Lets have some fun, and come up with the worst job interview question you can think of.
We have all heard about the job interview questions which are simply bad. Questions which test no practical skill, like asking people to write a quick sort implementation on a whiteboard. Or simply weird questions, which you have no idea about what they could imply, like "Are you a dog person or cat person?".
So let me hear the worst interview questions you can come up with. Which are so bad, that they become funny. (Bonus points if this was an actual question.)
Latest comments (87)
No, I am not kidding you. We disagree on your main premise, as such, we disagree entirely. Compassion is invaluable and unlimited. To limit it is to say that something that is compassion is not.
Compassion is not the motivator of the stories in your scenario. Sometimes not attending someone's funeral is the compassionate thing to do (the "right" thing is never something upon which everyone agrees, which suggests that there really isn't any such), sometimes firing someone is the compassionate thing to do. A person may perceive himself to be a parasite, may be in denial about that perception, and at the same time act out that perception as if it were real. The compassionate thing to do might be to ask him to find some other line of work, in the hope that he will find something to do that he really cares about, and in so doing stop perceiving himself as a parasite.
If you hold these ideas about other people in your mind, you motivate yourself to emulate them. "Do unto others before they do unto you" sort of thing. You also justify your own approach to life with these sorts of judgments, not realizing that you are creating the circumstances that you judge, projecting them out into your world, denying that you have done so, and then taking the perception that this is the "real world" that you "see."
So, again, you see, we disagree entirely. :)
I think it BS not being able to ask, a sudden unplanned long term leave of an employer can mean financial ruin for small/startup companies...
Not so much a question as an experience. I was interviewing for a remote interview company, and actually got to the final round. My interviewer then would have also been my supervisor had I been hired. We're discussing interview techniques and practices. Mind you, by this point I had been doing all the hiring for my own company for about five years, drawing on my academic background in communication and psychology.
Several times during the interview, I am able to demonstrate that I not only fully understand the scenarios she's asking about, but I actually know more about it than she does! The techniques she describes oversimplify assessments and make huge assumptions about candidates, whereas I know how to leverage actual interview techniques (and have five years of hiring history to prove my skill).
Afterwards, she says I "don't have enough experience conducting interviews". Fact is, I'd demonstrated more knowledge than her about hiring, and had two years experience on her (she said she'd been doing it for three years).
I walked away from that laughing: I wasn't hired simply because my potential manager felt threatened by my experience level.
I think she made a good decision for you. But a bad decision for the company.
People who are intimidated by people who are more skilled than they are, are a problem for the company. These people generally try to keep the people below them, below them.
To quote Steve Jobs
Also the thing about experience is that you want people to have the right experience, not just a lot of experience. Just because you have been doing thing wrong for 10 years doesn't make you good.
That assumes that human minds have no effect on the color of the sky, among other things. But we can agree to have different metaphysical views.
The greatest problem with your position is that in order to maximize profit, one must move continually towards the ideal of selling precisely nothing for an infinite amount of money. Human compassion is not part of that goal, therefore, if your first statement is true, the second one must not be, because the company's reason for being is inherently greedy.
No man may serve two masters. In your terms you may serve either love or money, but not both. A for-profit company (and, generally, a not-for-profit company as well) is an institution that serves money first, and love only so long as it's profitable. Your statements are cases in point for an individual who wishes first to rise in the corporate world and bring money to himself, and second to be a compassionate and loving individual.
Perceptions arise from the mind, and they are mirrors of the mind, rather than facts. When you say "I am not blue," you are saying "my body is not blue." But you are no more your body than your foot is your shoe. What you perceive the sky to be is a reflection of your belief of what the sky is.
Interviewer: do you like tea or coffee?
Me: Water
I think you have avoided the first two points I mentioned which are more important.
What gender the candidates are is circumstantial. If only US had legal paternity leaves, then you could have had a valid claim.
Drawing connections between a gender and bad characters based on your limited experience and references you curated is generalization and biased. Drawing them to the fact that a business needs to earn money is a stretch.
This isn't a question nor funny. It's an interview practice I'd wish gone. It's when a company thinks a candidate performs poorly enough on the first interview that she's not worth going further and should be escorted out.
If someone's worth being invited to an on-site, she's worth a few more hours.
...maybe? I've seen some pretty terrible interviewees.
But granted, I can't imagine why you'd want to bring someone on-site for an initial interview...? Wouldn't it save everyone's time to conduct the initial interview over the phone?
This has little to do with women or pregnancy. It has everything to do with
If those candidates were men, they would have done worse. I'd strongly recommend reflecting on the latter.
Perceptions are not facts, but mirrors.
I've heard guys say they'd never hire a woman before. Generally, they'll whine about how women are always getting pregnant, and fuss that even if you could ask if they planned on having children 'they'd just lie, 'cuz that's what women do'.
Oddly enough, every guy like that which I've met has also complained that women expect men to pay for things, and why can't they just get a job and pay for stuff themselves? Honestly, I think they've answered their own question by getting so upset over the practice of hiring women.
And you wonder why women (and even some men) get so upset about hiring practices like yours...
Long ago, when I was interviewing for a network management software related job, all rounds were done. All the technical questions were done. Then comes the manager who I would report to. He goes on to ask - 'Can you describe what happens when you type a web site address in your browser till you get a response back in your browser?'
So I explained everything like ARP, reverse ARP, DNS lookup, TCP/IP, routing, switching, etc etc. I explained everything that was applicable from the OSI layers 1 to 7. It was a lengthy explanation and the interviewer kept nodding as I explained things on the white board.
Finally he says, "I think that the right answer would be that it goes over a network and returns via a network using TCP/IP".
I was stunned at his response! This company was into making network management software and devices. I was from a big name networking giant having spent 13 years till that point writing iOS/iOX code. I was very sure of my answer.
I decided then and there that I would never work for such a manager.
Seems like you have very unethical way of handling things.
So this was asked to one of my friends
Interviewer: "If you organize a party, Who would you call to party?"
Friend: "Ummm.. Spiderman?"
Interviewer: *Laughs*
Also, this was asked to me:
Interviewer: "If facebook offered you a job, would you leave this company and join facebook?"
Me: "Yes, for sure"
[wait for the punchline at the bottom]
Interviewer: "So, what do you think about SSD."
Me: "Err, in what regard?
Interviewer: "You know, just, what would you say about it."
Me: "Well, they provide for faster disk access, so it's great for quickly loading and indexing large databases..."
Interviewer: "Well what I mean is, would you want one on a desktop computer?"
Me: "Umm... yes, they're generally nice to have..."
Interviewer: "Can you say more about why?"
Me: "Do you want, like, numbers on I/O rates...?"
Interviewer: "No I just mean like as a power user, your view of SSD drives."
Me: "..."
[this is for a data engineering job in 2019.]
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