Memorable interview questions

Cougar read samuris post

the sun one is an unfair question – surely you would need to ask looking from where as its incomplete.
Its a mute point anayway I may as well ask what wavelenght we are looking at.

A mate of mine once got asked “Are you a winner?”. When he replied with an “umm err” sort of response the chap then shouted at him “Are you a winner? I want to hear you tell me you’re a winner!” He got the job.

Between college and uni I once managed to send out a load of CVs with “marital arts” (should have been martial arts) under hobbies and interests.

Got lots of interviews by stern power dressing 40 yr old women but the positions all involved “overtime under strict supervision”, and I like to clock out on time.

Memorable questions:

1. General for its stupidity: What are your greatest weaknesses? Cliched question that can be tackled in a much more subtle manner

2. For catching, self-confessed mathematically illiterate graduates: What is 30% of 900? My friend argued to the toss over this (he said 300, like so many of his peers) and despite being wrong and argumentative still got the job. Amazing!

3. Most recent for me – I was warned by HH that lady I was meeting has the following favourite question. I am going to the cinema tonight but can’t decide what to see, do you have any suggestions? Quite a subtle one to see if they candidate stops first to ask about her interests/likes (uncommon) or dives headfirst into describing their favourite (more common). Not a bad question that, as the fool would not realise what he/she has done!

The dreaded compentency based questions…

One of our stock questions is: “Tell me about a time when you failed to form consensus or cohesion across a team or department”

Quite a curve ball for most candidates as they are expecting questions where they can talk themselves up. In fact they still can, but it makes them think on their feet. I’ve been asked the question and asked it a few times myself.

then feel the temp of the light bulbs. one will be on, one will be warm and one will be off?

Do I get the job?

You would do but I’d also expect people to have a really cool forum handle. Yours is quite intriguing but Cougar would beat you on that one I’m afraid. If I employed him I’d only ever use his forum name when talking to him, not Kevin or whatever his real name is. (Assuming his real name isn’t Cougar in which case he has the most awesome parents, ever)

The trick of course is to come up with a weakness which is really a strength, like the ‘perfectionism’ thing

No it isn’t – you end up sounding like a cock.

The trick is to identify a weakness that you used to have and explain how you deal / dealt with it.

IMHO of course.

“where would you like to be in ten years time?”

“Mooching round Europe on a touring bike living life and not working in a warehouse” I replied.

I got the job. 😯

Cougar read samuris post

Ah yes, thanks for that (-:

Assuming his real name isn’t Cougar

It’s sort of a play on my surname. Sort of.

The trick is to identify a weakness that you used to have and explain how you deal / dealt with it.

Balderdash! The trick is not having any weaknesses in the first place. 😛

The trick is to identify a weakness that you used to have and explain how you deal / dealt with it.

I wouldn’t let that fly. “Yes, that’s very interesting, but having dealt very commendably with that, what are your weaknesses now?”

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s very hard to be uniformly mediocre.

The trick is not having any weaknesses in the first place.

“Weakness” is probably a poor term. Even if you rock at everything (which I do, of course), there’s still going to be things you rock less well at. I never got the hang of Chemistry, complete mystery to me.

Strictly speaking, not an interview, and a bit long, but worth sharing…

Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, related the following story:

“Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I read the examination question: “Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.”

The student had answered: “Take the barometer to the top of the building,attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.”

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics.

At the end of five minutes, he hadn’t written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read: “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch.

Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building.”

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”

“Fine,” I said, “and others?”

“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and his will give you the height of the building in barometer units.”

“A very direct method.”

“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the building.

From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated.”

“On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession”.

“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem.”

“Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The name of the student was Neils Bohr.

Her point was that the answer “yellow” shows a lack of imagination.

I think you will find that her point is that she is an extremely poor manager. Trick questions have no place in an interview situation. The idea is to draw out of the applicant the information you need to make a value judgement, not to to to trip them up with some “clever” device.

Not so much questions as answers I’ve come across over the years.

Q: Why do you want this job?
A: I don’t know if I do yet so can I ask you some questions to help me decide?

I liked that one, the guy got the job in the end.

Q: What is the answer to..{fill in your own horrendously technical questions}
A: I don’t know, but if you’d like to give me a few moments I know where to look to find out.

Pretty impressed with that one too.

However, my particular favourite whilst being interveiwed for a job as a group buyer with a multi million pound budget…

Q: We can’t really offer you the salary your are asking for, how do you feel about that? (basically trying to knock my price down).

A: You are interveiwing me for a position of chief negotiator for your business, what credibility could I have in that position if I couldn’t even negotiate a deal for myself?

A: You utter bastard! (whilst laughing)

And yes I got the deal and the job.

I asked someone “If you were on the shelf in Aldi and I scanned your bar code – what would you be worth?”

I get some whacky answers to that one.

BB – I like them.

ta

I did a fair few graduate interviews and selection days. Most of the questions and scenarious are fairly run of the mill.

One particular company hired actors and one of the tasks was to hold a performance discussion with a member of staff who was underperforming (and turned out to be a right whinging git). Another was to interview a series of street performers and then pick one and sell him to a panel.

At one company I was given an envelope at 10pm after getting back from a restaurant (with a free flowing bar) and had to prepare a 30 minute presentation for 9am the next day, that was interesting.

They were also the ones that had interviews where they were deliberatley trying to put you under pressure, question your decision making and see how you react. I could see them doing it though so it was easy to deal with.

Negative ones are always harder, the usual tell us about a time when you have completely failed at something etc. but predictable enough.

I went for a job interview recently and was asked what i think my greatest weaknesses are.I replied “well i often have trouble with reality; you know? Being able to tell whats real and what is a surreal idealistic formed in my head”.
“Very interesting” replied the interviewer, “what about your strengths?”
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“I’m Batman” 😀

The name of the student was Neils Bohr.

Urban myth, of course, but a good story. Dates back to at least 1958.

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp

Most of the wacky or trick ones are about showing how clever the interviewer is (or how clever they think they are) rather than gleaning any useful information so it’s a bad sign if they come up IMO.

Don’t think I’ve ever had any of those, but a couple of things like being asked to prepare a presentation and then being told to do it without the slides at the very last minute.

However, my particular favourite whilst being interveiwed for a job as a group buyer with a multi million pound budget…

Q: We can’t really offer you the salary your are asking for, how do you feel about that? (basically trying to knock my price down).

A: You are interveiwing me for a position of chief negotiator for your business, what credibility could I have in that position if I couldn’t even negotiate a deal for myself?

A: You utter bastard! (whilst laughing)

And yes I got the deal and the job.

:swoon:

I once interviewed some for an accounts administrator job. The company I worked for had 10 standard questions to ask.

Once was, “Tell me why you think you’re the best person for the job” the interviewee thought for a couple of seconds and then answered. “Because I have great Breasts”

She was right, she got the job, turned out to be addicted to smack. I don’t interview any more.

Best interview answer ever:

Interviewer:

What would you be if you weren’t a professional footballer?

Peter Crouch:

A virgin.

In my interview for engineering at Oxford University.

Interviewer: Your application tells us that you’ve spent the last five months in Australia. Presumably you were doing some work experience at an engineering firm, please can you tell us about this.

Me: I wasn’t working at an engineering company I was working on a sheep station in the outback.

Interviewer (clearly unimpressed): Hmmm…

Me (thinking on my feet): One of my jobs was mustering (rounding up) the sheep for shearing and when we’d finished a paddock I’d count them through the gate. Because there were so many sheep we counted them in threes…
(pause for effect)
…so I’m very good at my three times table.

Quite why they gave me the place I’ll never know.

Being interviewed a couple of years ago for a Scientific management job by a panel of 4 I got asked the following question:

Panel person 1 ‘who is your boyfriend?’

Me (deeply shocked) ‘Errr…. I don’t see how that’s relevant’

Panel person 1 ‘well, who is he?’

Me (flustered) other panel members (deeply shocked) ‘will it affect me getting the job?’

Panel person 1 ‘it might, it depends who it is’

Me ‘I refuse to answer that question’

I got the job after all that, but spent the next year feeling like I was having an affair and petrified that somebody might see us in Tescos!

Think of a time you used your initiative?

– It was raining this morning so I took a taxi

Actually, the sun is a pretty good approximation of a black body:

So it should be black.

What are your greatest weaknesses?

“I react to quickly!!”

“errmm nno maybe thats wrong”

“Maybe it’s indecisiveness!!??”

……. “actualy its probably thinking aloud”

………………………..

“Maybe”

I once go asked in an interview by the Head of HR & Recruitment the following:

“If I was to ring your wife and ask her why I shouldn’t employ you, what do you think she would say”

Was totally took a back with this and as I was not expecting that sort of BS, can’t really remember what I said but was along the lines of a negative into a positive.

Got the job so must have been an ok answer.

What are your greatest weaknesses?

Sheer sexual magnatism coupled with the inability to keep away from the boss’ wife……

Interviewer asked me how much I’d like to earn in an interview. OK thats not a truly memorable question but it is since he’d just told me there were no internal applicants and no external applicants for the position.

Instant cheeky £5k pay rise on top of what I was already going to ask for! That bit makes it memorable.

“Have you got a criminal record?”

For another job, I had to go and see the top man for the final interview. I had been told by my prospective boss that he was into management BS and his phrase of the week was “catching the wave” (and yes he did wear colourful braces). I still cannot believe and it is to my eternal shame that I actually came out with that answering some question about my “ambition”. In my defence, I was rather desperate for a job at the time.

Once got asked ‘if you had to wade knee deep in a pool of shit would it bother you?’
I said.. ‘yes’..’yes it would’.. and then they gave me the job anyway. and then i actually had to do it..
Bastards….. 😥

So it should be black.

Huh? Could you run that by me again please….

I liked Ali G asking David and Victoria Beckham – “do yous want brooklyn to be a great footballer like his dad or a great singer like Maria Carey?”

A black body is a body that absorbs EM radiation at all wavelengths (reflects nothing and so is black). It has a particular radiative spectrum (given in the figure above) which the suns radiative spectrum fits pretty well. Although this spectrum is approximately flat over visible wavelengths, it is definitely not flat (or white) over all wavelengths.

So as an emitter the sun is coloured in approximately the same way as a black body, and as a reflector the sun is approximately black (absorbs everything).

Ask the ancient Greeks what colour the sky is, they would have said bronze, they had no word for blue. So it depends on your culture and language.
I was ask at interview for a student post ‘Do yoy mind be told off by women?’ It was a all women department, I replied ‘My Mother does it all the time’ I got the post

They didn’t have a word for gullible, either.

choron – sorry I still don’t get it. The wavelength of visible light emitted by the sun must be different to that of a black thing, mustn’t it? Don’t really understand your graph, could you have another go at explaining it while I go and make an omelette?