For those who have got extensive experiences in attending interviews, do you think it is a good idea to ask your prospective employer why the management is opening up a particular position? Just as you are asked why you intend to resign or have left your ex-company and you have to give a solid reason for that.

Although chances are you will not get a truthful answer from your interviewer especially when the truth is embarassing, at least you can judge for yourself how plausible his/her explanation is. At most, the interviewer would only give you the PULL factors instead of the PUSH factors.

The types of answer I am expecting are something like this.

1) Someone resigned because s/he was offered a better deal somewhere else.
2) Someone has been promoted, transferred to another department or moved on to another area of expertise
3) We are in the midst of expansion because there are new projects being rolled out and stuff
4) We are experiencing high volumes of transactions and for this we need to increase our headcounts.
5) Bizzare but possible to happen, someone has been fired...

The purpose of asking this question is to know if the turnover rate for that particular position is high or low. If the turnover is high, then something has got to be very wrong somewhere and you should think thrice before accepting the offer. It could be due to the poor management style, little or no increment or a paycut, or the politics in the company is very intense. Is there anyway you can gauge the real reason by asking this question?