This thread got me thinking about cocky answers to interview questions. I have a bad habit of being a smartass when I’m under stress, but it’s even worse when I’m both under stress and know I’ve got other options in the bag.
The day after I got the offer for my current job, I had a third phone interview with a rather well-known Web company for a sysadmin position. Both jobs were a lot of the same kind of work ,and each had their own advantages or disadvantages. I could have happily taken either position.
The third interview was a group jobbie with a couple of members of the team that I would be on, one of whom I knew from a message board, along with an HR guy. I nailed all of the detailed technical questons that the other admins asked me, and we proceeded to the “soft skills” questions.
One of them went something like this: “Suppose you were trying to resolve a technical issue with your peers, and you had a serious disagreement on the best way to fix the issue. What would you do in this situation?”
My response? “Well, I suppose the first thing I would do would be to go to management behind their backs and try to undermine their position. But seriously… blah blah blah.”
My contact later told me that the other technical guy was looking at him like “Did he really just fucking say that???!”
Turns out they recommended me for the position and the company was in the process of getting all of the paperwork together for my offer when I had to bite the bullet and accept the other one. Oh well.
In an interview for a company that really liked me, part way through interviewing with 4 people in one day for the company, the HR person asked me, “So, would you like this job?”
Me, “No, I don’t think this is what I am looking for”.
I like your answer. A little humor is always good.
I once was in an interview with a VP of a company whose regional manager had already all but assured me I had the job. It was him I’d be working for, and we’d known each other for a few years. I had spent the last 14 years managing commercial hi-rise buildings downtown, and this job was to move to a school bus company, and manage 350 people at two locations in the city.
The VP was behind his desk, talked about the company a bit. He told me about the contracts I’d be managing and the company’s relationship with the CPS (Chicago Public Schools). Then he asked me if I had any questions for him.
“Yeah, what the hell makes you think I can do this job?”
Several years ago I was interviewing for a cooking job at a 24-hour restaurant. Now, I’ve been in this business for many years, and I can get hired as a cook just about anywhere I want, so I look at interviews as a two-way thing: I’m interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing me, while I decide if I actually want the job. One thing I like is a boss with a sense of humor. So I was sitting across from the manager, going through all the questions about experience and blah-blah-blah, when he asked me, “So, what kind of shifts are you looking for?”
I deadpanned, “Oh, Monday through Friday, nine to five would be perfect.” (This is a completely imaginary shift in the restaurant business.)
The manager tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t help himself as he proceeded to bust a gut. He hired me on the spot, and I knew I was going to like working for the guy (and I did). See, I was joking, and the manager actually realized I was joking.
On the other hand, another attempt at a job interview joke a couple years later went over like a lead balloon. While suffering from some form of temporary insanity, I put in an application at Target. I showed up for the interview wearing a shirt and tie. The interview consisted of the manager reading from a prepared list of stock questions. She asked me a question like, “Why should I hire you instead of some other candidate?” The first thing that popped into my head was the fact that at the same time I showed up for the interview, there was a pimply-faced teenager dressed in a T-shirt and ratty jeans handing in an application. So I answered, “Because I’m wearing this cool tie.” Prior to giving that stupid answer, I had somehow failed to notice that she was writing down my first answer to every question. I noticed it at that point, and knew immediately that I wasn’t going to get the job. I didn’t. But somehow, I wasn’t disappointed
I had a huge hole in my resume. Lots of great jobs and lots of great experience, but the last 15 months were blank. Interviews generally went like this:
“I noticed that there is nothing here since June of 2001. What have you been doing since then?”
“I’ve been sort of looking for a job, but nothing has come up. People are just not hiring. Life sucks.”
No hire.
I might as well have said “Eating Cheetos and masturbating.” That was actually closer to the truth.
On one interview, however, I decided to tell the truth in a cocky and well-framed way.
I was working the night shift (11PM - 8 AM) as a computer operator (main frame) and had a job interview at 9AM. The guy interviewing me was late and came in to get me around 10:30. I was asleep. During the interview (he did Not ask why I was asleep) he stated that he needed people that did not stress out easily and offered me the job.
At the other end of the spectrum, I interviewed at a law firm in 1993 and when asked what my existing skill set (I had been working in libraries for about 3 years at that time, a year and a half of which as a secretary) could do for them, I told them as part of my answer that I really didn’t think there was anything I couldn’t learn to do there. I actually heard one of the guys who was interviewing sarcastically mutter something like “Modest” under his breath, and I never heard back from them.
I was interviewing for a teaching job back in Korea and got stuck with a really snotty person who obviously considered me underqualified because I’d only attended elementary school in the US (as opposed to high school or college). Never mind the fact that I’d lived there from the age of 6 months to 13 years. “So how fluent would you say you are in spoken English?” he asked me snidely, in accented English.
“I think my English is pretty decent,” I replied back, in an unmistakable American accent. “I don’t know, what do you think?”
I had an interview for a lawyering job a few weeks ago. It was just me and the managing partner of this branch of the firm.
He noted that my resume included teaching English composition, copy editing, managing a magazine, and working for the most heavily-trafficked Web site in the region. Then he asked me if I had looked at the firm’s Web site.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What did you think of it?” he asked.
I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if I was going to say this. Then I told him, “The writing is bland. It sounds too much like the boilerplate text that’s on every law firm’s site I’ve seen.”
He stared at me for a moment, then started smiling.
I had my second interview there yesterday (panel-style, me facing the entire firm). I really hope I get this job.
Nearly 10 years ago, I interviewed for a position on the editorial staff of a dermatology trade magazine. As part of the interview process, I had to take a written test. One of the questions went something like this: A dermatologist has discovered a very effective treatment for a common skin condition, but the side effect is that it turns patients’ skin green! What questions would you ask the dermatologist in order to write an interesting and engaging article about the treatment?
Oh, that dermatology humor! Green skin – nyuk, nyuk!
I wrote down some fairly obvious questions, then added, “Can you please describe exactly what shade of green patients turn? Emerald? Forest? Lime?”
I never heard from them after that – not even a kiss-off letter.
People who want to be licensed psychologists in the US have to complete a year-long internship at the end of their doctoral work. I was interviewing for an internship by phone. One of the interviewers asked what I assume he thought was a clever question: “What are you wearing right now?” Psychological, huh? I responded that I was at my practicum, so I was in comfortable professional clothes with black pants and a blouse. Then I asked him what he was wearing. There was a pause, and he said, “A suit and tie.” I asked, “So you’re a suit and tie kind of person?” He said, “Yes, I guess I am.”
I did not get this internship. My father told me later that the correct answer to “What are you wearing right now?” would have been “Whatever you want, Doc. It’s your dime.”
I don’t know if this counts, but when I started my current job, I hadn’t really planned on moving to a new one. I applied here in the fall but got a call in April for an interview. Turns out the guy they called for the interview instead of me in the fall was leaving. I had a job I liked, but it was a lot of work compared to this for about the same pay. I had several cocky answers during the interview here though.
*Note that current job is hanging out at a hotel desk all night and running paperwork. I work 11-7 and not many people want that shift around here.
When asked why I was leaving my current job, I explained it like this: “Well, I like that job a good bit, but I only am there to get my job done. When it’s done I leave. Here, you need someone here all night (at least 8 hours), and I’m pretty confident, from what you described the job as, that I can do the required work in about 2 and a half or 3 hours, so the rest of the time I can do my homework for college.” or something near that…(given I had done night shift at a different hotel, and that was the absolute truth)
When asked about what I planned on doing and how long I planned on staying, I simply said that I had no reason to stay longer than a year. Then I pointed out that I had talked to my boss about it, and had no reason to stay that long if I didn’t want because my old job would be open. “Restaurants always need people,” I said, “and I did a damn good job at that one.”
The GM came over and asked if he could finish the interview. Before I walked out the door 10 minutes later he told me to expect the call in 3 days, that they had one interview left that they had promised and then they would call me. They called the next day.
I have been known, from time to time when I am not desperate for the job, to let smug, less-than-pleasant interviewers know that the interview process is a two-way street. I am interviewing them to see if I am interested in the job, just as much as they are interviewing me.
Sometimes it’s the kiss of death, sometimes not. But if it is, then I know for certain that I don’t want to work for that asshole.
Let’s see. You’re smug, arrogant, condescending and rude in the interview process. How do you act toward your employees? Not sure I want to know.
Interviewer :- "So, what have you learned from this interview ? "
Me :- "Your company’s work practices and culture are ineffective and unproductive, I didn’t like the prospective colleagues I met, and I won’t take the job if offered. Shall we end this now ? "
Interviewer :- "Have you any observations you’d like to make to us ? "
Me :-- “Yes, if you’re planning on making an offer you’ll have to do it soon. I have quite a few irons in the fire, and I expect to make a decision by this time tomorrow.”.
(They made an offer, as it happened).
“Give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty.”
“Well, I believe in this field you need to do whatever it takes to get the job done - staying late, weekend work, holidays, whatever. So I have difficulty answering that question since I feel that is the call of duty”.
Of course that’s total bullshit as I hate having to work past 6:00
I turned up for a specialist (+ low paid) job once and the only other candidate (we knew each other) promptly said “If I’d known you were applying, I wouldn’t have bothered coming!”
