Re: Reverse
I don't like that approach, or rather I only like it in a very restricted set of circumstances. Unless the candidate has already been told a lot about what they will be doing, they don't have a lot to ask about. After the obligatory question about what the job involves, and some necessary clarifying questions, the candidate is likely to know what it entails. So one of two things happens:
1. The interviewers know everything about the details and are willing to share that information, so the interviewee has to ask about active tasks that they would be working with, essentially trying to solve problems without ever getting to see the system, code, or whatever else is involved in the problem. This is if the interviewers tell the interviewee that they're doing this, because most interviewers don't even know that stuff so the interviewee usually knows well enough not to interrogate them on the internals.
2. The interviewers either don't know the details or don't want to disclose that to anybody who can get into the interview, so the interviewee has to come up with enough questions to fill the time. Instead of learning anything about the interviewee's qualifications to solve the problem, the interviewers learn of the interviewee's ability to improvise and fill time. While improvisation is a useful skill, it's not very useful if the more important qualifications are lacking. Filling time uselessly is a negative except in sales or law (and isn't necessarily great there either).
By all means let the interviewee ask questions, but unless you give them enough information beforehand, which questions they ask isn't going to prove much about their skills.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
