What was your toughest ever job interview question?

[threebikesmcginty]

The very first question in job interviews for teachers used to be, "If we offered you the job would you accept it?"

I always ask that too, sometimes people lie though, can you believe that!

 

[vernon]

I've just read your question, and know that this is how I would have replied..

'I love concrete. I adore concrete. I love the simplicity, the smoothness, the mass, the plasticity of concrete. I love the way that it turns from liquid to solid, I love the way that it warms as it cures, I love the way it grips on to the reinforcement. I love the artisanry that goes in to the shuttering, the bending of metal, the tamping (I should tell you right now I despise powerfloating). I adore its strength, the way that it can span huge distances if you take the care to form a hyperbolic paraboloid. I love it for it's ability to set underwater, and the description of that setting written by Vitruvius more than two thousand years ago. Concrete will outlast us all, providing shelter, bridges and foundations without complaint or deflection, a monument to the imagination, ingenuity and enterprise of humankind. Do I get the job?'

It's a good job you weren't a contestant in 'Just a Minute'. You'd be 'out' by the eighth word.....

 

[dellzeqq]

I don't think they were looking for a nutter...

that's why you didn't get the job!

 

[dellzeqq]

The very first question in job interviews for teachers used to be, "If we offered you the job would you accept it?".

I was asked that question once. I said 'I might, because given how this interview has gone I'd be interested to know why you offered me the job'

What had happened was this. We'd been sitting in an open plan office and one of the Directors had had a complete hissy fit with a junior member of staff because his taxi wasn't waiting for him and the drawings weren't folded correctly. I'd said to my interviewers 'if that daffodil spoke to me like that I'd deck the ****er'. I'd also been very, very unflattering about some drawings that I now know to be of the Strata building. It was both the worst and best interview I'd ever had.

Mind you, a friend of mine worked there, and when he was asked to do the post office move desk plan he couldn't help but notice that his name was missing. It was that kind of place.

 

[ColinJ]

"Are you prepared to spend your working life developing something that you can't discuss outside of work, which hopefully will never be used, but if it is, will kill very large numbers of people?"

 

[MontyVeda]

worst interview question...

"what can you bring to the role that our other applicants cannot?"

...how the feck do i know... i've no fecking idea who your other fecking applicants are or what abilities/skills they do or don't fecking have you fecking feckers

 

[swee'pea99]

N

"Are you prepared to spend your working life developing something that you can't discuss outside of work, which hopefully will never be used, but if it is, will kill very large numbers of people?"

New recipe for McDonalds?

 

[User269]

Name?

 

[machew]

It's a good job you weren't a contestant in 'Just a Minute'. You'd be 'out' by the eighth word.....

Nope the fourth word, repeating the word "I"

 

[ayceejay]

At an interview the interviewee had narrowed it down to three of us, he called us all in to his office and suggested that we each explain why we were more qualified than the other two. I made it a bit easier on them by walking out.

Once upon a time I would employ university students for seasonal work. I would put an ad at the University web site. The replies were mostly of the purple prose variety similar to dells when what I was looking for was people we would answer "Yes" to IMHNET' question. It was a very frustrating process when you have to sift through biographies of people whose whole life up until that point had been leading towards working for me for the summer. The quickest turn around was a Norwegian guy who started at 8 and was back home by 11.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I once walked into a job interview to find a chap with a profound learning disability on the interview panel (he was sort of relevant to the post). Near the end of the interview he was prompted to ask his question, which was an enquiry as to whether I'd mind if he ate the last cake left on the plate on a side table. I think the rest of the panel looked more surprised than I did when that popped up.

 

[rich p]

Nope the fourth word, repeating the word "I"

Definitely the 6th even if they let 'I' go.

 

[swee'pea99]

The quickest turn around was a Norwegian guy who started at 8 and was back home by 11.

I once did a day as a temp at a hospital. It was a hard day. Basically, I had to push that heaving trolley full of clean linen along that long corridor, right at the end, then along that long corridor, then into the lift, then up to the 7th floor, then along that long corridor, then turn right, then along that long corrider, till I got to ward 7C, where I would find a big trolley heaving with dirty linen. Then I had to leave the clean linen trolley and take the dirty linen trolley and go along that corridor and turn left and ...you get the idea. All day. The laundry was staffed by a gaggle of what in those days we had no problem calling lovely old dears. At the end of the day, Boss LOD said to me, "Will we be seeing you again tomorrow, dear?" I had to admit that I didn't think I was really cut out for this hospital portering business. "Well to be honest, dear, we were surprised when you came back after morning tea break. Most of them don't."

 

[Crackle]

Dunno, the usual HR questions really piss me off. If you want revenge, do what I do, ring up one of the interviewers and ask for a status on your interview or feedback or expenses or all of them. Some are cool and collected but most are not, they are not expecting to be called to account.

I've had all kinds of responses from a stuttering load of guff to someone putting the phone down on me. One told me that I didn't have experience of a critical system, I replied it said I didn't need it in the advert so why had they called me to interview and what was the real reason and could I speak to his boss and it had cost me £20 in expenses.

Another curtly told me that I would have been called if I'd got the job and put the phone down. She and all her cronies were made redundant 6 months later and one of my interview questions was if they hadn't been profitable for the last two years did they think they had much future?

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

I had an interview for a job building PCs up from parts in a small office on a school site.
The interviewer handed me a piece of paper with a logic puzzle on it, something like "FIVE + THREE = ?".
I sat down for five minutes, and being truly rebellious and wanting to cause trouble (or hating hose sorts of puzzles), I wrote "EIGHT" then handed it back.
The guy told me I was wrong, and that I didn't have a logical mind, and was therefore incapable of building PCs.
Bit of a shame. I'd just finished 2 years as an educational software programmer, went on to 5 years finishing as a senior analyst programmer on every platform imaginable, then went on to 17 years as an IT Manager, writing software, building PCs, wiring the building, running the accounts and teaching all staff etc etc. Shame I'm not cut out for it!!