"Do you have any questions for us?"
Most candidates treat this like a formality. They ask about work-from-home policy or mumble something generic about company culture. Some even say "No, you covered everything," which is basically handing the interviewer a reason to reject you.
What's Really Happening in That Moment
Here's what's actually happening. The interviewer isn't being polite. They're testing whether you've done your homework, whether you think strategically, and whether you actually want this job or you're just collecting offers. The quality of your questions reveals all three instantly.
A recent study found that eighty-seven percent of hiring managers say a candidate's questions directly influence their hiring decision. Yet most people spend hours preparing answers and zero minutes preparing questions. That's backwards.
The Problem With Most Candidates' Questions
The problem isn't that candidates don't ask questions. It's that they ask the wrong ones. Generic questions signal you haven't researched the company. Salary questions too early signal you only care about compensation. No questions at all signal you're not really interested.
The Five Questions That Actually Work
So what actually works? After analyzing hundreds of successful interviews, five questions consistently stand out. These aren't tricks or scripts. They're genuine curiosity disguised as strategic intelligence.
Question 1: What caught your eye on my CV?
Ask the interviewer what caught their eye on your CV that made them want to meet you. This went viral on Reddit because it works. You get real-time feedback on your strengths. You learn what impressed them. And you can lean into that strength for the rest of the conversation. One candidate asked this and the interviewer spent five minutes praising a specific project, which then became the entire focus of the discussion. Offer came two days later.
Question 2: What does success look like after six months and one year?
This question reveals whether the role is actually strategic or just busy work. If they give you clear, specific metrics, the role is well-defined and they know what they want. If they fumble or give vague answers about "fitting in with the team," you've just uncovered that the role itself is poorly thought through. That's valuable information regardless of whether you take the job.
Question 3: How does this role contribute to broader company goals?
This separates strategic thinkers from task executors. If they can draw a clear line from your daily work to the company's objectives, great. If they can't, you're probably being hired for grunt work that doesn't matter strategically. This question also shows you think beyond individual tasks to organizational impact, which is exactly what senior leadership looks for.
Question 4: What are the biggest challenges facing the team right now?
This question is brilliant because it puts you in control. First, it shows you're not afraid of problems. Second, if they share a challenge, you can briefly mention how you've handled something similar. For example, "That's interesting. In my last role, I dealt with a similar scaling issue when we went from ten to fifty people. We solved it by implementing quarterly alignment meetings." Now you've positioned yourself as someone who solves the exact problems they're facing.
Question 5: What do you personally enjoy most about working here?
This builds rapport while giving you insider information. This is a human question, not a corporate one. Their enthusiasm, or lack of it, tells you everything. If they light up and spend two minutes talking about growth opportunities and team culture, that's genuine. If they pause and give you a rehearsed HR answer, you've just learned the culture might not be great.
What NOT to Ask
Here's what not to ask. Don't ask what the company does. That shows you didn't do basic research. Don't ask about vacation time or benefits in the first interview. Save that for after you have an offer. Don't ask when you can get promoted. You haven't even started yet. And don't ask questions that are easily answered on the company website. That just wastes everyone's time.
The Real Secret: Practice Delivery, Not Just Memorization
The mistake most candidates make is memorizing questions without understanding why they work. The questions aren't magic. What matters is that you're genuinely curious about the answers and you can have a real conversation based on what they tell you. If you ask about challenges and they mention cross-team collaboration issues, your follow-up might be "How is leadership addressing that? Are there tools or processes being implemented, or is it more cultural?" That's a real dialogue, not a checklist.
Practicing this matters more than you think. Knowing good questions isn't enough. You need to practice delivering them naturally so they sound like genuine curiosity, not a script you memorized. Most candidates prepare their questions but forget to practice asking them out loud. Then in the actual interview, they stumble or sound robotic.
Why Mock Interviews Make the Difference
This is where tools like Rehearsal become useful. You can simulate the entire interview including the "any questions?" moment repeatedly until it feels natural. You practice tone, timing, and follow-up questions. The difference between sounding scripted and sounding genuinely curious is huge, and you can't feel that difference until you've practiced out loud.
The candidate sitting next to you in the waiting room might have practiced this moment fifteen times with an AI that challenges their questions and gives them feedback. You haven't practiced at all. That's the gap.