Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 6:09 pm

I have an interview for a new job next Tuesday - working at the same place, but doing different work and moving up from band 4 to band 5 on the payscales. Starting to get excited about it now, and am preparing, trying to think of questions they may ask and have some responses ready...but I could do with a practice run. So hit me! What's the sneakiest, trickiest, most difficult and fiendish question you've been asked (or do ask!) at interview? Have you ever been fazed or blindsided by a question? Give me the 'interview from hell'!

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 6:41 pm

A quick google: http://www.datsi.fi.upm.es/~frosal/docs/25mdq.html

I'd dodge Q 21 if possible. Wink

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 1066

I was once asked if I consider myself to be street-smart. I almost replied, "That depends. What do you consider to be the right answer?"

My ex was once asked, "If you were to make a stack of quarters, how many quarters would it take to reach from the floor to the ceiling?" This was for a warehouse position, by the way. He told me he just literally stared at the interviewer in disbelief until the uncomfortable silence forced them to move on to the next question.

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:21 pm

^^^^^^^^^^
Did he get the job? Laughing

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 1066

I don't think he even wanted it after that.

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:53 pm

"What would your current supervisor say you need to work on?" Good luck Cougar!

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

I've been on many interview boards and sometimes the most impressive answer I've heard is "I don't know", followed by their best guess. I work in a highly specialized field, so YMMV.
Good luck!

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 12:25 am

The worst question I was asked when I was interviewed at a major university's medical center --

Quote:

Will you be able to handle a $5 million a year division?

I have no recollection of what I said, but it must have been right because I got the job!

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:02 am

I have been on both sides of the desk in interviews and on a couple of interview panels. My career was in the federal government so there were some things we could not ask, such as anything that may hint at religious beliefs, family situations, or age. Nor could we ask hypothetical questions.

Some sneaky interviewers would ask things like how active they are in the community (permissible question), hoping the interviewee would say something like, "I'm in the choir at the Last Presbyterian Church" or "I coach my son's Little League team." They look for graduation dates on the resume and get a good idea of an interviewee's age.

I would offer just two tips: (1) know what is on your resume and be able to add to it. I have been on panels where we asked something we read on a resume and the interviewee had no idea what we were talking about. (2) no interviewer likes to hear, "I love working with people." It raises a flag that reads "INSINCERE."

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 1066

^Having also been on both sides of the interview desk, I would also like to add working-with-people's ugly cousin: "I'm a team player". When in doubt, listen to it in your head first. If it sounds like something that your interviewer has already heard a million times, that's because it is.

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:19 am

When I have given interviews and ask a question like "Are you supportive of divisions other than your own?" and they answer yes..I follow up with "Give me an example."

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:38 am

Can't resist...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjHCXcwpcvE

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 12:08 pm

^

Thanks everyone, that's helped a lot - given me some ideas to chew over.

Cheers!

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:03 pm

I have also had to interview people when I was the division administrator. I knew what we could not ask, but as stated above there are ways around it.

Tell me about yourself. (I found out the interviewee had children) And while you could not ask if they were planning more children - some young ladies just volunteered the information Laughing

When I once had to decide between 2 applicants I chose the one who had a traffic accident on the way to the interview (snowy road conditions) and stopped to call at a pay phone that she was on her way despite the accident (we did not have cell phones then). I knew she would always try her best to get to work. (Turned out she was a valuable employee and worked her way up to a very nice job at the university and we became best friends over the years)

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 3:21 pm

I once had to give someone a techinical interview for a developer position; this was at the height of the dotcom boom when everyone who'd read "ASP for dummies" was trying to get into web development. The candidate seemed very edgy and nervous and so I started with a really easy question.

He made a complete mess of the answer so I asked him an even easier one, which he too made a mess of.

When I went to ask the third question he just buried his head in his hands and wailed "please stop asking me questions!"

He didn't get the job Rolling Eyes

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 3:30 pm

I was blindsided by a question once:
"What question do you think I should ask you now?"

I had really prepared for the usual sorts of "reveal your weakness" questions but had not really thought what questions would I like to answer if given the choice. And if I came out with one of the obvious ones it would presumably reveal that I had prepared an answer to it in advance. I ended up fluffing it and suggesting "Do you have any questions for us?" which typically comes at the close of an interview. At least I got a small chuckle out of it.

As an interviewer I saw numerous cases where people were caught off guard by some of my questions. But the oddest one was where the candidate answered honestly - an entry level retail sales position:
Q: Why did you leave your last job?
A: Fired for stealing.
Q: Do you want to tell me anything else about it? (hoping there would be an explanation of unjust dismissal or something)
A: Nope. I stole and got caught.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

I'm sorry I can't help with hard questions asked during an interview - I can't remember that far back.

I do have stories of odd interviewees, though:

One man listed all the times when he was out of work on his resume. He had a handful of short periods of odd jobs, but most of his work experience section was periods of time with "No Work" next to them. Sometimes they were sequential, like: June 2007- Jan 2008 - No Work. Jan 2008- March 2009 - No Work. These No Work entries made his resume fairly long, with "No Work" taking up much of the entire second page.

One woman stalked my employment ads for years. The first time she applied for a position she set up an interview and never showed up, nor called. A year later she contacted me for a different position. I remembered her, reminded her of the previous year, which she first said she didn't remember, but then said "oh yeah, I had a family emergency". I told her I wasn't willing to schedule an interview for her. She called back the next day, as if she was a whole new person. After my intro spiel, she started talking and I realized it was her again. Even though I reminded her that we'd already spoken, she tried again to get an interview. She called again for the next several days, each time as if she was a whole new person and didn't remember our previous conversations.
A year later, new position advertised, guess who called, more than once? It got to the point that as soon as she'd start talking I'd say "Is this XXXXX again?" About two months later, a part time position opened - guess who called, twice?

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 5:08 pm

^^^^

I guess I've been lucky, I never really had to go through a normal interview process, at least as the interviewee. (I fell into my first job and was recruited for the later ones.) But I was in management for many years and I did a lot of interviews to hire employees. Oddly, I really don't remember any oddball characters, though I'm sure I must have had my share. Then again, I was a pretty ruthless resumé reader; 95% of the applicants never made it to an interview.

When I look back on those days now, I take considerable pleasure in realizing that several people whom I brought into a very specialized industry as complete newcomers (but who seemed promising to me) have since gone on to become leaders in the field 20 or 30 years later. At least three now own their successful businesses in the same industry. And one of them has since thanked me for giving him that first chance to get through the door. Wink

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 5:43 pm

Questions??? Someone said Questions??

Did you ever get rid of the rash you got while in prison?

What is the average number of wing-beat per minute of the ruby-throated hummingbird?

Would you rather work in a round room or bring your own lunch every day?

Need more? (I got a hundred of them ...NOT!)

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 5:43 pm

So Juan you must be over the half century, and still feisty. Cool

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 6:35 pm

firehouse5 wrote:

I was blindsided by a question once:
"What question do you think I should ask you now?"

Should have answered "and when do I start?" Wink

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 7:31 pm

If I were hiring someone to sell paper, here are some I would ask:
"At 80 grams per square meter, how many grams are in an A4 sheet?"
"What is the greatest common divisor of 841 and 1189?" (those are the dimensions of an A0 sheet)

I once had an interview for a programming job and was shown several short snippets of C code and asked about alternative wordings.

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 8:33 pm

I worked as a manager of a retail store for a couple years and had to interview people pretty much every week. Our store attracted younger applicants. It was always funny hearing their responses in interwiews. I usualy went pretty easy on them but I did grill some of them. My favorite moment was finishing up an interview and giving a 16 year old kid the form to go take a drug test. He asked me if marijuana would show up on the drug test. I said of course. He handed me the form back and left. To this day I still apreciate that kind of honesty. I had about a 40% fail rate for drug test and he was the only one I remember just admitting it beforehand.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 1066

This last project I worked on had a pretty open-door policy on applicants. We pretty much interviewed everyone who walked in and applied. As a result, we didn't exactly attract the best and the brightest of individuals. In three months, I interviewed not one, not two, not three, but four different people who were visibly drunk and one person who left my entire desk area reeking of pot for the rest of the day.

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 9:04 pm

I remember a nasty one I got: "What do you think your salary should be?" (got that one two interviews in a row, got the second job).

But that's the only one I remember. Haven't had many job interviews, and I don't see myself having any of them the next 5 years.

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