Questions to ask in an interview, grouped by who can answer them
Every other page on this subject gives you fifty questions. You will ask two or three, which means a list of fifty is the original problem handed back at greater length. Below are 11, sorted by who is actually able to answer them — because asking a graduate recruiter what the job is like on a Tuesday wastes a good question on someone who does not know.
This part is still being scored
"Any questions for us?" feels like the polite end of the interview. In a structured graduate process it usually is not — it is a final note on the same sheet, and "had no questions" is a thing interviewers write down.
That changes what you are choosing for. Not what sounds clever, but what you genuinely need to find out — because a question you actually want the answer to is obvious from how you listen to the reply, and a performed one is obvious too.
Prepare four. You will often find two get answered during the conversation, which is a good problem — say so, name which ones, and ask the rest.
The line manager or team member
What the job is actually like. They do it, or they manage someone who does. This is the only person who can tell you what Tuesday looks like.
What would I actually be doing in week three?
Cuts past the job description, which describes the role at its most interesting. The answer tells you how much of the first months is shadowing, admin or real work — and the hesitation before the answer tells you something too.
What do people in this role find hardest in the first year?
Nearly always answered honestly, because it is not a question about the company. You learn the real friction — the system that is painful, the stakeholder who is difficult, the deadline that bites.
How does work get allocated — do graduates pick projects or get assigned them?
The difference between a scheme where you can steer and one where you cannot, and it is almost never on the careers page. Also a fair proxy for how much autonomy the team has generally.
How will you know, a year from now, whether this went well?
The strongest question on this page. You get the actual success criteria from the person who will apply them, which is information you would otherwise spend six months working out.
Graduate recruitment or HR
How the scheme works as a structure — rotations, intakes, what happens afterwards. They cannot tell you what the work is like, and asking them is how a good question gets a vague answer.
Where did last year's intake end up?
Retention and destination in one question, and phrased so it is easy to answer. A specific answer is a good sign. A general one about “a range of exciting opportunities” is also an answer.
How are rotations decided — do I rank preferences, or are they allocated?
Materially changes what the two years look like, and graduates almost never ask until they are already in. The answer is a fact, so you get a fact.
What happens if a rotation is not working out?
Tells you whether the scheme has a mechanism or whether you would be stuck. Asking it does not read as pessimism — it reads as somebody who has thought past the offer.
A senior person or partner
Direction. Where the business is going, what is changing, what they worry about. They will not know the graduate scheme's rotation policy and it is a waste of the one senior conversation you get to ask them.
What has changed here in the last two years that would not be obvious from outside?
Invites a real answer because it is not a question they have a prepared line for, and it is genuinely flattering without being flattery. Senior people usually enjoy it.
What would you want someone joining now to understand that is not on the website?
Same shape, and it tends to produce the honest caveat — the restructure, the client that left, the thing everyone internally knows.
Anyone, if you have done the reading
Nothing in particular — the value here is that the question could only come from somebody who looked.
I saw you moved [the specific thing they announced] — has that changed how the team works day to day?
Worth ten generic questions. It proves, without claiming it, that you read something nobody asked you to read. Use their annual report, a press release, a product change, a LinkedIn post from someone in the team.
You mentioned earlier that [thing they said] — how does that play out for someone at my level?
The easiest strong question, because it requires no preparation at all, only listening. Note one thing they say during the interview and come back to it.
Five that cost you
Anything answered on the careers page
“What are the values?”, “How long is the scheme?”, “Which offices do you have?” Every one of these says you did not spend ten minutes looking, which is a worse impression than asking nothing at all.
Salary, holiday and hours at a first interview
Not shameful, and entirely fair at offer stage — but at first interview it answers a question nobody asked about what you are optimising for. Graduate schemes publish salaries anyway. Ask at offer.
“What's the culture like?”
Unanswerable. Nobody has ever said their culture is poor, so you get “collaborative and fast-paced” and learn nothing. If you want to know the culture, ask what people find hardest, or what happens when a rotation goes wrong.
“Do you have any concerns about my application?”
Widely recommended and genuinely risky. In a structured graduate process the scoring is done afterwards against a sheet, so you are inviting an interviewer to articulate a doubt they had not yet formed — and once said aloud it tends to get written down. It works better in an informal conversation than in a scored one.
Nothing at all
The most common and the most expensive. “Had no questions” is a thing interviewers write, and it reads as low interest whether or not that is true. If you genuinely have none left, say which earlier answer settled them — that is a real answer rather than a shrug.
What to do with the answers
Listen to the whole answer before the next question. The commonest mistake here is treating the questions as a list to get through, which turns a conversation back into a test and wastes the one part of the interview you control.
Write down what they say afterwards. If you reach a second stage, referring to something the first interviewer told you is the cheapest way to look like somebody who has been paying attention since March.
Take the answers seriously. You are also deciding. "What do people find hardest" occasionally gets an answer that should put you off, and noticing that now is cheaper than noticing it in month four.
No numbers on this page
Most of our advice pages open with a count from live job adverts, because adverts say what employers want. No advert describes what candidates ask at the end of an interview, so there is nothing to count — and a statistic invented to match the house style would be worse than none. This is judgement, labelled as judgement.
Getting to the interview
None of this is useful until an application gets through. Gradovio ranks every live graduate role against your CV, writes the CV and cover letter against the specific advert, and fills the form on the employer's own site.
Start a free trial — 13,279 live graduate roles to point it at.
Before that: the questions they ask you, assessment centres and the tests before either.