Your Weirdest Interview Question.

[Jake]

Years ago I was told that there were questions that were against Federal law to ask. Well, some how the people conducting interviews never got the memo because I have been hearing for some time stories about "strange" questions. Off the wall questions that have zero relationship to the job. I just think there are a lot of bad interviewers out there. People that don't know what they are doing and have no plan beyond looking at the resume.
So, basically you should lie on your resume because that's the prime decider of whether you get your foot in the door.

Amazingly, that's a fairly lucid portrayal of reality.

 

[buckeyebri]

Similar to Zurp, I had to take a test that was a personality baseline test. I would actually question the legality of that test even though they hired me. They used it a lot throughout my tour there for reviews. I have also been asked "what will people say about you at your retirement party", which is a classic Servant Leadership question. I have also been asked the "tell me a joke" question. My answer to the tell me a joke question was "I'm a Buckeye interviewing for a job in Michigan".....

 

[kinch]

Remember that guy that Clinton pardoned but shouldn't have (or something) years ago? And that guy's wife was Clinton's buddy or something?

Well, my then girl interviewed to be that woman's personal assistant. There were many questions along the lines of "do you plan on having a baby? You can't have a baby while working for me" etc.

 

[MaliBuckeye]

I usually use an odd question to see how candidates think on their feet as well as how they organize their lives.

For a while, I went with "tell me what the closet in your bedroom looks like". You know, messy, organized by color, lots of shoes- stuff that lets you know a bit about a person.

Stopped asking the question after someone I hired disclosed to me that they were gay... and that the question had an obvious dual meaning for them.

Now I ask "describe the inside of your car" for the same purpose.

Would have gone with "trunk of your car", but Craig James is out of work, so...

 

[BoxCar_Willie]

Not sure if this fits here but when I needed about 9 months of fill time after I sold my financial advising business I interviewed at JP Morgan up at their HQ in Polaris for a financial advising position at a bank branch.

I didn't hit if off really well with the interviewer. She asked me how I would explain what a "stock" is to a client. I went deep and started out with a private company example, of going public, issuing stock, and being traded on the exchange for years. I even went regulatory.

She told me I had described bonds, not stocks, because companies don't issue stock. The hiring manager for the financial advisory branch positions didn't know what a stock was......and she was bragging about how she trains people. I wanted to kick her in the pussy. I really just had nothing after that. Obviously that job was a no go.