What questions should you ask at the end of an IB interview?

"Do you have any questions for me?" is still the interview. Stratify by level, fill real gaps in what you know, and ask things people are glad to answer.

Michael Neal·5 min read·updated July 2026

The Last Question

Every interview closes the same way. "Do you have any questions for me?"

Most candidates hear the exit — scoring over, hard part behind them, keep it short and go. That read is wrong. The interview runs until you leave the room, and your closing question is the last thing the banker carries into the debrief, where supporters advocate and skeptics push back.

It is also the only moment in the hour where you pick the topic. Everything before it was their prompt and your answer. This one is yours.

Three things decide whether it lands. You match the level of the person in front of you. You ask something that closes a real gap in what you know. And you ask it in a way that makes them want to answer. Specific, genuine, sourced — the same standard that governs every other answer you give.

Level Stratification

Do not ask juniors and seniors the same question. Match the interviewer's knowledge and priorities.

This is not etiquette. Different levels see different parts of the business, and pointing a question at someone who cannot answer it well burns the only shot you get.

Level	What they see clearly	Aim your question at
Analyst / Associate	The seat you are applying for	The day, the team, what caught them off guard
VP	Whether they would want you staffed on a live deal	How the group runs, culture, what separates strong juniors
MD	Whether you get approved at all	Their read on the sector, what they want from people on their deals

Analysts and associates run a lot of first rounds and sit close enough to the job to know what good candidates sound like. Associates and VPs are the main evaluators in most processes. MDs are often less visible early, but in smaller groups, elite boutiques, regional offices, and tight coverage teams an MD can give final approval or final disapproval, and a senior negative is difficult to overcome.

A Superday is several back-to-back interviews with a mix of behavioral, technical, market, and fit questions. Different bankers, different seats, and they compare notes afterward. One recycled question across all of them is the fastest way to look like you prepared a script instead of a point of view.

Three questions, one per level:

"[To an analyst] Who have been the most supportive people on your team?"

"[To a VP] How would you describe the culture here?"

"[To an MD] What do you look for when you're staffing analysts on your deals?"

Each is aimed at what that person actually knows. The analyst can name people. The VP has a view on how the group feels from the inside. The MD decides who gets staffed.

Schema Validation

The best questions close a gap in your own model of banking and the firm. The gap has to be real, which means you have done enough work to know where it is.

Do the reading first. Know what type of bank you are sitting in front of and what its work looks like. Then ask about the part the reading cannot reach.

That is what curiosity looks like in practice: a specific hole, not general enthusiasm.

The answers also compound. What a banker tells you here becomes named evidence in a why this firm or why this group answer later in the same process. Treat the closing question the way you treat a coffee chat — a conversation that is supposed to produce material.

Conversation Quality

Questions should lead to dialogue. Two failure modes stop it dead.

The first is the closed question. A yes/no gets you a yes or a no, and then silence you have to fill.

The second is the question that corners them. Anything that asks a banker to rank their employer, criticize a colleague, or defend a weakness puts them somewhere they cannot answer honestly.

Remember who is across the table. That person is sleep-deprived, has answered the same questions all day, and will be working tonight. The best question is the one they are glad to be asked, usually because it is about them, their team, or something they know better than anyone else in the building. Bankers hire people they want to sit next to. That is the Airport Test, and the closing question is where it gets graded.

What Never to Ask

Compensation. Not the number, not the bonus, not the structure. Asking signals you are pricing the job instead of trying to get it.

The offer itself. Do not request the job directly and do not ask where you stand. It reads as pressure.

Anything that forces a comparison. League tables, rival banks, the group down the hall. No answer makes them comfortable.

Anything closed. If it can be answered in one word, rewrite it before you ask it.

"No, I think you covered everything." It shows that you did not prepare. If they are asking in the context of logistics, that is another thing — otherwise, no.

Building the Question Bank

Prepare three to five and try to milk follow-ups. The backups are there because if your questions are already answered, you can go to those. Ideally your questions are things that would not naturally come up.

Write them down. Then rehearse them out loud, because a question that reads well on the page can land as an interrogation when spoken.

Then close the loop. Send the thank-you note, and reference something specific the interviewer actually said.

Lock the rest of the set before you worry about the closing question. Start with tell me about yourself, structure the answers with the interview frameworks, and pressure-test all of it in a mock interview.

create your free account to keep reading

3 more sections. free forever. takes 30 seconds.

By continuing, you accept our Privacy Policy.