Ah, but nobody had thought of including “ability to communicate with coworkers and general public” in the job specs, see.
“Do you like to bake cakes?” (My first nursing job right out of school)
It should have been a clue that this would be the most inane supervisor in the history of my career, but no, I lied and got the job.
“Do you support the department’s Affirmative Action program?” That used to be one of our standard interview questions some years back. I asked once if answering “no” would be hurtful to my chances, and they said yes, it would.
Now we ask “Can you perform the essential duties of this position, with our without accomodation?”. Sure, like someone’s going to answer no for that one.
Things have gotten to the point where they should just ask one question of the candidates: “What is your name?” If it matches the person that was already predetermined to get the job, great. If not, they say “We’ll let you know in two weeks” and when you leave the room they laugh their asses off that you bothered dressing up for the interview.
You are asked to paint a room. You must complete the job today. The owner is off-site, and you find that she has left two different colours of paint: blue and yellow. What do you do?
Under pressure, and thinking this was some kind of trick question, I said probably the only bad answer: “I would mix the paints”. But the interviewer just said “interesting…interesting…”, and I got the job.
A few months later, it was my turn to interview someone and my manager told me to ask the paint question. The right answer? “Oh, there’s no answer, it just tells you something about the candidate’s personality” :dubious:
Another example: I have a friend that is a college professor and he told me that he always asks candidates the question: “Do you consider yourself a lucky person”? They must give a positive answer to this or they are rejected outright.
I see what he’s getting at, and as a “seize every opportunity” kind of guy I’ve had some wonderful and interesting events in my life, particularly recently. But I would still hesitate to call myself lucky.
(3) Twice the length from the middle to the end.
Well, color me cynical, but it seems that they did think of that; but they didn’t give a damn and hired him anyway. (I never saw him after that first day.)
I once got a job because I put “published poet” on my resume. It was a pretty good job too, and had nothing at all to do with writing. But it got their attention.
Regarding the manhole cover question. They actually asked this of new applicants at my old job sometime after I was hired. I had never heard of this before and one of the people who managed to get hired told me about it. My first response was WTF? What is the point of that question? I don’t remember which of the two came first but but my replies were then 1) because manholes are round and 2) so they don’t fall in the hole. I like #1 better.
The reason why they asked the retirement question of the OP is that the place probably has a standard list of questions they ask everyone, just so there’s no bias and they can’t be sued later. Having the same script also ensures that the interviewers don’t go off script and ask anything forbidden.
That’s partly why we don’t ask those “brain teaser” sorts of questions any more. The other half is that interviewees hated them (we survey both successful and unsuccessful candidates about their interview experiences). But any of those answers would have been acceptable – the goal wasn’t to get a “right” answer, but rather to determine how people problem-solve when given an intellectual problem from left field.
I’m actually unconvinced that the replacement questions (which tend to be of a “write the code to solve this very specific short problem on the whiteboard”) aren’t even worse - they tend to have “right” answers that depend on whether or not you remember specifics of your data structures classes rather that the sorts of problems that are actually encountered by modern software engineers. The correct answer to “how do you sort a linked list” shouldn’t be code, it should be “what sort of moron writes his own linked lists in 2014 when verified correct libraries are available to do it?”
Do you answer the question that way habitually?
I once filled out an entire application of odd questions. It’s been about 2 years, but I’ll post those I remember. Please note that no where on this application was there a spot for job history, references, etc, and the owner refused to take resumes! Not this is for a coffee shop.
- What is more important? Family, coffee, money. (She was looking for coffee.)
- If you could have lunch with anyone ever alive, who would it be? (She was looking for movie stars she liked.)
- What is your favorite beverage? (Again, coffee.)
It just went on like that for 12 more questions. The lunch one I mentioned above required a one page essay on why you would want to eat with that person.
I had applied when she was just opening the shop, and talked to her quite a bit that day, which is how I found out what she was looking for. Based on the application and other things she said, I would have sworn the place wouldn’t last a week. It’s been 2 years now, and the only time I see the parking lot empty is bad weather, the place is closed, or the owner is out of town.
I was on the other end of this one, but once, I was doing a Skype interview with a candidate who had told me he came from a tiny town called something like Podunk, Nebraska. At the end, I gave him the boilerplate about the timeline and then asked if he had any questions for me. He asked me to name a town in Nebraska.
At the end of the interview: “Which would you rather do: eat a scab sandwich, or dive into a swimming pool full of snot?”
To this day I regret not saying, “I can only pick one?”
In the 1970s, I had just graduated high school. In a sort of backlash against my friends and past, I cut my former long hair, to what the soldiers of the day called ‘a regular’ (See pic in link, only shorter), and went into a Cowboy mode.
I went to apply for a job at a Cowboy clothing store. The person in charge glared at me, and asked “Would you cut your hair???”
I once was asked this question: “you are in a rowboat with a cannonball on a lake and you throw the ball in the water. What happens to the water level of the lake?” I got it right, the water level goes down, but I didn’t get the job (thank goodness in hindsight). They also asked a question that I don’t quite remember about having two jars of jelly beans, one full of red and the other full of half red/ half blue. The question had to do with the how to determine which was which by only taking one jelly bean from one jar at random. Or something like that.
That interview sucked. Six engineers picking on newly graduated me!
Well?
How’s the coffee?