I was wondering if anyone else had any questions they always asked the interviewer in the “we’ll give you five minutes at the end to ask us questions” bit in interviews.
Personally I always ask what the staff turnover rate is. Mainly because in my first dev job I was one of four people who started on the same day. One of the other guys left after two days, I left after six weeks, and another guy left after two months.
Another I’ll be asking after my current job is if they have a mainframe. I’ve now worked at three companies with mainframes and they all were old corporations where they were outsourcing loads of stuff to unhelpful companies (often IBM) which generally meant lots of headaches.
My secret weapon is “what questions do you think I should have asked?”.
Not as a cop out, but something to follow your other questions with. A good interviewer will point you toward some of the company workings you wouldn’t have thought to ask about. And if they’re evasive it’s a red flag you can use to consider their offer.
I like this kind of simple question. It often reveals a lot. Something I’ve done in the past is to ask “what’s the best thing about working for this company?” and after they answer that I ask “what’s the worst thing about working for this company?”
I’ve found being direct like that can often get some useful information.