Questions to ask an interviewer: what the job posting already answered, and what to ask instead

We read 60 job postings to see which interview questions they already answer. The questions worth your slot, by stage and by role, and the ones to skip.

"Do you have any questions for us?" usually arrives with five minutes left. You get two or three questions, maybe four if the conversation is going well. Most lists tell you to skip anything you could look up, then hand you forty questions without saying which ones the job ad already answered. Ask one of those and the interviewer notes that you did not read it.

So before writing another list, we checked what job ads actually say. We read 60 real postings and counted which of the usual questions they already answer. The result decides which questions are worth your slot. The rest of this guide gives you those questions by interview stage and by role, plus the legal line that runs between what they may ask you and what you may ask them.

Read the posting before you write a single question

On 1 October 2026 we took 60 postings from the public job boards of 12 employers: Airbnb, Stripe, Figma, GitLab, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord, Duolingo, Pinterest and Asana on Greenhouse, Spotify and Palantir on Lever. Five postings per employer, picked at evenly spaced positions in each board so no single team dominates. We read every one and checked whether it answered five questions candidates often ask.

Two caveats before you lean on these numbers. This is a sample of large tech employers, and 40 of the 60 postings were located in the US, where several states require a range in the ad. Inside our sample, 37 of the 40 US-located postings showed a range, against 8 of the 20 located elsewhere. A small company hiring in a country without such a law will often print no salary at all. The method is the point, and it takes five minutes on your own posting.

The pattern still holds for the questions that matter. Ads describe pay and location because a law or a recruiter's template asks for it. They rarely say who your manager is, how many people sit next to you, or what happens between this call and an offer. Those are your questions.

The five-minute posting check

Before the interview, open the posting and look for these six things. Strike every question the ad answers.

1. The pay range, and whether it is base salary or on-target earnings.
2. The work arrangement, including how many days in the office.
3. The reporting line: a name, a title, or only a department.
4. The team: its size, and who else is on it.
5. What the first months look like.
6. The interview process.

Some postings tell you outright that a detail is left for the interview. Asana's postings say "your recruiter will share more about the in-office requirements." Stripe's say some teams have greater in-office requirements, "which the hiring manager will discuss." That sentence is an invitation. Take it.

Turn what the posting says into a better question

A struck-out question is not wasted. It becomes a sharper one, because you now know the official answer and can ask about the part the ad leaves out.

The same move works for pay. Stripe's ranges, by its own wording, "may be inclusive of several career levels" and get "narrowed during the interview process." So when the range is posted, the useful question is where you would sit in it: "The range in the posting is wide. Which level are you hiring at, and what decides where an offer lands?"

Questions to ask, by who is across the table

Each interviewer can answer different things. A recruiter knows the process and the package. A hiring manager knows the work. A future teammate knows what Tuesday afternoon is like. Asking the right person is half of a good question.

The recruiter screen

The first call is the place for logistics, because the recruiter owns them and the ad left them out.

1. "What are the stages from here, and who will I meet in each one?"
2. "How long does the process usually take from this call to an offer?"
3. "Is there a take-home task or a presentation, and how much time should I plan for it?"
4. "Is the role new, or am I replacing someone?"
5. If no range was posted: "What's the budgeted range for this role?"

That last question depends on where the job is. California requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale in any job posting, and any employer there must give an applicant the pay scale on reasonable request (California Labor Code 432.3). New York State requires a compensation range in ads from employers with four or more employees (New York DOL). Washington adds a general description of benefits to the range (Washington L&I), and Colorado has required pay ranges for job openings since 2021 (SB19-085).

So in those states, a missing range is worth a polite question, and in California asking for it is a right. What you say once you have the number is covered in our guide to negotiating salary in an interview.

The hiring manager

Only 5 of our 60 postings named a reporting line, and only 2 gave a team size. The person who can answer both is in front of you.

1. "Would I report to you? If not, who, and how often would we talk?"
2. "How many people are on the team, and what does each of them own?"
3. "What should the person in this role have finished by the end of the first three months?"
4. "What's the problem on your desk that made you open this role?"
5. "How will you judge, a year from now, whether this hire worked?"
6. "What did the last person in this role do well, and what do you want done differently?"

Question 4 tends to get the most honest answer of the interview. Managers rarely open a role for the reasons in the ad's first paragraph.

Future teammates

Peers answer the questions a manager has to answer carefully.

1. "What does a normal week look like for you?"
2. "When something breaks or a deadline slips, what happens next?"
3. "When two people disagree on a decision, who has the last word?"
4. "What do you wish you had known in your first month?"

The final round

By now the role is clear. Use the slot to settle what is left and to see if anything stands in your way.

1. "Is there anything in my background you'd want me to clarify before you decide?"
2. "Who makes the final decision, and when?"
3. "If you make an offer, what would the start date and onboarding look like?"

The first one feels exposed, and that is why it works. You hear the objection while you can still answer it. When the answer to question 2 is vague, our guide to what recruiters mean by "we'll be in touch" tells you how long to wait.

Questions by role

Some questions only make sense for one kind of job. Pick one or two.

• Engineering. "How does code get to production, and how often?" and "How much of the week goes to on-call or support?"
• Sales. "What share of the team hit quota last year?" and "Is the territory new, or is there an existing book of accounts?"
• Product and operations. "Who decides what gets built when two teams want different things?" and "Which metric would I be judged on first?"
• First job or internship. "Who would I go to with questions in my first weeks?" and "What have past interns or juniors gone on to do here?"

What they may not ask you, and what your questions give away

The legal limits in an interview apply to the employer, not to you. You can ask about anything. They cannot.

Under US federal law, the EEOC says questions that reveal race, sex, religion, national origin or age are not clearly forbidden, but they "may be used as evidence of an employer's intent to discriminate" unless a business purpose justifies them (EEOC). Disability is stricter: employers "are explicitly prohibited from making pre-offer inquiries about disability." The EEOC also lists pregnancy, marital status, the number and ages of your children and childcare arrangements among the questions to keep out of hiring, and says an employer may collect some of that after an offer, for insurance or other legitimate purposes (EEOC).

Here is the catch. Your own questions can volunteer exactly that information. "How flexible are hours around school pick-up?" tells the interviewer you have children, which is something they were not supposed to ask. You are free to share it. Just decide whether you want to before the interview, not in the moment.

If you need the answer but not the disclosure, ask about the policy rather than your situation: "How does the team handle flexible hours?" works for everyone. Detailed questions about parental leave or health cover can also wait for the offer stage, when HR answers them in writing.

How many to ask, and what to skip

Prepare five or six and expect to use two or three. Some will get answered during the interview. If that happens, say so and ask a follow-up instead of repeating it.

The broader interview, from the opening introduction to the thank-you email, is covered in how to succeed in a job interview.

Write the answers down

The answers you get are the most specific information you will have about the job, and they fade within a day. Write down who the manager is, the team size, the next stage and its date before you close the call.

In HiredFolio, every job in your tracker has a Notes field, so the answers sit next to the posting and the resume you sent. When you add a job with its description, "Prepare for the interview" drafts the questions you are likely to face and three to five questions to ask them, built from that description. It costs one AI action, and the result is not saved, so paste the questions you keep into Notes. Run the posting check on them too: it is quicker than reading the ad again.

Try HiredFolio for free

Read next

• Why do you want to work here? How to answer with what the job posting doesn't say

  'How to answer "why do you want to work here": find company details others miss, see a worked example from an annual report, and read five sample answers.'

• Why should we hire you? How to answer, with 5 example answers

  'How to answer "why should we hire you": three proofs from the job posting, a 150-word budget, and example answers based on real job postings.'

• What are your salary expectations? How to answer on the form and the call

  'How to answer "what are your salary expectations" on an application form and a recruiter screen, with scripts, the state laws that apply, and a count of 243 real application forms.'