I've never cared when a candidate doesn't have questions questions for me. I've done ~100-200 interviews at FAANG companies and never heard a single complaint in the debriefing about "The candidate didn't have any questions for me."
I feel like once you've done a few interviews you realize that "What's a typical day like?" Isn't really a signal of a candidate's genuine interest, it's the obvious reply to your "Any questions for me?" gambit.
Personally, I wouldn't even ask for questions from the candidate if I didn't know some rare people do genuinely want to ask questions.
FAANG is a little bit different, because you're not really evaluating people as much on "how much do they want to be here", because the answer is essentially the same for most people. For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture.
> For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture.
Is that really a thing between global tech company vs small company or rather big vs small? In a 10 people company, everybody makes up 10% of the people, so they have much more impact on everything than in a company of 10000.
I would say that culture matters a lot more in the hiring/interview process when you expect each individual you're hiring to be a multiplicative force. For smaller startups that are growing, this tends to be true. For larger companies, they tend to grow more linearly, so an individual that only contributes raw units of work is usually sufficient. So I don't think it's purely the percentage of the company that each hire represents, but more so what you expect out of each individual.
Just to offer another perspective, I work for a small consultancy and routinely do our "exec" interview. This is a free-form interview with a member of our leadership team as a final check on the candidate.
I ask candidates some questions about their work history, interesting projects, and follow up on other interview sessions. I always offer them time to ask me questions, and those questions most often make the difference between my recommending them for hire and not. I see those questions as a window into what the candidate values most and find them to be very insightful.
I feel like once you've done a few interviews you realize that "What's a typical day like?" Isn't really a signal of a candidate's genuine interest, it's the obvious reply to your "Any questions for me?" gambit.
Personally, I wouldn't even ask for questions from the candidate if I didn't know some rare people do genuinely want to ask questions.