My last post was about a small moment that turns out to be a big one. The interviewer asks, “Do you have any questions for us?” and you answer, “No, I think you covered everything.”

I expected a few people to relate. Instead, dozens of you wrote back with your own version of it. You did the research, listened closely, and had every question answered before the call ended. Then you were marked down for having nothing left to ask.

One reply stayed with me more than the rest, because the story didn’t end in the interview. It ended in an inbox.

Two follow-ups, two outcomes

A candidate (I’ll keep him anonymous) had a first-round interview, then got an email from the employer. It included this line: “You didn’t have any questions for me either, which in a field this strong did make the difference.”

So he replied in writing, and his reply was honest. He explained that it wasn’t arrogance or disinterest. The interviewer had already described their vision for the team, which would have been his only real question. In his words:

“I’d rather be honest and say I don’t have questions than ask the generic ‘what’s your favourite thing about the role’ just for the sake of asking. Again, I am neurodivergent, so I can’t always just think up stuff on the spot in the heat of the moment.”

He also pointed out that it had been billed as a first-stage, informal chat, so he wasn’t expecting to be asked for questions at the end. Then he made a clear case for why he wanted the job.

That was August. He never got a reply.

Now the other side. I once interviewed for EMC’s product lifecycle team, the group that oversaw the lifecycle, quality, and development of EMC’s flagship products. After the interview, I sent the hiring manager a 30-60-90 day plan showing how I’d spend my first three months. I got the job, and I later found out that plan was what sealed it. Then Dell bought EMC in the biggest tech merger ever at the time, and that same team rewrote the product lifecycle for the combined company. I helped create it and train both companies on it.

We both followed up in writing and got opposite results. The difference was on the other end: whether someone treated the follow-up as part of the interview.

Why the follow-up matters more for neurodivergent candidates

Interviews reward speed. You get a question, you’re expected to have a polished answer in seconds, and you’re expected to close with a smart question of your own.

That’s not how a lot of us think. I’m hard of hearing and I have ADHD. After any meeting, I replay it for hours, sometimes days. That’s when the dots connect. I spot the gaps, come up with the questions I wish I’d asked, and often sketch out a whole solution. Many neurodivergent people describe the same thing.

So the moment an interview ends is often the moment our best thinking starts. The follow-up is where that thinking finally gets to show up. Writing gives us time to process, organize, and say exactly what we mean.

One commenter on my last post put it well: asking a question just to have one feels insincere, and saying no is not a lack of interest. The real questions usually come later.

An interview is really just a glorified meeting. In the actual job, nobody expects you to solve everything in the room. They expect you to follow through.

What a strong follow-up looks like

Here’s a simple structure that works:

1. Thank them for something specific. Skip the generic “thanks for your time” and name one thing they said that stuck with you.
2. Answer better. If there’s a question you’d answer differently now, give the short, clear version.
3. Ask the real question. The one you thought of on the drive home is often your best one.
4. Say why you want the role, in a sentence or two.
5. If you’re near the final round, add a 30-60-90 day plan.

The plan doesn’t need to be fancy. One page is enough:

• First 30 days, learn: who you’d meet, what you’d read, and what you’d want to understand first.
• Days 31 to 60, contribute: where you’d start adding value, based on what they told you.
• Days 61 to 90, lead: one or two outcomes you’d aim to own.

A plan like this shows how you think, how you plan, and that you were listening. No single interview answer can show all three.

For hiring teams

If you’re hiring, three small changes go a long way:

• Tell candidates that follow-ups count. Say it at the end of the interview. It costs nothing and takes the pressure off the closing question.
• Read them before you decide. If the decision is already made by the time the email arrives, you’re judging people on speed instead of substance.
• Reply, even with a no. Candidates remember the silence.

And don’t be shy. If a follow-up raises something interesting, ask more questions and dig into the answers. You may find out who is truly skilled at the work, at communicating, and at collaborating, and not just good at telling a story on the spot.

The fair counterpoint

Some interviewers will say a candidate with no questions just wasn’t engaged. And it’s true that asking about something covered fifteen minutes earlier can look like you weren’t listening. A few people raised exactly that in the comments.

That’s the trap. If the closing question can count against you either way, the follow-up is the better place for the real questions, the ones that only show up after you’ve had time to think.

The bottom line

You’re hiring someone to do the job. Treat the interview like the job and not an improv session. If you want to know who truly cares about the role and is still thinking about it, look at the follow-up.

And if you’re the candidate, send it.

“Do you have any questions for us?”

“No, I think you covered everything.”

If you’ve interviewed for anything, you’ve probably been on one side of that exchange. Maybe you said it and then replayed it on the drive home, wondering if it cost you. Maybe you heard it and quietly marked the candidate down.

Every few weeks I see the same advice from hiring managers on LinkedIn: “no questions” is a red flag. A good question shows how you think. No question leaves them guessing.

I understand where that comes from. I also think it can punish some of the most prepared people in the room, and I want to explain why from where I sit.

Where I’m coming from

I’ve been hard of hearing since birth, and I have ADHD. For a long time I saw both as negatives. Interviews are still the hardest part of my job search. More than once I’ve logged off a call knowing I could do the job and hadn’t shown it.

But the same two things made me good at my work. In nearly 19 years at EMC and Dell, much of it in program management, my hearing pushed me toward habits I still rely on. I write everything down. I confirm decisions in writing. I run meetings with a clear agenda, and I make sure nobody leaves with a different version of the plan.

Put simply, I’ve trained my whole career to make other people’s time count. That matters for what happens at the end of an interview.

What “no questions” can actually mean

Experienced candidates do their homework. Before a final round, I’ve read the job description several times, looked up the team, read what the company has published, and sometimes talked with someone who works there. I walk in with a list.

Then a good interview answers most of it. By the time they ask if I have questions, my list is crossed off.

Now I have to choose. I can ask something I already know the answer to, so the box gets checked. Or I can be honest and say they covered it.

The first option feels wrong to me. It asks two busy people to spend time on something neither of us needs. If I did that in a meeting at work, I’d be wasting the room’s time. In an interview, it’s somehow expected.

The same moment through a different lens

Now picture a candidate who’s autistic. For many autistic people, asking a question you already know the answer to feels like acting. It can feel dishonest, and like a real waste of everyone’s time. They may be the most direct and prepared person you talk to all week, and this one ritual marks them down for exactly that.

Senior people often land in the same place for different reasons. After enough years, you know how most companies work. The questions that would have mattered early in a career got answered long ago.

None of these candidates lack curiosity. Their curiosity got answered early, through preparation and through the interview itself. Scoring them down for it means scoring them down for a strength.

For candidates who feel this way

You don’t have to fake a question. A few honest options:

• Name what they covered. “You answered most of what I came with, especially how the team plans releases.” It shows you were listening, which is what the question is really testing.
• Keep one question that’s always useful. Mine is “Is there anything in my background you’d like me to clear up?” I genuinely don’t know the answer, it works no matter what the interview covered, and it brings any doubts into the open while I can still address them.
• Ask to follow up in writing. “If something comes to me tonight, is it okay if I email you?” Many of us think better after the call ends. Then actually send it.

For interviewers

The idea behind the question is good. You want to know how someone thinks and whether they care about the role. You can get there without the ritual.

• Weigh the whole hour. If someone showed real depth for 45 minutes and their track record backs it up, one closing answer shouldn’t undo that.
• Ask one more of your own. If “no questions” bothers you, try “What stood out to you from your research on us?” You’ll get the curiosity you were looking for.
• Invite written follow-up. Tell candidates they’re welcome to email questions later. You’ll often get better ones.

Ask yourself who a rule like this screens out. Often it’s the people who prepared the hardest, or the ones whose brains work a little differently from yours.

Why I’m writing about this

More and more, I see my hearing and my ADHD as the reason I work the way I do. The habits that make me say “no questions” at the end of an interview are the same ones that make me good at the job.

If you’ve ever walked out of an interview wondering whether your honesty cost you, I’d like to hear about it. And if you hire, I’d like to hear how you handle those last two minutes.

If you missed it, last week I wrote about the gap between a strong resume and a rough interview.

Sean Feeney is a disability advocate and program leader who spent nearly 19 years at EMC and Dell, where he led a CI/CD transformation across 22 Scrum teams and ran the Architecture Review Board for Dell NativeEdge. He has been hard of hearing since birth and is neurodivergent.

I get interviews. That part of my job search works. After nearly 19 years at EMC and Dell, leading a CI/CD transformation across 22 Scrum teams and running the Architecture Review Board for Dell NativeEdge, my resume opens doors at companies I’d be proud to work for.

Then I get on a Zoom call, and things get harder.

I’ve been hard of hearing since birth, and I have ADHD. Both are invisible until they aren’t. I want to write about the gap between a strong resume and a rough interview, because I don’t think hiring teams see it, and I don’t think enough of us talk about it.

What a video interview actually asks of me

From the outside, an interview looks simple. One person asks questions and the other answers. For me it’s several jobs at once.

I’m listening through compressed audio and filling in words I didn’t quite catch from context. I’m holding the question in my head while I pick which story fits. I’m watching the clock. And with ADHD, working memory is the first thing to go when I’m nervous, so a detail I knew cold an hour ago can disappear mid-sentence.

When the audio drops, someone turns away from the mic, or two people talk at once on a panel, I lose the thread. Then I have a choice. I can ask them to repeat the question, which feels fine once and awkward the third time. Or I can guess at what they meant, and sometimes answer a question nobody asked.

Either way, the interviewer leaves with an impression. It doesn’t always match the person on the resume, and they don’t know why.

Why the gap closes once I’m on the job

Here’s the part that frustrates me most. Almost none of this is a problem at work.

At work there’s a meeting recap, a Slack thread, a Jira ticket. If I miss something, I follow up an hour later and nobody thinks twice. Over the years I’ve built habits around my hearing. I write everything down, I confirm decisions in writing, and I make sure nobody leaves a meeting with a different version of the plan. Those habits made me good at program management. They’re a big reason the processes I built held up after I handed them off.

The interview format strips all of that away. No follow-up, no notes, no second pass. It tests the exact conditions where I’m weakest and skips the ones where I’m strongest.

The disclosure question

Every candidate with a hidden disability runs the same calculation. Do I mention it?

If I don’t, I risk being judged on a performance that doesn’t reflect me. If I do, I risk it sounding like an excuse, or someone quietly deciding I’ll be “a lot of work.” Neither feels safe, and a lot of people default to silence.

I’ve landed somewhere in the middle. Disclosure is a choice I make company by company, and I’ve found a couple of ways to bring it up that feel normal instead of apologetic.

The first is the accommodation request, sent when the interview gets scheduled. It’s short and practical:

“I’m hard of hearing, so a video call with live captions turned on would work much better for me than a phone call. Could we set it up that way?”

If I’d rather not name it, there’s a version that skips the reason:

“Could we do this as a video call with captions on, and could questions also be typed in the chat? That helps me give you better answers.”

The second is how I talk about it in the room, if I choose to. I frame it as where my strengths come from, instead of something I’m working “despite”:

“I’ve been hard of hearing since birth, and it’s made me very deliberate. I write things down, I confirm decisions, and I make sure nobody leaves a meeting with a different version of the plan. That habit is a big part of why the things I built actually stuck.”

That tells them something true about how I work, and it gives them a reason to remember me.

What’s helped me as a candidate

• Captions, every time. Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet all have them built in. Windows 11 also has system-wide Live Captions (Win + Ctrl + L) that work with any app.
• Scripting the edges. I prepare my intro, my close, and lines for the hard moments, like “I want to make sure I answer the right question. Could you say that one more time?” Only the middle gets improvised.
• Headline first. I put the answer in my first sentence, then the story. If I wander, the point already landed.
• Asking what’s unclear. Near the end I ask, “Is there anything in my background you’d like me to clear up?” It brings doubts into the room while I can still address them.
• The same-day follow-up. If an answer didn’t land, I fix it in the thank-you email. That’s the version of me they’d actually be hiring.
• Warm introductions. Referrals get me into one-on-one conversations with people who already know my work, and that’s the format where I do best.

What hiring teams can do

None of these cost much, and they help every candidate.

1. Turn on captions by default. Don’t wait for someone to ask. Asking is the hard part.
2. Share the topics ahead of time. You’ll get better answers from everyone.
3. Type key questions in the chat, especially the multi-part ones.
4. Choose one-on-ones over big panels when you can. Crosstalk is brutal when you can’t hear well.
5. Let candidates follow up in writing, and read what they send. Most real work happens in writing anyway.
6. Weigh references from people who watched someone work. A former VP who saw two years of delivery knows more than one hour on Zoom can show.
7. Train interviewers on what a disclosure means. It’s information. Treat it that way.

The Job Accommodation Network has free guidance on interview accommodations for employers and candidates.

Why I’m writing this

Being hard of hearing has shaped my career and my confidence in ways most of my coworkers never saw. I’m done staying quiet about it. Disability advocacy needs more voices from people who are in the middle of it right now, and I’d like to be one of them.

If you’re a candidate dealing with this, you’re not imagining the gap. If you’re a hiring manager, keep the bar where it is. Just make sure your interview is measuring what the job needs.

I’d love to hear what’s worked for you, on either side of the table.