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2009-08-09 -Short Attention Span Theater-
43 Things Actually Said in Job Interviews
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Posted by Frank G 2009-08-09 09:24|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ]  Top

#1 Each and everyone of them registered to vote in 43 different states thanks to their part time work with ACORN.
Posted by Procopius2k 2009-08-09 09:58||   2009-08-09 09:58|| Front Page Top

#2 This is not a new trend in stupidity. I got the same quality of answer(s) in the late 80's / early 90's when I worked as a contractor coordinator (personnel manager) in D.C.
Posted by WolfDog 2009-08-09 10:59||   2009-08-09 10:59|| Front Page Top

#3 Actually - at the risk of really pissing some people off...
I consider these sorts of questions to have no relevance to the job at hand.

In my experience I found HR to be a land of morons.
One time I got mad and demanded their whole job list from HR and looked through the applications myself - making HR set up interviews with people that met my needs.
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 13:09||   2009-08-09 13:09|| Front Page Top

#4  "I was a Chamber of Commerce Executive once hiring a secretary. [The candidate asked] 'What does a Chamber of Commerce do?'"
In most cities this is a valid question.
Posted by 49 Pan 2009-08-09 13:34||   2009-08-09 13:34|| Front Page Top

#5 One job interview as a Machinist I was asked "Do you carry a gun"? I replied Only when I need to", Got he job, later learned it was a bad neighborhood and most employees carried.
Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-08-09 14:32||   2009-08-09 14:32|| Front Page Top

#6 My son had an interview last week at a legal office.
A lawyer asked him: "can you show me how to touch a face thorough a circle the size of a quarter" (like this has anything to do with anything)
So my son drew a face on a piece of paper with a circle over it and touched the face with his finger.

The Lawyer said: "That's not the correct answer. you are suppose to hold your keyring infront of my face and touch my nose..."

We have an electronic front door. The son rode the Metra Train into work. Why should he have a key ring with him?

And WTF does such a question have anything to do with the litigation of tea-leaves in China?
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 15:18||   2009-08-09 15:18|| Front Page Top

#7 HR job interview questions have far too much in common with the discredited "science" of Phrenology.

Wikipedia on Phrenology
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 15:23||   2009-08-09 15:23|| Front Page Top

#8 Last year one of the impending graduates at American U. got a first interview with a big law firm. He didn't have 'super' grades or other 'super' credentials so he thought he'd have to really stand out in the first interview.

The first question of the firm was "Why do you want to work for X,Y and Z?"

He leaned next to the interviewer and whispered,
"To fulfill the prophesy."

He actually did get a 2nd interview but ultimately was not offered a job.

Posted by Lord garth 2009-08-09 15:25||   2009-08-09 15:25|| Front Page Top

#9 Given the amount of snark rolling through here on a daily basis I’m sure you folks have more than a few interesting interview stories to share. As evidence of my ill temper and poor judgment here’re a few from my past that could easily make a list like the one linked above:

I once had an interview with a large west coast firm that fell on a morning after I'd pulled two consecutive all-nighters polishing a startup company's product for an investor dog-and-pony show scheduled for the same morning as my interview. Round one occurred in a top floor corner office with a gentleman whose name was on the building. He inquired as to my reason for leaving my previous career and choosing my new direction to which I, without conscious thought, replied, "Money." Without missing a beat he slowly set my resume down on his desk, pushed his glasses up, leaned back in his chair and answered very evenly, "You're hired as far as I'm concerned. I've asked that question thousands of times over the past 35 years but until this morning not one single person had ever answered it honestly."

Of course the utilization of such a direct mouth-brain connection doesn't always end quite so well as I discovered at a white-shoe east coast firm with strong connections to the DNC and the then-barely former Clinton Administration. One partner quickly moved from typical interview topics to a discussion of whether pharmaceutical companies should be prohibited from enforcing their intellectual property rights so that "the poor" might benefit from the most recent advances. I took the obvious "patents as vital inducements that promote innovation" approach which was met with a slowly-advancing parade of horribles that saw the interviewer's volume and shrillness increase steadily with each successive horrible that I deflected. At the time I thought it a wonderful bit of theater and imagined that the interviewer was merely testing me to see if I would lose my composure under loud, intense & eventually irrational denigration of my position. The parade of horribles reached its climax with the interviewer's assertion that it was absolutely immoral to allow "hundreds of millions" of people to die of AIDS so that big pharma could continue to earn billions of dollars in profit each year to which I replied very evenly that AIDS is largely, though not completely, a lifestyle disease contracted most overwhelmingly often through one's own poor choices and that as such it would be most effectively countered via the use of condoms and clean needles and through just the slightest exercise of self-control on those engaging in activities likely to result in an infection. The interviewer never had a chance to respond as one of his partners rushed into the room at exactly that point and cut that particular segment of my visit short. Though I don’t agree I understand that this interview is still discussed in a few upper division courses of a certain graduate program in the southwest as an exemplar of how, precisely, one should not conduct oneself during an interview.
A few years earlier I interviewed with a consulting company who forgot they’d scheduled me and neglected to ensure that any of their normal technical interviewers would be in town. As a result I had the pleasure of interviewing with the farm team who came equipped with questions hastily scribbled for them by HR … along with acceptable answers. One eager your interviewer inquired how I might determine the weight of a Boeing 747. My immediate answer of, “Check the documents that accompany the plane and/or its registration or regulatory filings,” was rejected and I subsequently suggested that I’d call Boeing. Having been told that I wouldn’t be able to call Boeing I then suggested that I’d call the prior owner, sales agent, or regulatory authority responsible for licensing the aircraft for operation and that weight being a rather important characteristic of an aircraft someone along this chain was bound to have a fairly authoritative answer. The interviewer, somewhat annoyed, noted shortly that I would have no access to a phone. I amended my answer to include postal mail, email (if so equipped), and all other available means of communication. Now exasperated the interviewer said in a rather condescending manner that he’d hoped that I would have been able to provide a more technical answer to his question. I replied that if that were the primary consideration I might shred the entire plane into very small fragments and collect those fragments in a location in which they were uniformly randomly distributed. I would then inquire of the customer the accuracy, precision and statistical certainty required in the analysis and would design an experiment which would include compressing known volumes of the shredded components into small blocks, measuring the average density of said blocks, submersing the blocks in groups of one or more in known volumes of water, measuring the volumetric displacement of the water, backing out the weight of each block from these known parameters and finally estimating the weight of the entire plane based on the derived weight of the tested blocks in relation to the volume of remaining debris. I noted that the customer’s requirements would, of course, determine completely the parameters of the experiment and thus the cost and required precision and how many environmental variables we would need to control or measure precisely in order to produce our estimate to the customer’s specifications. I noted dryly that the customer might be somewhat annoyed at this solution if they had intended the plane for use in the transport of goods or persons and that we might therefore want to have a few more details of the customer’s reasons for wanting this particular information prior to our launching a detailed technical analysis of the issue. The interviewer remained unimpressed though I thought my answer a nice allegory for the sort of “value” outside technical consultants often bring to engineering efforts. The irony was completely lost on him.

I suppose there's a reason that I eventually came to be self-employed. ;)
Posted by AzCat 2009-08-09 16:43||   2009-08-09 16:43|| Front Page Top

#10 :-)
I interview Wednesday for the permanent position of the job I've held (out-of-class) since last fall. Say a prayer for me?
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-08-09 17:00||   2009-08-09 17:00|| Front Page Top

#11 Here's a hint.

If you get an interview they already think you can do the job, you just have to get on with the interviewer.

Get them to talk and you're laughing.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-08-09 17:32||   2009-08-09 17:32|| Front Page Top

#12 I have a friend in Utah who just completed a job interview for a "teaching" position and was asked if she could have any car, what would she drive. It turned out they were wanting her to pay them to teach her so she could then teach others.
Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues  2009-08-09 17:45||   2009-08-09 17:45|| Front Page Top

#13 asked if she could have any car, what would she drive

an F-150, Duh! Drink up ya scurvy dogs!
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-08-09 17:51||   2009-08-09 17:51|| Front Page Top

#14 Frank... I thought it was a 1975 Toyota Land Cruiser with a big block Chevy engine mod...
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 18:47||   2009-08-09 18:47|| Front Page Top

#15 '77 FJ40 - still in the garage with a 350 355 Chevy - Holley Carb and Edelbrock cam/lifters package. Garaged since my divorce (ex wanted to punish me by selling it) in '91. Immaculate condition
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-08-09 18:52||   2009-08-09 18:52|| Front Page Top

#16 not for sale :-)
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-08-09 18:53||   2009-08-09 18:53|| Front Page Top

#17 When it is for sale - my wife want's first dibs.
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 19:46||   2009-08-09 19:46|| Front Page Top

#18 I don't care what vehicle it is, short of a flying saucer. I just want it to have a chauffeur. So I can get an extra hour of work in while he/she/it is driving of course!

One time I got mad and demanded their whole job list from HR and looked through the applications myself - making HR set up interviews with people that met my needs.

Mr. Wife wants to know how that worked out for you, 3dc.

AzCat, I'm speechless from laughing so hard.

Good luck, dear Frank G, although I'm sure it's just a formality.
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2009-08-09 20:06||   2009-08-09 20:06|| Front Page Top

#19 Went to a interview as a librarian in a local school district. Each school interviews their candidates. The school I was to interview with was the top performer in the district.

I walked in, and the first words out of the (female) principal's mouth were "we don't normally have men doing this job; we do have some custodial positions, though."

I went to work at another, smaller school (as a librarian/assistant. principal).
Posted by Pappy 2009-08-09 21:14||   2009-08-09 21:14|| Front Page Top

#20 well, this one is as Senior Bridge Engineer...hopefully I won't
F it up?
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-08-09 21:47||   2009-08-09 21:47|| Front Page Top

#21 "we don't normally have men doing this job; we do have some custodial positions, though."

Beautiful! I nearly fell out of my chair at the thought of that encounter.
Posted by AzCat 2009-08-09 22:55||   2009-08-09 22:55|| Front Page Top

#22 Forgive me, Pappy. My first thought was, "What position -- vertical?"
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2009-08-09 23:15||   2009-08-09 23:15|| Front Page Top

#23 Tell mister wife it worked fine TW.
I got useful people and only had to scream for 2 weeks.
Of course HR never even pretended to be friendly after that.... Feeling was mutual.
Posted by 3dc 2009-08-09 23:50||   2009-08-09 23:50|| Front Page Top

23:50 3dc
23:28 trailing wife
23:23 trailing wife
23:20 trailing wife
23:17 trailing wife
23:15 JosephMendiola
23:15 trailing wife
23:01 JosephMendiola
22:57 JosephMendiola
22:55 AzCat
22:53 JosephMendiola
22:51 JosephMendiola
22:49 Percy Spons4194
22:44 JosephMendiola
22:38 tipper
22:35 Zhang Fei
22:34 Procopius2k
22:34 Zhang Fei
22:10 Rambler in Virginia
22:00 Rambler in Virginia
21:47 Frank G
21:45 anymouse
21:38 Frank G
21:32 Fred









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