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Do you remember the old joke about the guy who walks up to the RR ticket window, sees a generously-endowed woman behind the counter, and then blurts out, "I'd like two pickets to Tittsburgh."? This is reminiscent, I think...
At an interview years ago (I was on the interview panel) we asked the applicant about his work history, and after listing some places he had worked, he started mentioning about possible red flags at one particular job and we all sort of started focusing more, asked a few follow up questions and then were told we probably shouldn't contact his last employer. We thanked him for visiting with us and after he left we all broke up.
Maybe I've just been lucky but most of my interviews have been courteous and professional, be it working in a restaurant or retail store or a professional technology job.
I think it helps for the applicant to have a sense of humor. It puts the hiring manager more at ease and shows yourself to be a pleasant and upbeat kind of person who will be enjoyable to work with.
There is little doubt some people in the position of power to interview a job candidate are doing this to entertain themselves. Some interviewers ask off the wall questions to see if the person has a sense of humor. Its hard to tell which is which.
I had said earlier in the interview that I had a personal history with the family of the woman who is now Secretary of Commerce. This was relevant because the family's investment office was considering me as their chief investment officer. The interviewer, a woman, thought she was being hilarious and I would have enjoyed the joke too if there had not been so much at stake.
I've been asked at several interviews if I was married. So annoying.
Even though it is illegal for them to ask, what are you supposed to say without losing all chances of getting the job? "Hey, you're not supposed to ask me that, I'm reporting you". I guess you could put it like this "in this day and age I'm quite surprised that you would ask me such a thing".
Either way unless the person doing the interview was hiring you for a position in Human Relations and was testing you either response isn't going to go over well.
I remember asking a young guy where he say himself in 5 years and he was like "I want to have a girlfriend." Another person responded to that question by saying "I want to get into any concert for free."
I asked a guy what sort of people he worked well with and he responded, "I like my women spicy like jalapeños."
I've been asked that before. Granted, it was while interviewing for a position at a zoo, so it wasn't that crazy or strange of a question, but still caught me off guard. That and I was asked if I knew whether Curious George was an ape or a monkey. I answered wrong, thinking that Curious George had a tail. Weird question to assume everyone knows in detail what Curious George looks like. And no, the job wasn't working with apes or monkeys, so it was just weird in general to bring up Curious George as an interview question.
Too flippin' funny. What if the person being interviewed had never read Curious George. I know I never had and never read it to my kids either.
I was long past the initial interview stage. I had negotiated a start date and salary for a job with a non-profit organization prominent in Tucson. I few days before I was to start, the director I interviewed with called me up and said, "I have to withdraw my offer to you. A member of our board wants his wife to have the job I chose you for and there's nothing I can do about it."
"If you had a choice would you rather travel Europe by yourself or stay in a cabin in the woods with a group of friendsin the US and why?" It is an easy choice for me (I dont care much for travel) but the question caught me so off guard because it was so stupid I stumbled on the why.
I had a third interview recently with a very unprofessional company my area.
First off, this company had contacted me twice in two years for a position with the company. I did not even apply to them to begin with.
I was supposed to have a phone interview with one man. Well, a woman was at the interview with him too, was very aggressive, interrupting both him and me and the first thing she asked was "What got you into ____ field?" and then cut me off at the first two sentences and told me "well this isn't the same job as what you were doing" even though I had already passed two job assessments at that point. Then she ended the interview with a horrible nasty tone.
I have never had an interview that rude before. I am assuming there was a miscommunication between HR and management and they only wanted people with specific type and length of job experience , even though I am knowledgeable about the field. Still, that didn't excuse the interviewers being rude and wasting my time. I was happy I got the opportunity to rate the interview process after.
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