So, searching for a job, I’ve had a few interviews recently, and felt uncomfortable with some of these questions. Wanted to know what you guys thought about these questions being objectionable or possibly even illegal.
“Say you get arrested by the police for a DUI. You get one phone call. Who do you call?”
(After I said that I’ve been unemployed for a couple months, and been spending that time job hunting) “How have you been supporting yourself and paying the bills?”
This last one’s a bit different in that I can understand why the subject matter was asked about, but still want to know what you guys think about it:
“You say on your resume that you held the position of XYZ, but this letter of recommendation makes it clear you were a volunteer XYZ. Don’t you think that’s disingenuous?”
(FWIW, I had all the official duties and responsibilities of XYZ, except collecting a pay check. I made that clear, and probably wouldn’t’ve minded the question had it been phrased of less of an accusation).
Just want to know what you guys think. For #1, I really can’t see what they would get out of that question that wouldn’t be illegal to ask about (marital status, sexual orientation, etc.). #2 I can see what job-related information they could gather, but still seems like an overly-personal way to phrase it.
(Mods, I put this in IMHO, but move it to GD if you think it belongs there)
IANALawyer, but I don’t think any of those questions even come close to being illegal. I don’t know what useful information they would expect to gain, but I’m interviewing and getting plenty of stupid questions too.
1 is a stupid hypothetical. There is no right answer. They probably won’t hire anyone who doesn’t stammer out “I’ve never driven drunk before.” I wouldn’t want to work for that company anyway.
2 is an awkwardly-phrased way of inquiring about a gap in your resume. They expect to hear that you’ve been living off savings or that you’re in a dual-income household or you subbed or taught extra music lessons, etc. It’s sort of a gotcha, in that they’d decline to consider hiring you if you admitted to selling drugs or stealing or working under the table somewhere.
3 It *is *disingenuous if it was implied that the position was paid (by listing it in-line with past paid positions). If you put it in a separate section entitled “Volunteering” or “Community Service,” or stated it was an unpaid position, you’re fine. Also, I’d just be happy someone was reading my resume. Usually they’re skimmed for keywords by HR software and never even printed off.
Not sure what they want to hear, but “my lawyer” would be my answer, both in the interview and in real life. In just about any interaction with law enforcement, but especially when it looks like you might be in trouble, staying silent and getting a lawyer are pretty much the only things you should do. “But what if you were innocent?” they might ask. “Then I’d definitely want a lawyer to make sure I didn’t end up punished for something I didn’t do.” Wanting to talk to a lawyer when you might be in trouble with the law seems like a pretty unassailable position to me.
I would tell them I used money I had saved for that purpose, and also mention any odd jobs I’d taken, or unemployment I’d received. Like Rachelellogram said they just want some confirmation that you weren’t involved in any nefarious schemes like drug dealing or human smuggling or whatnot.
Did you make it clear on your resume? If so and you pointed that out then I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s possible you could have made it more clear, it’s also possible that they just missed it because they were scanning through dozens of resumes. I think posing at least a few questions in a slightly antagonistic way like they did here is a common way for an interviewer to test how a candidate reacts to pressure/stress. Based on the interviews I’ve endured and the people I know who regularly interview candidates, questions like this are used as much to jazz up the interview for the interviewer as they are to gauge the candidate (Hey, did you see how that guy started to sweat when I asked him question 3? Hahahaha!). Don’t take it personally.
Damn, you got easy questions. I could have answered all those.
I always get things like, “Tell about a time you resolved a customer service issue” and “Tell about a time you worked with a difficult boss/coworker.” The first one makes me worry that I’ve just accidentally applied for a customer service position, which would not have been my intent. I don’t want to answer the second one because I DID have a difficult boss once, and I quit.
Once upon a time, I moved to a county that I thought was very pretty. Then I had occasion to go job hunting there.
One annoying question that almost every interviewer asked was: Why did you move to this county?
I thought it was none of anybody’s damn bidness why. More to the point, I thought it was none of any interviewer’s damn bidness to be making any hiring decisions based on any applicant’s answer to a question like that. I always assumed that if I told them I moved there because it was a pretty area, they would take it as meaning that I’m just in self-centered hedonistic jerk, just out to satisfy my own selfish impulses (which was all exactly true, of course).
There’s no right answer to question like those.
Therefore all answers are wrong.
Therefore, if you get asked a question like that, you know immediately that you’re wasting your time.
I eventually got hired by an employer who DIDN’T ask stupid-ass questions like that. It was interesting: I walked in, without appointment, asked the teen-age kid at the front desk about the job. He went into a back room, came out, told me to wait. Company CEO himself called me in an interviewed my about ten minutes later. (This was a small company.) Four hours later, he called me at home to offer me the job. (This was about 20 years ago.)
That’s how companies should hire. That’s how they can get the right employee for the right job. Fuck all that shit about automated programs that scan resumes. Fuck HR departments and companies that have them. Fuck them who ask questions like the OP talks about, or those jack-ass stupid brain-teaser questions like Google uses, or that use those charlatan personality tests. And you can tell them Senegoid so!
I’ve something similar from others I’ve asked. FWIW, I have it listed under “experience” along with two other jobs which both happened to be unpaid internships. And I’ve always been upfront about it being volunteer.
I was thinking that, but the way it was phrased/said made it feel much more like an attack… maybe that was the point. But even something like phrasing it along the lines of “someone might say that this is disingenuous, how would you respond?” would’ve made it better. It was also the very first question in the interview and kinda set the tone.
And I definitely agree with Hilarity and Senegoid about stupid questions. Had my share of those too, and it’s always different ones so I can’t come up with a decent-enough stock answer. I usually just try to thing of something non-embarrassing off the cuff. (I really appreciated the one interviewer who asked a question like that, then apologized, said “HR forces us to ask this, don’t worry about your answer being good” and then jumped to real questions).
I feel like you. Back before the late 90s if I could get in to see an actual person, I tended do get the job. After that, I could put in hundreds of applications for positions I was perfectly able to fill and get less than 10% call backs to interview. Once they went to computerized scans, personality tests and all that ‘modern’ crap, and less hands on by the actual managers it pretty much got impossible to get a job without either a resume filled with lots of crap that is barely true, or an actual contact with a company.
One previous term of unemployment I put in 14 months, 478 applications/resumes, got 27 first call backs, 7 second interviews, 3 third interviews before I finally got hired because a friend of mine knew the HR person :smack:
I can see that you might be afraid that if you say something like “my boyfriend”, then they might use that to make conclusions of your romantic and family arrangements. I would think you could say “my special someone”, “my partner”, or something else like that, which I would say would not be a lie or even deceptive because it is obvious that that could mean different things of varying social acceptance.
Question #1: “Umm… {long pause}… I guess I would call the local Bar Association and ask if they could recommend a criminal law attorney. I don’t have a relationship with an attorney like that or I’d call an attorney I already had dealings with. Yeesh, I never really thought about what you’d do in a situation like that.”
The local Bar Association? Great, they refer you to an attorney, and give you his (her) number. But what are you going to do now? You’ve already used your phone call.
Although I don’t have a lawyer, I don’t have to accept that this fact about me is something a prospective employer is entitled to know.
I also don’t think the prospective employer is entitled to know if I actually have sufficient savings to live on for any particular length of time, so as far as he’s concerned, I’ve been living on savings.
And If I have made it clear on the resume that I wasn’t being paid, I’ll simply point that out (I always have a copy of the resume with me when I’m on an interview), then ask if the interviewer thinks the use of the term “disingenuous” is “aggressive.”
For Question #1, I could say, “Well, this would have to be a nightmare, because I never drive after drinking. Ever. So I guess I could call any fictional attorney. Perry Mason? Alan Shore? The talking rooster lawyer on Futurama? Hmm.” Yes, it’s a silly answer, but it’s a silly question, too.
#1 is a weird question. They might be looking for something like, “Well, gosh golly gee, that couldn’t ever happen because I would never be so irresponsible!” Or maybe that’s exactly the answer they don’t want because they’d rather not hire people who would blow such obvious smoke up their asses. Or, yes, it could be a sneaky way to figure out your relationship status and so forth, so I dunno. I think this is one of those questions where the answer itself is less important than how you react to the question. Interviewers seem to love those, but I think they’re stupid.
#2: “Well, times are tough for everybody these days. Without a job I’ve had to cut back more than ever, but we all have to do what we have to do, right?” A nice-sounding non-answer.
#3: “Not at all. I *did *hold that position, whether it was on a volunteer basis or not, and I’m quite proud of the work I did there.” Own it.
And that’s why there’s really no right answer to these types of questions. What might be seen as a brilliant reply by one interviewer will be seen as a smartass remark by another.
What that does for you is match up employers and employees. I did the interviewing for a tech support job last year, and I wanted people who were quick thinkers with a good sense of humor. Those kind of questions helped me figure that out.
#1: “I’d call my henchmen and tell them come over, packing heavy, and bust me out. Then we’ll torch the place and kill any survivors to get rid of witnesses.”
#2: “Armed robbery has given me a comfortable living, and I can set my own hours.”
#3: “You callin’ me a liar?! Bitch, I’m gonna bust you up!”
Sure, that’s your response about the first one. What about the second one?
I think anything other than a non-answer like Wheelz suggested is the only way to go. I’m glad we do these threads, btw, every time a new one pops up. I don’t think quickly on my feet, so I like having a little advance … food for thought, I suppose … so I can ruminate on how to deal with situations like these.
Irrelevant, but may be testing your thinking-on-your-feet capacities.
Dorky and irrelevant, but may be testing same…
Stupid question. I don’t think it’s disingenuous. I think it is honest. Because the employer is too much of a cheapskate to pay you, is no reason to make that information public. Unless, of course, you were the step-and-fetchit for the real job holder, but, your post makes it clear you weren’t.
