How to understand the real question behind each interview question.
This is a guest post by Lynn Tulip.
Job interviewers' bizarre, random, out of the box questions may not be politically correct but thereâs always some panel member who wants to ask them and they sure need an answer.
Being asked obscure questions along the lines of âYouâre a carrot in a salad and a fork is coming towards you. Youâre about to be eaten. What do you do?â can actually undermine you. I mean, would you scream? What image does that leave the interviewer with?
So the recruiter/interviewer wants to get to know you better and attempts a gut-feel of how you will fit in culturally and whether you are a likable person.
They think that by asking strange searching questions they will discover how you perform, behave and react in business situations. They are digging deep in the hope that they get a rational, honest and fresh response from you.
However, your answers could be counterproductive.
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What do you say?
Are you candid, open and frank?
Do you inject humor and jokes into your answers?
Donât sabotage your job opportunity. Be prepared.
Always keep in mind what the job interviewer is looking for. Yes, give personal instinctive answers â with the caveat that you understand some of the reasoning behind the question.
Always keep in mind what the job interviewer is looking forClick To TweetWhat does the interviewer want to hear?
Below are some questions that might be fielded, that could bowl you over alongside some ideas about what the rationale is for asking them:
1. If you won $1M today what would you do with it?
How altruistic are you?
What are your values?
Do you have a work ethic?
2. What am I doing wrong as an interviewer?
Can you give constructive valuable feedback?
Without criticizing say what you would you do differently?
3. Who is your role model? Why?
Talk about their personal characteristics and relate them to your own.
4. How does your boss rate as a manager?
Donât diss your boss, or give a percentage rating.
Rather, discuss qualities like making decisions, empowering the team, providing leadership and influencing others, etc.
5. Why did you choose to wear your outfit today?
Again, this is looking at your values, confidence and respect, motivation.
Talk about corporate image and projection.
6. How do you stack a dishwasher?
How does anyone stack a dishwasher? Think about managing the task, structure and order.
Perhaps donât mention that your partner always does it.
7. Who in the public eye would you like to punch?
Ok, so you say you are NOT going to punch anyone, but who and what rattles your cage?
Think carefully about how to respond.
Would it be a political advocate whose policies you disagree with? Or perhaps some punk who dresses and performs in an outrageous way?
Either way, you need to show tolerance, understanding and that you value individuals.
8. If you did not have to work, what would you do?
Whatâs your motivation?
Would you sit around or travel, do volunteer work or care for others?
9. What would your last meal be?
So now the questionâs a bit personal â are you a gourmand or a gourmet?
A health conscious or a fast-food addict?
Thereâs no right or wrong answer, think about the culture of the organization you might be working with for synergy.
10. If you could be any car/animal, what would you be?
(In the comments below, James thought this sounds like a call center interview question. I thought that was funny)
âIâd be a red Ferrari as Iâm fast, dynamic and can beat others.â Not necessarily the right answer unless youâve applied for a quick fire competitive position. However, if you are a pussy cat and need to be lion, then you might need to reflect on their qualities to suit the role in question.
Here's a live example:
Overall-
Interviewers are looking for hints about your motivation, your skill at dealing with people and your ability to respond when challenged â and of course, how it relates to the job you are applying for. They want to know you will be happy in the role and that others will be content to work with you.
READ NEXT: Job Interviews: How You Can Benefit By Asking Questions
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About the Author
Lynn Tulip is a career management and HR professional running her own HR consultancy. Sheâs worked with numerous job search candidates and has presented job search topics at different conferences. Find her online or follow her @LynnTulip and @A4P_HR.
This article was part of the Over $5000 in Prizes: The 5th Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest, which was made possible thanks in large part to our sponsors:
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Marcus Tandlerâs JOBlog is Germanyâs oldest blog about job search & careers. |
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Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg is an internationally acclaimed advisor to successful business owners, known for his small business ideas. |
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This is really useful stuff, it certainly makes you think around the qualities that you need to consider about yourself and others before an interview â of any kind. Thanks Lyn!
Hi Lynn, good reasoning behind why you are being asked those questions. I do think thice about hiring someone who always disses their boss, they seem like a moaner and life is too short to employ them
I do think these are unfair questions for an interviewer to ask, but we know that some do, so itâs great that people can read this article and at least be prepared for them. Excellent article with some really good advice!
If candidates are getting asked questions like this then my advice would be to walk out of the interview.
Great stuff Lynn!
Love the carrot salad part.
Funnily enough, I have been asked some of these questions at interview and wasnât fased by them as it does allow for some creativity and forces you to think quickly.
Okay, so what DO you answer for the carrot in the salad question? Youâre obviously screwed, so you take it gracefully? đ
Interesting post and what oddball questions. I speak as the closet dishwasher loading expert đ
Do you think if theyâre going to ask such questions that theyâd be better in a psychometric test?
Thanks for your comments. Interviewing is a hard call; and ok @Mitch, youâd tell your candidate to walk out, however it might be that your candidate is up for the role and wants the job. Thereâs nothing wrong in thinking out of the box and having tongue in cheek.
@Shaun, so you like order, clarity and can prioritise? My recommendation would almost always be to use a psychometric test in conjunction with a recruitment process. CV/resumes and interviews do not always highlight behaviours and characteristics which can be flaws.
@Sarah, a potential candidate that sounds off against former boss, colleagues and company can be very bad news. You are wise to give them a wide berth.
@Jane â these are truly politically incorrect questions which should not be used. Generally NFP and Government posts would be well advised and not include anything like this in their process. However, some private sector companies still run the risk of claims against them in their recruitment strategies.
@Yolanda â thanks!
@Sally â you are right, creativity comes into to the responses. Thinking on your feet and being able to answer fluently without hesitation puts you ahead of the game.
Crikey â Imagine boning up on the company and what skills, experience and aptitudes you bring to the role and then being faced with questions like these!
I think to the carrot question Iâd say Iâd hide behind the biggest tomatoes I could find⊠and fire at âthe enemyâ from there. Because Iâd be figuring by then that ONE of us could probably do with a session or two on a psychiatristâs couch, and I didnât reckon it was meâŠ
By the way, Lynn: Whatâs your view on a job interviewer Googling an applicant prior to interview?
Mitch is write.
These are crass questions thought up by someone who thinks they are being clever. Where is the evidence that asking such nonsense improves the chances of getting a better candidate?
They are also questions loaded with assumptions that for many will be false.
I think the principle of asking certain types of questions to get to know a candidate better is sound but the questions would need to be thought through and matched to the experience of the job offering.
âWhat type of car / animalâ belongs in a Ricky Gervais script. Would they have to make the animalâs noise after they give their answer? Might work for call centre candidates, I suppose.
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All this is assuming the interviewers know what they are doing. The best response when asked a question you donât understand at an interview is: I donât understand this question. At least theyâll know youâre honest and your integrity is intact.
Last time I went for a formal job interview â by SIX people vs. me which is, frankly, abusive, for a job doing PR for a alcohol unit at a large hospital, my final question was: When we are working with alcohol problems who is most important?
I am not a social worker, and I was there for a public relations job. I have no experience of child protection except as a foster carer. The answer I realised afterwards is, of course, children, but at the time my head was around how to promote the alcohol service. I said, Iâm sorry, I simply do not understand what you are getting at.
Iâm glad I didnât have the answer, these people were idiots, the question was not relevant to me and I wouldnât have liked working with them.
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Integrity and honesty in the interview is paramount. Well done, Rhiannon for standing up to the panel. Thatâs the other side of being PC, asking questions that are not necessarily relevant to the role that is being interviewed for. And being a 2-way process you made the right decision in not wanting to work for the hospital unit.
Great article Lynn! These are some out of the box questions that really make you think.
Thanks Ashley, out of the box questions are the ones that you are often not prepared for. Good luck
lol
A very good post Lynn, I will be making sure that my friends read your excellent, informative and helpful blog. I have certainly been at the end of some strange questions in my time, sitting calmly and focussing on what they are actually asking, helps enormously.
I can only see one good reason for asking interviewees âwackyâ questions â to see how they respond to the unexpected. If they come back with a sensible challenge (like Rhiannon â what has this got to do with the job?) or something humorous (âIâve never seen a carrot put up any resistance to a fork â have you?â), itâs some indication that they are flexible and adaptable.
Iâm not at all sure that it tells a boss anything useful at all if you respond to a âvaulesâ question like the one about a million pounds with â âIâd give it all to Save the Childrenâ or âIâd give up work and go on a round the world cruiseâ. So what? Theyâd hire one and not the other? Which?
The only thing interviewees can do, perhaps, is be aware that some interviewers do ask this sort of thing, and be ready to answer off the cuff and from the heart, without worrying too much. Any interviewer who based their selection solely on the answer to such questions is probably to be avoided as an employer!
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Great article Lynn. Really well thought out and put together. Mark
Great article Lynn, very useful refresher for all!
Well done!
Kind regards
Maureen
Being self-employed for more than 10 years, Iâm glad I donât have to be interviewed or do interviews any more if thatâs what itâs now like!
I do remember the best question I ever asked a candidate who was being vague about their current job role â âWhat did you do yesterday?â followed by âAnd was that a typical day?â and âIs there anything else you might do on a regular basis?â Those questions told me everything I needed to know about their experience and whether or not it matched the role.
Thank goodness, I am retired and do not have to interview or be interviewed anymore. No the wonder that My niece Maria who always takes remarks and questions and jokes very literally cannot find a job.
I agree with many of the comments above. This excellent article reminds me of those interviews that didnât quite as well as they should. Having Lynn to coach you in advance is invaluable in keeping those to a minimum!
I am very glad I am retired!
Thanks for your comments and endorsements. Even when you retire thereâs the memories of the days when you were interviewed or had to interview someone.
@Jackie, those are good questions to gain rapport too with a shy candidate
Great article, Lynn. Thank Goodness Iâm well past the interviewing stage of my career! That said, I do think this article would come in handy from the other perspective, too â ie, what to look for (or not) as an interviewer⊠;0)
Good article Lynn, but I have to agree with Mitch: if anyone was daft enough to ask any of those questions direct as starters, Iâd walk out!
As an interviewer, personally as a man if I was interviewing a woman, No.5 would appear sexist verging directly on sexual discrimination; Iâd be calling my lawyer to. I have used No.4, but only as a secondary when the interviewee says something along the lines of âI left that job because my boss was an idiot!â
I laugh at the number of â1001 popular job interview questionsâ type books, as frankly there is enough information to pass a job interview in the job advert and the organisations website, plus a bit of news media reading. Plus once you get past 20, with all those nerves, who is going to remember them? Good interviewing shouldnât need to stray into the superfluous, just test the required skills of that job in the required areas. No evidence, hence not employed: its that simple!
How do these questions come to you ? I am glad I
donât have to answer them.
@ Kathleen â you are so right, no interviewer should base a selection decision solely on any interview â regardless of how good and relevant the questions were.
@ Tracey, @ Paula @ Mark @ Maureen and @ Elisabeth, thanks for your comments and support
@ Ian â the whole point of the article has been to raise awareness that on occasions interviewers will throw a fly in the ointment.
Personally I would never advocate asking any questions that were not relevant to the role or company. And as you say, if thereâs no evidence â then thereâs no job.
A thought provoking article Lynn and I have certainly experienced being asked some pretty weird and wonderful questions during interviews years ago. I hope I never have to go through one again I must say, it makes me feel nervous just reading the questions!
As the Scouts motto is âbe preparedâ so too the poor interview candidate should take heed.I wonder how Baden Powell would have answered these questions.
Great post Lynn â love the bit about the dishwasher loading! D & I load in completely different ways đ
Well youâve certainly stirred people up Lynn set off an interesting chain of responses. A thought provoking article.
@Alison, @Judy, @Jacqui and @Claire
Thanks for commenting. Itâs a great exercise and if Iâve been provocative then all the better!
A brilliant article. Very thought provoking. I realy enjoyed reading it and learnt a lot.
Really worth a read by anyone up for interview. Encourages some lateral thinking in what can be a dull old fashioned process. Great Stuff Lynn !!
Great idea Lynn,could come in useful when Iâm next in that position
Thinking creatively and being prepared are just a couple of tools needed for interviewing. Thanks for commenting.
âWhat questions have you ever been asked that totally caught you off-guard?â
There have been quite a few over the years but I tend to bluff my way through them!
I hate to say this, but Mitch is right. Thereâs no point in passing an interview like this as the job would be hell.
Letâs face it, interviewing is hard. Very hard â which is why so few people do it well. To interpret the answers to questions like this youâd need to be an expert psychiatrist⊠and thereâs a reason expert psychiatrists donât (in my experience) ask questions like this.
To be honest, if you need to bend what youâre saying to fit silly questions like this, you and the job arenât a good enough fit and youâre better of going elsewhere.
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Great article Lynn.
I think with whatever interview, or deciding what to do in life, if you can firstly get clear on your core values then any answer should flow from you. If the interviewer doesnât like your answer and it isnât a fit with what they are looking for then in the long run it is probably best anyway if it doesnât work out â any work that isnât aligned with your values is going to lead to dissatisfaction from both parties in the long run anyway!
@Jennie well said! You summarised nicely what @Simon was saying too.
Lynn, I think this is an excellent article. It is always valuable to help people to see through interviewers tricks.
Thanks Vladimir for commenting. Itâs good to know that the article has been read.
I think itâs definitely about the candidate seeing through the initial bizarreness of the question and seeing how it relates to the job. Either that or the interviewer just generally has a wicked sense of humour!
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Let the wackiness of the question come back to them in your answer.
âProbably the same thing you would do if you were the last chunk of chicken in a bowl of soup.â
Or
âThe kind of car/animal that (list your attributes).â
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Just did a massive update to Lynnâs great article đȘ
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My first response would be âDo people really still ask these sorts of questions. But then again , there is more than just a grain of usefulness to the answer.
For me the worst sort is What am I doing wrong as an interviewer? You have to understand so much more than the car question and you risk showing your ignorance about the interview process and maybe insulting the interviewer without meaning.
A great list though and better than asking why man hole covers are round etc.
You can only get so much out of talking. Putting people on the spot can sometimes be very revealing in how people think, but all too often, interviewers put too much weight on the replies. The same person may reply differently based on mood, setting or even how well they slept. But thatâs also true about reacting in the workplace đ