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how many questions can you ask in a job interview? -- ASK A MANAGER
how many questions can you ask in a job interview?

by ASK A MANAGER on FEBRUARY 26, 2013



A reader writes:



My question is about … questions. How many are OK to ask in an interview while being respectful of time? I usually try to squeeze in as many as I can while monitoring how much time my interviewer seems to have available for questioning (usually allowed at the end).



I have asked as many as 5-6 before, but I usually have more — and not necessarily about pay/benefits, which may not take as much time to answer, but aspects of the work and organizational culture that can take longer for the interviewer to answer. I find that even if I have other contact(s) at the organization who I can learn from and have researched the organization online, I still like to ask the interviewer some of the same information to get a second viewpoint, which makes the number of potential questions to ask very long. Is there a good rule of thumb?



Some of this depends on what stage you’re at. If it’s an initial phone screen, they have less time and are going to expect fewer questions than if it’s an in-person interview. Generally in phone interviews, most candidates ask fewer than five questions. In an in-person interview, when it’s closer to the final stages, you might have many more than that.



The key thing is what type of questions you’re asking, more than it is the number. If you ask 12 questions and they’re all thoughtful queries and clearly things that could impact your level of interest in the job, I’m not going to have a problem with that; I’m going to appreciate that you’re trying to figure out if this is the right role for you. But if you ask three questions and none of them seem designed to help you understand key things about the job and the workplace, I’m going to wonder why you’re wasting my time. And that’s a good marker to use here: Is the question something that will determine your level of interest in the job?



(For instance, I always wonder about this when a candidates only asks, say, three questions, and one of those questions is something highly unlikely to impact their interest in the job, like “How did you come to work here?” — which for some reason is a semi-popular question for candidates to ask their interviewer. Really, this is one-third of what you want to know to help you decide if this is a job you want?)



Now, it’s certainly possible that we might not have time for all 12 of your questions, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to get answers to them at some point, if you continue in the process. So you might start with a smaller number, but remain alert to the interviewer’s cues about how much time she has. If you’re getting the vibe that she wants you to wrap it up, it’s fine to say, “I do have more questions that I’d want to ask if we move forward, but I want to be respectful of your time, so I’ll hold them for now.” You can also just ask: “I have a ton of questions for you, but I’m not sure how much time we have. I can ask a few of them now, and hold the others for later if we move forward, if you prefer?”



And if you’ve had an interview and didn’t get some important questions answered, and they call you to come in for another interview, and you’d really like your questions answered first so that you don’t waste your time interviewing if the answers aren’t to your liking, then it’s totally okay to say: “I’d love to come in and talk to you again. Before I do, there are two things that are really important to me that I’d love to find out before I take up any more of your time.” But you’d only do this if their answers might make you turn down the second interview; otherwise, you’d just hold your questions for the in-person meeting. (If you do this with idle curiosity things, it’s going to be annoying.)



And if you get offered a job before having had all your questions answered, it’s completely fine to say that you still have some questions about the job and ask to set up a time to have them answered (or ask them on the spot, if it seems like that kind of conversation).



The main thing to know is that no good employer would want you to take a job that you hadn’t had a chance to ask all your significant questions about, even though it might need to happen in a different conversation. And if an employer seems to be expecting you to take a job without getting all your questions answered, consider it a danger sign.