In today’s job market, there are a lot of applicants competing for every job. When I talk with recruiters and headhunters, they all agree that not only are there a lot of applicants, but the résumés all look alike. No wonder some interviewers resort to Wacky Interview Questions, like the ones highlighted below. What is the Wackiest Interview Question you have ever asked or been asked in a Job Interview? Leave me a comment…
You do not have to resort to Wacky Interview Questions to find out more about your applicants. Use the ProfileXT assessment to have your applicant tell you more in 45 minutes than many people find out about their employees after working with them for months or years.
Employers’ Wacky Interview Questions
(excerpted from an August 9, 2010, Fortune Magazine article by Anne Fisher)
Dear Annie: I’ve been lucky enough to get several job interviews in the past couple of months, and I’ve noticed something strange about all of them, which is that the hiring managers have posed what I would call trick questions.
Yesterday an interviewer asked me, “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” I was so surprised that it took me a few minutes to come up with an answer. I said I was like a dog, “loyal to a fault” — which made sense, since I stayed with my last employer for 17 years, despite having had other offers — but I couldn’t really tell from his reaction if that was a good response or not.
Other questions I have struggled with: The overly general “Tell me about yourself” (where do I start?) and “How long would you stay with our company?” (how do I know that when I don’t even work here yet?). What’s the deal with these weird questions, and how are people supposed to answer them? — Dumbfounded
Dear Dumbfounded: J.P. Hansen, president of Omaha-based Hansen Executive Search, was once asked the Barbara Walters-esque what-animal-would-you-be question in a job interview. His answer: A jaguar. Why? Hansen explained that “the jaguar is very versatile, able to patiently wait for its prey for hours on end, then pounce with lightning speed and grace. Plus, it’s a cool car!” The hiring manager who was quizzing him smiled, reached into her purse, and pulled out her car keys — with a Jaguar emblem on the key chain. Hansen got the job.
Of course, that kind of serendipity is rare. “The job market is so tight right now, with so many candidates available whose backgrounds and qualifications are so similar to one another, that some hiring managers try to find an ‘aha!’ moment where they can trip you up, or get you to reveal something you didn’t plan to say,” he says.
As an interviewer, resorting to Wacky Interview Questions doesn’t help you or your job applicant(s). Both of you are looking for the right “fit”. The ProfileXT® (PXT) is the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art system available today for measuring human potential and predicting job performance. The PXT assessment measures how well an individual fits specific jobs in your organization. The “job matching” feature of the PXT is unique, and it enables you to evaluate an individual relative to the qualities required to successfully perform in a specific job.
This 45-minute assessment reveals consistent, in-depth, and objective insight into an individual’s thinking and reasoning style, relevant behavioral traits, occupational interests, and match to specific jobs in your organization. It helps your managers and you interview and select people who have the highest probability of being successful in a role, and provides practical recommendations for coaching them to maximum performance. It also gives your organization consistent language and metrics to support strategic workforce and succession planning, talent management, and reorganization efforts.
The ProfileXT does all this and doesn’t ask a single Wacky Interview Question.