Great Questions to Ask Interviewers(medium.com)
medium.com
Great Questions to Ask Interviewers
https://medium.com/craft-blog/how-to-ask-interviewers-great-questions-3a0add17ba42
https://medium.com/craft-blog/how-to-ask-interviewers-great-questions-3a0add17ba42
"can be quite off-putting" -- now you know how the candidates feel.
I actually think this is a great question to ask the interviewer if they are someone you will need to work with. I think obviously you would need to get the tone right though.
I mean with the context it would be pretty hard to pull off a real 180 "now I'm interviewing you" without just getting dismissed. But I actually think that is what is fair and warranted if you are going to be working with or for someone else.
But if you can pull it off, one question like that, "what are your strengths" might tell you something about the attitude of the people you work with. It is also as I said totally fair.
Even if you don't say something like that, I think that the mutual interview, perhaps not in an overt way, is the practical approach. You want to somehow find out whether people will be wasting your time, who is the worst, see if the actual philosophy matches up with yours, know what you are getting into. Even if you are low on funds and have to take a less than ideal job, you will want to collect the most information possible so you know what you are getting into. It may help you select from the lesser of evils if you have multiple possibilities that aren't great.