Favorite Stupid Interview Questions
... and man I've had some doozies leveled at me in my day. My all-time favorites seem to be the uber-technical job-irrelevant queries submitted by some geek swinging his dick and staking out his territory for the new guys, but then again there are others that I remember fondly as well.
What follows are some real questions, along with my actual responses. Two of the below interviews led to job offers, one of which I actually accepted despite the question.
* This was in 2008 - WTF
** It's actually 792, 1149 was a practical joke involving carrier pigeons
*** As it turns out, religious non-profit organizations can do quite a bit of digging around your private life with relative impunity - who knew.
What follows are some real questions, along with my actual responses. Two of the below interviews led to job offers, one of which I actually accepted despite the question.
- Q: What port can run SSL over HTTP?
A: Um, I can tell you what port is assigned by IANA to be the default for HTTP over SSL, will that work? - Q: How would I go about securing a Red Hat Linux 4.2 workstation? *
A: Upgrade it to Enterprise 5.2? - Q: What's the difference between Smurf and Fraggle?
A: They do the same essential thing, but one is TCP-based and the other is --
Q: UDP, yep.
A: -- I was going to say ICMP.
Q: ICMP.
A: Yes, it uses ping, which is part of IP and not a transport layer protocol.
Q: Okay, do you know the RFC number for ICMP?
A: 1149. **
Q: Very good. - Q: What microkernel OS attained POSIX.1 compliance in 1997?
A: I think I'm in the wrong interview. - Q: How do you feel about Kevin Mitnick's imprisonment?
A: Well, I feel that he'd be pretty pissed that that was an interview question ... - Q: Do you believe in pre-marital sexual relations?
A: What? ***
* This was in 2008 - WTF
** It's actually 792, 1149 was a practical joke involving carrier pigeons
*** As it turns out, religious non-profit organizations can do quite a bit of digging around your private life with relative impunity - who knew.