Many people new to the market see interviews only from their own point-of-view, e.g. they only prepare to answer questions, not to ask them. However, despite the pressure of the moment it is important to remember that it is a 2-way process.

They are interviewing you but do not forget you are also interviewing them.
Yes, you might want a job but do you really want this job? Is there a better opportunity somewhere else?

Do you really want to get this job and then spend time looking for something else, when if you had done your homework, properly in advance, you wouldn't even have bothered to apply in the first place?

In addition, it is easy to have a good HR department who make everything sound wonderful, whilst all around is crumbling. So your interview questions to your potential employer are vital.

Don't wing it, prepare them well in advance (if you can, memorize them) list and then priorities them. Work out your plan of attack, how do you want to come across hard-hitting, thoughtful... …Just like your C.V. if you haven't written and rewritten them at least 20 times they probably are not as good as they could and should be.

Just remember not to be intimidated. Yes they might be older than you. Yes they might be more senior than you, so what?

There are a multitude of questions that you can source from the net, some of them very good. So, go seek.

The key to any good job (let's do the pay, location argument later) is empowerment. You need to know, if you are going to take that job, that once you have found your feet, you will have the necessary "muscle" to make a difference.

So work out some key questions to test whether or not they really will give you the budget you need, the support staff necessary… …find out if your line-manager really does make the decisions that s/he is meant to, or are they just puppets with someone higher up pulling the strings.

Ask your potential line-manager
"Who was the last employee you wrote a letter of commendation for?"

It is a massively overlooked gesture, it only takes 5 minutes, it flatters the hell out of the person concerned and produces a nice warm feeling all round.

What's more, people remember that gesture for a lifetime!

Unlike that bottle of German wine (I like my wine, why do want to insult me with cr*p), the box of chocolates (I don't even like milk chocolate) pay bonus (what £500 for all that work, what a joke), we've all had so many that I bet you can't even remember how much the last one was!

Better still if they can tell you, you know that you are in the right place.

People are the key to any organization. Your line-manager will be one of the biggest ingredients to your happiness or otherwise.

A good one and your on the way up, a waste of space and you will stay in the same position or worse, until you decide to leave. You need to find out if that person is organized or disorganized.

Organized = good and it means that that person is on-top-of-things, which means your working life will be proactive. It means that you will not spend your working life having to things at the 11th hour and waste valuable time fighting a rear guard action.

So make sure that you have a few "tactfully" worded questions to ascertain how organized that person is.

An easy way to spot a company which has very little people management skills (don't be fooled by that 9001 ISO fluff, in every organization that I've worked in it hasn't made any difference, whatsoever) and, therefore, is a cr*p company to work for, is to ask about their team building program.

You are talking about away days, time spent on all aspects (you do not mean the usual meetings and other fluff) your talking business + team + fun + individual career building programs – things that help to bring people together and keep a team happy. Happy employees = more productive employees = a great place to work.

So just because your interview time is up, that's only round 1.