Interview question inappropriate to the profession?

[j666]

@Gala_Matrix_Fire

I think j666’s point was that that question was inappropriate, not in a legal sense, but in a logical sense, for the job of researcher.
Since the researcher’s whole reason d’etre (I don’t speak French) is to amass information in order for a well-informed decision to be made, a researcher would feel very uncomfortable making a decision based on no information. In that he knows nothing at all about the other candidates for the same position. So how he could say why he should be hired rather than any of the other candidates?

If you were applying for the job of overthinker, for example…

I’m trying to think of a good analogy, and coming up with nothing.

Thank you.

(I can sell myself; I can sell the strange gaps and missing skills on my resume as strengths. I just hate stupid questions.)

The painting question? “Send the work order back to the Initiator according to the procedure. Perhaps request a CAPA for retraining to ensure that all work orders are filled out correctly going forward.” (Yeah, I’d say ‘going forward’ instead of ‘in the future’.)

I’m in Quality. Any question that starts with ‘What would you do if …?’ can only be answered by “What ever the procedure says.”
“What if there’s no procedure?” “This is a regulated industry; you have procedures for ordering office supplies.”
“Just imagine the procedure does not cover this circumstance.” “I would initiate a deviation and ensure that it gives explicit instructions, and initiate a DCR. I like writing procedures.”

And, if I can get passed the person asking the pointless questions, I get hired, because I can write kick-ass procedures.

But I’d probably paint the room red, just because I’ve never done that. I’d like to try it.

[j666]

Oh, I just remembered another one:

“Why did you apply for this job? You don’t seem to have any of the necessary qualifications.”

That was true; I sent in my resume hoping I would be considered as a replacement for an internal candidate that actually got the job. (That actually would have been a good idea, but there were no internal candidates. Weird.)

But, why did they interview me, since my resume clearly indicated that I was not qualified?

[Kaio]

As it turned out, this was never a direct question, but along the same vein…

I was contacted by a recruitment company for an opening in my field (which is a fairly niche field). The recruiter did the initial HR-type questions/interview over the phone, which included “Are you willing to agree to a background check?”

I’m never completely comfortable with that sort of thing, since it treads the boundary of privacy / respect / good taste, but I figured it was a criminal check, and that a company could have valid business reasons for wanting to know, so I said yes.

Then she emailed me the release form. Not only did they want me to sign on for a criminal check, but they wanted me to agree to a credit report and medical history, too. :eek: (This is for a design and marketing position, btw, so I’d never be anywhere near the company checkbook, and I just have no idea what they’d need my medical history for, given that they’re not allowed to make hiring decisions based on anything they see there. Though I loved the part in the form where they promised not to… because, you know, humans are robots and if it’s in writing then their psychological biases just disappear. And they want to know but have no plans to use that knowledge. Right.)

The interview was already scheduled, so I figured I’d go anyway, and if she asked for the form, I’d just politely tell her that I can’t agree to the credit report or medical history, but if she has an alternate form which only releases the criminal check, I’d sign that one. It was a red flag, but figured it might be one of those corporate policy things that everyone rolls their eyes at and that the actual supervisor would be smart / respectful enough to wave it by.

Turns out she never asked for the form, and I never offered, and her reason for turning me down post-interview was that I “didn’t seem interested in the job” even though I explicitly said I was, and expounded at length about how I strongly preferred to stay in my little niche field than go for a lateral move to the broader one.

Amusingly, I’ve since been contacted by three other recruiters from three different agencies over the last three months about the exact same job. The recruiters always seem a little heartbroken when I tell them I interviewed for it months ago already.

[susan]

I’ve heard this interview question since the late 70’s. I wouldn’t ask the question of an applicant for the McDonald’s counter, but I’d absolutely ask it in an academic or research setting. I think it’s appropriate for any position where applicants bring a unique constellation of skills and background to the job. The answer to “Why you?” is a statement about your goodness of fit. I wouldn’t expect the applicant to have data about the other applicants, nor could I legally provide it. However, I’d assume that the applicant understood that I might have several qualified applicants and would like to know how each assesses his or her potential fit with and contributions to the unit. If an applicant doesn’t have enough data about what this particular unit does or focuses on, I have to wonder if the applicant just applied to all available positions rather than those that were of interest or to which s/he had something to contribute. That’s the applicant’s prerogative, but all basics being equal, I also want to hire the person who will be best for the unit. Even if the answer is in your CV, I still want an opportunity to hear about it and potentially discuss it with the applicant. If I didn’t want to hear an applicant talk about him- or herself, I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time with an interview, but would hire based on a system of points assigned to written answers on an application.

[voguevixen]

I never really understood the “What do you do in your spare time?” questions either until I was interviewing someone (I worked for a chain and had to ask it as part of a pre-printed list) and someone answered: “sigh oh…I dunno. I just don’t feel like doing much of anything anymore.” shrug. Ooooooo-kay then. THAT’S the kind of can-do spirit we like people to show at a job interview! Man, we don’t even really care - just say you collect baseball cards or have a bee-hive in your backyard or something, not: “I lie on my couch and weep with a picture of my old dog.” Yikes.

[Kamino_Neko]

@j666

But, why did they interview me, since my resume clearly indicated that I was not qualified?

Argh…I hate that…I’ve only interviewed for two jobs since leaving my last position - I was sick for a long time, and the big gap it left causes obvious problems - and I missed them both for the same reason: I didn’t have a driver’s licence.

They both bugged me, because neither advertisement/application said that a driver’s licence would be required - and both are office jobs, so being required wasn’t expected.

The second, it didn’t bother me TOO much, because they never asked the question until I went in for the interview (and I’ve seen the position advertised again since, and they’ve added the ‘licence required’ caveat). It should have been asked earlier, to save us all a lot of trouble (and I think it’s a silly requirement for the job advertised), but, since they didn’t the time wasted wasn’t THAT bothersome. I’ll likely apply there again once I’ve got my full licence, if they’re still/again hiring.

The first, though…asked on the application…I checked ‘no’, and applied anyway, in case it was just a boilerplate for the division - they were also hiring drivers, at the same time.

Got an interview. First question ‘do you have a driver’s licence?’ :dubious: I said no on the application, so I was a little bugged that they’d ask again, but I just answered that no, I didn’t. ‘Sorry, we require a driver’s licence.’ :smack: What was the point of asking on the app?

[jackdavinci]

@SaharaTea

Recently I applied for a job in which I had to take a written personality test. I find these tests really lame since it’s usually very easy to tell what kind of answers they are looking for. The questions were statements that you had to answer as “strongly agree”, “agree,” “neutral” and so forth.

Heh I’ve tried applying at Borders several times but they make you take an online personality test similar to that but without a ‘neutral’ option. I’ve never gotten a call so I assume I do not match whatever it is they think that test can tell them.

The stupidest question I’ve been asked is ‘what is your worst quality’ or ‘in what are are you weakest’, etc. I can’t think of any ‘winning’ answer that does not reek of either artificiality or smartassery.

I’ve been on the hiring side too. Both in recruiting (placing ads, sorting resumes, arranging interviews) for a biotech and in direct hiring for a retail store. I tried not to ask stupid or overly clever questions. Having conducted interviews, I would have to say that other than HR making you aware of what’s illegal, the best thing to do is just hire people and see what happens and then adjust for next time. Hiring is definitely an acquired skill borne of experience and could even be said to resemble an art.

On the recruiting side, we were hiring a PhD candidate for a biotech, so we got a lot of non local applicants including worldwide. It was very amusing to me all of the personal and inappropriate things that candidates (PhD no less!) put on their resumes/cvs and cover letters. But for the most part it became clear that it wasn’t that they were being inappropriate, but that instead that was the appropriate and expected type of application in the country in which they lived.

[Kaio]

@jackdavinci

It was very amusing to me all of the personal and inappropriate things that candidates (PhD no less!) put on their resumes/cvs and cover letters. But for the most part it became clear that it wasn’t that they were being inappropriate, but that instead that was the appropriate and expected type of application in the country in which they lived.

This makes me curious. Can you give examples?

[Sir_T-Cups]

whenever i get the “weakest trait” question…i say what is an actual weak trait of mine, but what i have done or will do to overcome it

(for me its my short term memory, god its worthless…but i always carry some type of notebook/pad with me so i can write it down for next time)

…by the way, should i mention that since graduating college i STILL CANT GET A JOB…so maybe its best to ignore me…

[jackdavinci]

@Kaio

This makes me curious. Can you give examples?

Not really sorry lol. I wish in retrospect I had saved some of them because they were pretty funny. I do remember a lot of them had things like names of their wife and children along with ages and other random descriptive data. And some of them seemed to be along the lines of convincing me of their honor or propriety.

[Lust4Life]

@Rack-a-Bones

–bolding mine

And here we can see why the women were having to take time off.

I was once asked how I would respond to practical jokes.

I read somewhere about asking people, as an interview technique, “How would you redesign an elephant/camel/rhinocerous?” Like the paint question above I think the idea is just to see how the person being interviewed reacts.

One place asked me “Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?” :smack: I don’t remember what my reply was.

I see your point as in the father leaves all of the stuff relating to their kids to the mother BUT…

When the boss started investigating unscheduled absences he found that the child related ones were mostly bullshit.
The generally held opinion was that you’d have to be a right bastard to dare question any excuse related to children.

So it wasn’t a case of women being put upon to take care of all the awkward parenting duties but a cynical practice to get time off for shopping days with friends,getting over hangovers etc. (and in one case so that a (married)woman could meet her lover without her husband being aware of her work absences),with a much lesser chance of their being checked up on.

After all what sort of mother would use their child as an excuse to take time off of work for their own devices ?
(The true answer was many of them )

And if you as a boss question the honesty of their excuses you must be pretty sick minded.

Not a very pretty story but unfortunately a true one.

[Nava]

@susan

I’ve heard this interview question since the late 70’s. I wouldn’t ask the question of an applicant for the McDonald’s counter, but I’d absolutely ask it in an academic or research setting. I think it’s appropriate for any position where applicants bring a unique constellation of skills and background to the job. The answer to “Why you?” is a statement about your goodness of fit. …

susan, I’m j666’s long-lost sister. I’m a Chemical Engineer, with an MS in Theoretical Chemistry, 4 years experience in RnD, followed by 4 as a QA lab tech, followed by 8 years as a Consultant (Operations area: QA, Production, Maintenance). I’ve been writing procedures since before I knew that was their proper name.

I can tell you why should you hire me. But I can’t tell you why shouldn’t you hire someone else without knowing their qualifications.

They’re two different questions.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@The Surb

this is/was an illegal question

@burundi

It’s a very illegal question indeed.

Lust4Life lives in perfidious Albion, where the law may be different.

@CookingWithGas

In the U.S. an employer can be successfully sued for not hiring an applicant based on the answer to this question.

And rightfully so, IMO. The problem is that, in practice, women are asked this question and judged for hireability based on their answer, while men are not, which is blatant sexism. How do you know that the guy you’re interviewing isn’t a single dad? Or that the woman you’re interviewing isn’t married to a stay-at-home dad? Or if she’s a lesbian with a stay-at-home partner? Instead of asking after highly personal and possibly irrelevant details, an interviewer can easily get the answer they actually need by asking, “Do you have any obligations, professional or otherwise, that could prevent you from fulfilling your duties here?”

Anyway, I’m wondering who put a gun to the theater manager’s head and forced him to hire mostly women.

@jackdavinci

I do remember a lot of them had things like names of their wife and children along with ages and other random descriptive data. And some of them seemed to be along the lines of convincing me of their honor or propriety.

Around here, at least, a pretty decent percentage of candidates running for local public office list those things on the statements that come in that pamphlet from the Registrar of Voters. It usually makes me vote against them, because it just seems so bizarre that someone would list their family life as a qualification, and it makes me wonder about their hiring practices and the boundary between their personal and professional lives. I make an exception for high-profile races like the gubernatorial and presidential races, since the media would ferret that stuff out right quick anyway.

@Lust4Life

And if you as a boss question the honesty of their excuses you must be pretty sick minded.

Again, you can get around this just by asking, “Do you have any obligations, professional or otherwise, that would prevent you from devoting <x amount of time> to this job?” Not only does that let you weed out the people who honestly won’t be able to devote that much time, it communicates your expectations clearly and it probably covers your ass too.

As for me, I’ve been asked to expound upon my military discharge at great length, and discriminated against, which is illegal–all I have to tell an interviewer is whether or not it was Dishonorable (it wasn’t). (I don’t remember if that’s federal or state law.) I also thought it was inappropriate that, when I applied at a computer store and marked off Sunday mornings as a time I would be unavailable, the interviewer asked me if I went to church. I figure, either you’re OK with me being unavailable on Sunday morning or you aren’t; if your only acceptable reason for being unavailable is church attendance, I probably won’t be a good fit at your company.

(Granted, it was also inappropriate for me to try to get Sunday mornings off just so I could watch football! :eek: I like to think I’ve grown up a bit since then.)

[Broomstick]

@Voyager

A smart applicant would put that on the resume. Far more frequent is the guy who couldn’t find a job. If that corresponds to a bad time in the industry, that’s fine, but I know someone who couldn’t find a tech job during the bubble, and that was a valid warning sign.
I saw an industrial video by John Cleese’s company, with several Pythons, where not asking about gaps was specifically considered a dumb thing to do.

I understand about inquiring about employment gaps, but recently I had a weird experience about that question.

I was laid off from a corporate job last November, part of an early wave of the current unemployment crowd. Since that time, I’ve take some part time and independent contractor work.

So, at a recent interview, I was asked about my work history since last November. I truthfully stated that I had worked as a painter and, for about three months, as a retail clerk in a candy store which I quit as I could get more hours and money from house painting in the summer. Whereupon the interviewer got a look of puzzled disgust and inquired why I would work painting houses when I had all this experience as an administrative assistant. I mentioned the recent economic doldrums and that many admins were being laid off, few were being hired, and until I could find another such job I preferred to be bringing in money somehow and painting was work I was capable of doing. It was also a work situation flexible enough to allow me time to look for other work and schedule interviews at reasonable times during the day. The interviewer said nothing, but his body language was very negative.

I sat there with a smile pasted on my face thinking WTF? I thought being employed at something was better than sitting at home doing nothing…? Was this guy just an idiot, or did I miss something here?

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Broomstick

I sat there with a smile pasted on my face thinking WTF? I thought being employed at something was better than sitting at home doing nothing…? Was this guy just an idiot, or did I miss something here?

Well, as we’ve already read here, he’s probably sit there mentally inferring that you must be really incompetent to get a job, or wondering how reliable you’ll be at this job since you could quit anytime and go be a house painter. This is why I don’t have a lot of respect for employers who feel they’re entitled to a great deal of truthful information about employment gaps. It’s an employment interview, not an unemployment interview.

[fisha]

@levdrakon

I had a woman interviewer ask me “do you have a problem working for women?”

Boy, was that a red flag I should have seen. She totally hated men.

I’m a woman, and I am the boss. When I hire people, I ask them that question specifically.

I run a construction company, and most construction applicants have only worked for men; it is a relevant question.

I love men. I’d rather work with men than women.

[Foxy40]

Obviously no one that ever applied to my company is a member here. I have a list of questions for the supervisors to ask and when they narrow down the candidates, the answers determine who gets the job. And yes, they are stupid but not pointless:

1. Why is it that the mirror appears to reverse left and right, but not up and down?

2. How many ping pong balls can fit into a 747?

3.You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?

Questions like this.

You’d be surprised how many people just answer “I don’t know” and don’t even try. Why would I want someone who throws their hands up in the air anytime they are faced with a problem they can’t automatically solve? I would hire someone with half the experience that came up with a clever answer. Such a person would be of more value to my business than Mr. I Don’t Know.

[CookingWithGas]

@Broomstick

I mentioned the recent economic doldrums and that many admins were being laid off, few were being hired, and until I could find another such job I preferred to be bringing in money somehow and painting was work I was capable of doing. It was also a work situation flexible enough to allow me time to look for other work and schedule interviews at reasonable times during the day.

If I asked that question, and you gave me that answer, I would have stood up and applauded then offered you the job.

[Broomstick]

@Cosmic Relief

Well, as we’ve already read here, he’s probably sit there mentally inferring that you must be really incompetent to get a job, or wondering how reliable you’ll be at this job since you could quit anytime and go be a house painter. This is why I don’t have a lot of respect for employers who feel they’re entitled to a great deal of truthful information about employment gaps. It’s an employment interview, not an unemployment interview.

Well, that’s the total stupidity of it, because the painting job is only 30 hours a week at best and pays 1/3 of what the office work I’m qualified to do pays, and has no benefits. So, um, seriously, WTF? I’d give up a job making 50k a year minimum with bennies like health care and paid vacation and retirement plan in order to take seasonal work at 1/3 the pay that, what with climbing on ladders all day, carries a higher risk of injury? Are you NUTS? That’s what makes the guy’s reaction so effing retarded - it’s clearly a stop-gap job and not a freakin’ career.

@CookingWIthGas

If I asked that question, and you gave me that answer, I would have stood up and applauded then offered you the job.

I’m still available.

[MOIDALIZE]

@Bayard

The last interview I was on, the guy asked four questions to see how I’d “fit”. One was, “Who is your favorite comedian?” I was caught off guard, so I said the first one who popped into my head, “Eddie Izzard”.

I would have hired you.