When I was more junior, one of my favourite questions to ask a company was "Can you give me a day in the life, or a week in the life of this job/role?".
The reason being, job descriptions are very often a fantasy. An aspiration. What the company wishes its people did, not what they are actually doing. Often the reality is much less attractive than the job description you think you are interviewing for. Faced with this "week in the life of..." question, very few interviewers can conjure up a detailed fantasy of fictional projects concluded, smooth running operations, and friction-free collaboration on the spot. They are more likely to say what the person will _actually_ be doing. This is typically a lot less attractive. Only then you can really start "talking turkey" for the remaining minutes.
I welcome this question from interviewees and sometimes offer up the information without being asked.
I work in a small business where we do hardware, software, help the marketing folks, and do a little IT work where needed. I want someone who is curious, energetic, and enjoys taking on whatever challenge presents itself. They'll start in a pretty well-defined role in a well-defined domain, and I'll give them support in that role. But they will have every opportunity to branch out from there, and I believe the kind of employee I seek—as well as the company—will benefit if the employee fits this technical culture. I want to scare off people who want to be pigeon-holed and fed repetitive tasks.
To that end, I also like to discuss with candidates projects they've worked on in the past, rather than offer up new challenges I present to them. Our normal work week doesn't involve isolated puzzles or single activities that one finishes in an hour. Finishing a project takes a long time & requires acquiring new knowledge, skills, and understanding, so I want to explore in depth something the candidate had a long time to work on where this process did (or did not) transpire.
My POV is that I want to find a postdoc (or someone who could grow into this paradigm), not a clever parrot.
I ask this question every time I interview and the answer is always useless, something like “Well, it varies”. For some reason companies never want to say what they’re working on, like it’s state secrets or something. I guess that’s a signal too though.
The reason being, job descriptions are very often a fantasy. An aspiration. What the company wishes its people did, not what they are actually doing. Often the reality is much less attractive than the job description you think you are interviewing for. Faced with this "week in the life of..." question, very few interviewers can conjure up a detailed fantasy of fictional projects concluded, smooth running operations, and friction-free collaboration on the spot. They are more likely to say what the person will _actually_ be doing. This is typically a lot less attractive. Only then you can really start "talking turkey" for the remaining minutes.