BS interview answers

Frogs97 said:
More often than not, open-ended questions, along with longer than normal pauses, will net you answers to questions you'd like to ask, but can't.
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If the point of the open-ended questions in an unstructured interview are intended only as a secondary screen to insure the candidate's personality in not incompatible with co-workers, that would probably limit the harm that might otherwise happen.

First some necessary definitions:
A definition of structured interview.
And of unstructured interview.

Some relevant articles (lots more exist; this is just a small sample):

Belief in the unstructured interview: the persistence of an illusion

Why Employers Should Ditch the Unstructured Job Interview

Why Interviews are a Waste of Time
 
pick a personal weakness and not a professional one..... use some common sense and leave the big skeletons in the closet .....don't say anything that says you're not safe legal and efficient
 
Fearless Tower said:
I prefer to use other metrics. If I want to work for that company, I'll spend the time to do the research on the interview process and do my best to prepare. If that isn't your bag, look someplace else.
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I've learned something during the interview about every company I've interviewed with. Some made me want to work there more...some made me want to work there less. In every case the interview has been a part of *my* decision-making process as well as (I assume) the company's.

Nauga,
whose weakness is strong (thanks, Patton ;))
 
One thing I always ask when being interviewed is "do you like working here?"
You'd be surprised how honest people can be. lol

When interviewing people for tech jobs, I run through their resume, pick out tech keywords or projects they work on, and head in from there. The key is to not let the interviewee run the interview when doing it this way. I'll make them explain a concept or a method of solving a problem, dropping in questions as they go to direct the conversation in the direction I'm interested in. You learn more about people by letting them talk then by having them fill out some standard survey.
 
taters said:
pick a personal weakness and not a professional one..... use some common sense and leave the big skeletons in the closet .....don't say anything that says you're not safe legal and efficient
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I use "Nutella, I open a jar and can sit there and eat it for dinner with a spoon."
 
taters said:
pick a personal weakness and not a professional one..... use some common sense and leave the big skeletons in the closet .....don't say anything that says you're not safe legal and efficient
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You mean like my habit of smoking an ounce of pot a week? That's personal right?

:yes:

:idea:

:goofy:
 
nauga said:
I've learned something during the interview about every company I've interviewed with. Some made me want to work there more...some made me want to work there less. In every case the interview has been a part of *my* decision-making process as well as (I assume) the company's.

Nauga,
whose weakness is strong (thanks, Patton ;))
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I totally agree. I was referring to the implication in the post I quoted that one would view a company that asked such an interview question as inferior and not worth working for. I think that attitude is incredibly shortsighted.
 
An interviewer asked me that once before. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
 
nauga said:
My favorite answer to an interview question completely outside my advertised skills and the position description, "Are you serious?"

I didn't get an offer :rolleyes:

I did get an offer from a somewhat well-known company semi-famous for their 'stump-the-chump' style interviews. Part of the (solicited) feedback I provided after declining was that they spent too much time trying to trip me up and not enough talking with me about the position.

Nauga,
from where he wants to be
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Right out of college, I interviewed for a management position at a major energy company. It was one of those phony "there are four of us, and we are going to badger you until you either cry or answer correctly" interviews that (for whatever reason) were so popular in the early 1980s.

They would ask a leading question, and then, as I tried to answer it, would interrupt me, trying to throw me off the topic. This was apparently done in the hope of finding someone who could effectively put up with loads of BS.

I started laughing out loud at their amateurishly stupid attempts at getting my goat. They were...imbeciles.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job. :D
 
Anthony said:
I don't stand (or sit) for games from interviewers. If you can't act businesslike, professional and need to put me on the spot with some prank to see what I'll do then I don't want to work there.
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If its a large company, the interviewer isnt playing games or trying to stump you. S/he has a script they are required to follow and anything discussed off-script doesn't make it the evaluation meeting. The interviewers are justvas aggravated as you are and they would rather be somewhere else, too. You'll stand the best chance of making it to the next phase if you play the game and dont make the interviewer's job difficult.

And the weakness question is absolutely a part of everybodys script interview, and IMO its one of the better ones because it helps to weed out the BS'ers.
 
BS interview answers to BS interview questions. Tit for tat.

I certainly don't miss Corporate America. I never had the stomach for it when I did my 15 years of time. Everything was BS, interviews were simply a minor part of the indoctrination process.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Companies that still rely on open-ended questions in unstructured interviews deserve the fiscal difficulties that come their way.

It isn't like study after study has shown that unstructured interviews actually lead to the less productive and qualified candidates being hired. It is sad though, but perhaps not unexpected, that few are charged with designing a company's hiring process. And even if someone is, they don't know enough (or do not have the humility to realize the processes they learned from others are flawed) to do some research on what studies have revealed as the best predictors of quality hires.
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Yes. Are suggesting an interview that asks a question about weaknesses must be unstructured? Or do you think it must be unstructured because you don't understand what the answers tells you / you don't care about that information?
 
JimNtexas said:
An interviewer asked me that once before. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
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Asked you the weakness question?

I trust you did not get a job offer from them.
 
bflynn said:
Yes. Are suggesting an interview that asks a question about weaknesses must be unstructured? Or do you think it must be unstructured because you don't understand what the answers tells you / you don't care about that information?
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The answer tells you nothing of value because as indicated here, people usually have some prescripted BS answer that they think you want to hear.
 
Soooo.... After all this discussion, what is a good answer to the weakness question?
 
So far so good with my interview process. 3rd one with the same company and I haven't been asked anything crazy.
They want to fly me to NY next. Here's hoping! :goofy:
 
Anthony said:
I don't stand (or sit) for games from interviewers. If you can't act businesslike, professional and need to put me on the spot with some prank to see what I'll do then I don't want to work there.
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Exactly. BS answer? How about BS questions. The thing cuts both ways. The whole clowning in an interview to establish your credibility and competency is extremely short sighted from the employer's perspective. HR people and soft skills peddlers think too highly of themselves. Posers. That's America though, a land where everybody wants to make six figures being a consultant/facilitator/manager/liason, none of them knows how to make the ******* widget or provide the service in question, yet those who do, get paid a fractional **** of what the consultants do under the auspices of BS interview dynamics such as the aforementioned.

Now, if we are in a situation where competency and credibility is found easily (as we drown in a sea of qualified labor surplus) then perhaps affability and the ability to sharpshoot sarcastic remarks is fair game to getting a job. To be frank, in my life experience I've found cronyism to be a bigger obstacle to getting ahead in working life than whether or not one is affable at an interview. So in the end I think tubing interviews doesn't really matter all that much when the position is greasy palmed already and your interview is but a mere legal requirement (to interview more than one applicant....at least it is in the government side).

I empathize with people who struggle at interviewing though. Everybody is just trying to keep a paycheck worth waking up in the morning for. I'd never view that motivation in such cynical light.
 
JimNtexas said:
An interviewer asked me that once before. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
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hannibal_lecter_1990.jpg
 
Zeldman said:
The old favorite:

What is the wingspan of this airplane?

Why would I need to know that, am I going to build a box to ship it?
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Until you fly airplanes that exceed the limits of certain taxiways. I'd hate to scrape a wingtip on taxiway V at ATL.
 
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