Paired Positive-Negative Questions
Ask for a favorite and a challenge together, and people finally tell you the truth.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Minshew's technique for getting honest answers is to ask a positive and a negative question as a matched pair. Instead of bluntly asking what's wrong with a company, you invite the person to name one or two things they love about working there and, in the same breath, one or two things that are more of a challenge. Leading with the positive lets people talk up the company and feel comfortable, which makes them far more willing to then share something genuinely true about the downsides. The reveal usually arrives as a qualifier — 'people who like speed can find we move a little slow' — that tells you what the culture actually is. Anchoring the question in the interviewer's own tenure makes it concrete and personal.
Origin
Minshew formalized this from years of coaching Muse users through interviews and from interviewing extensively herself after McKinsey, when she was probing many companies to learn what work she actually wanted.
Core principles
- 01People readily volunteer positives but clam up on negatives unless given permission.
- 02Pairing a positive with a challenge makes the negative feel safe to share.
- 03Honest signal about culture comes from what people say when they feel comfortable.
- 04How your interviewer responds is itself data about the environment.
How to run it
- 1
Ground the question in their experience
Reference how long the interviewer has been at the company so the question is about their lived experience, not an abstract pitch.
Pro tip Something like 'I noticed you've been here two and a half years' primes a personal, honest answer.
- 2
Ask for the favorites first
Invite them to share one or two of their favorite things about working there — this is easy and lowers their guard.
- 3
Pair it with the challenges
In the same question, ask for one or two things that might be more of a challenge or a little harder.
Pro tip The pairing is what unlocks candor — asked alone, the negative question gets deflected.
- 4
Read the qualifier
Listen for the softened admission ('people who like speed find we move slow') — that hedge is the real signal about the culture.
Watch out Also treat rushed answers or refusal to let you ask as a yellow flag about the environment.
In the wild
Minshew's illustration: you ask an interviewer for favorites plus challenges, and they say something like 'sometimes people here who like speed can find that we move a little slow — I don't mind it because we're very collaborative.'
→ You learn the company's true pace and collaboration style — information you'd never get from a straight 'what's the downside?' question.
Common mistakes
Asking the negative in isolation
A bare 'what are the downsides?' triggers a guarded, PR-safe answer; without the positive to lead, people won't be honest.
Is it for you?
Best for
Job candidates trying to surface a company's real culture and downsides before accepting an offer.
Not ideal for
Situations where you have no direct access to people who actually work there.
From the transcript
“I really like what I call kind of paired questions or positive negative questions”
“when you ask someone to give you a really positive thing ... paired with something that is more challenging ... you are much more likely…”
“if someone doesn't let you ask questions or they really rush you through that process I would say that's a yellow flag”
From the episode
Kathryn Minshew: Crush Your Career, Beat Burnout, and Learn to Navigate the New Rules of Work
Kathryn Minshew