DEV Community

Aza
Aza

Posted on

What is the worst question you have ever been asked in a job interview?

Oh interviews!
Some people are afraid of them, but I am always looking forward. It's the skill that you need to develop constantly. No matter how good you are at what you do, you need to be able to present it to new people during the short conversation.
And I think, everyone agrees that interviews are the tests of not only technical skills, but adaptability to the new team.

What is the worst question you have ever been asked in a job interview?

My experience:

1) If I had 7+ years of experience on the software that exists only for 3 years.

and there were many more.......much more......

Latest comments (102)

Collapse
 
huncyrus profile image
huncyrus

"Do you know, this company could not offer high salary but a journey to make a great product?"
From a swedish company who:

  • Want to hire ppl below 30 with not much experience because that hurt others ego (most of the IT workers had 2-5 years max)
  • Had freshly invested money (10+ m eur)
  • Want to hire 50+ IT person (frontend, backend, QA, lead...)

"Mind us if we send you a personality test?" (what is ultimately a simple IQ test...)

Collapse
 
tusharar091 profile image
tusharar091 • Edited

What's your caste? Write it down on top of your resume after clearing final round
It was embarrassing and I said no , I cant and rejected the job offer

Collapse
 
aza profile image
Aza

what? no way! i am so ashamed that we still have this kind of stupid hierarchy in the societies.

Collapse
 
demetrakopetros profile image
Petros Demetrakopoulos

How much is 17x17 ?
They were really waiting for an immediate and accurate answer.

Collapse
 
l7ucian profile image
Andercou Lucian

I was asked why did I leave one of my previous jobs and wanted to know why I wouldn't go back. Maybe it's not a bad question, but it felt a bit uncomfortable.

Collapse
 
otterb8 profile image
1712288

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

Collapse
 
visigothsniper profile image
visigothsniper

I only ever applied to two internship positions until now, but my very first one was a sort of group interview where we had to introduce ourselves following a predefined presentation.

At some point it involved pretty personal stuff like health issues, religious affinities and who you live with (to which the HR interviewer frequently asked "Girlfriend/boyfriend? If so do you plan on getting married/live together?"). I don't know how standard those kinds of questions are, but in a room full of people I didn't know, it felt very invasive. I just skipped over that personal questions section and it might be why I never got to the second round of interviews.

Collapse
 
johnelomas profile image
John Lomas

Hiring manager for a city IT department to me walking into the interview room: How much of you resume is lies?

I should have walked out at that point.

Collapse
 
aza profile image
Aza

What??????I would!

Collapse
 
kelvinmai profile image
Kelvin Mai

I once had an interview where they used incorrect vocabulary.
"Are you experienced in front office and back office development" and "We're looking for someone who could work with Amber and Mango DB". Suffice to say that company only had one developer and he wasn't part of the interview process.

Collapse
 
cmstead profile image
Chris Stead

I was asked to explain how floating point numbers work and why a floating point error would occur.

This was for a web application developer position, the person who asked was just trying to come up with a way to bully candidates.

He picked the wrong developer. My background is in mathematics and I took an entire sequence on numerical methods.

I almost walked out, but I needed the job because my entire dept was getting laid off.

Collapse
 
jselbie profile image
John Selbie

Why were you insulted? This sounds like a fundamental computer science question to me.

Collapse
 
bhavaniravi profile image
Bhavani Ravi

Do you know how to do 'x' in 'y'?

x = technology I never used.

The interview feedback = Not industry ready.

I am now in a better job now.

Already used 'x' in projects now.

Don't let an interview define what you are capable of

Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.