't great.