It isn’t much fun being a corporate human resources person, but the job offers one treat: You get to dream up outlandish interview questions to throw at job candidates, then watch them squirm. Some of these goofy questions are time-honored — they may not be useful, but they’ve become an HR tradition. Others are hot off the press. Here’s a tour through the world of wacky queries — so you’ll be prepared the next time you’re hit with one in an interview:
Where do you see yourself in five years?
If you were an animal/a can of soup/some other random object, which one would you be?
What are your weaknesses?
What in particular interested you about our company?
What would your past managers say about you?
read more about above questions & answers
Tags: Interview, questions, stupid
I would never ever advise anyone to actually do this but I’ve always daydreamed about answering “Five Years Time” by saying that I want to be bringing the USS Enterprise safely home to Earth, having made first contact with several alien species and avoided violating the Prime Directive too much. Sadly, it’s probably the most sensible answer I can think of.
At the same time, it’s probably better to keep any insane fangirl tendencies to yourself in an interview situation. Unless your interviewer happens to be wearing a Star Trek t-shirt, which is probably a gigantic red flag regarding the professionalism of the company.
I haven’t had any completely ridiculous questions, beyond the traditional ones but my sister had this one during her graduate jobs hunt:
“Which character from Friends would you be?”
I’d never advise this approach either but her response to that was something along the lines of “I have never watched it, never will and how does this pertain to my ability to do the job?”
Needless to say, they showed her the door pretty quickly but after hearing that question, she’d pretty much decided that she wouldn’t take the job even if they did offer it to her.