Stupid Interview Questions

[canyonwalker]

In the past I've written a few journals about stupid interview tricks: dumb things interviewers have done or said in front of me, how I responded in the moment, and how I wish I had responded. Today LinkedIn pointed me to an article, "Smart Answers to Stupid Interview Questions", by Liz Ryan. In her article Ryan lists three "stupid" interview

Comments

[slothman]

My answer to #1 is to cite my poor memory and that I compensate for it by writing lots of comments and documentation- turning the weakness into a strength.

[canyonwalker]

Turning a weakness into a strength is a classic way to answer question #1. Yours is a good example. But watch out that sometimes interviewers get tired of every candidate answering with a weakness that's actually a strength.

[verbicide]

I interview people a lot these days, and I've always been fairly comfortable interviewing for positions myself

[canyonwalker]

I'm interested in chatting a bit more about how you screen people in 5 minutes on the phone. I presume you're talking about weeding out the obvious misfits. Being able to suss out, in 5 minutes, the difference between a candidate who's a hire and one who's merely okay would be amazing!

[verbicide]

I think it's been more clear within the first 5 minutes who I wasn't interested in talking to further. And I've learned to cut those chats down to 15 minutes. (I used to force myself to endure the full half hour. No more.)

But the people we hired, I knew I really liked within the first 5. That said, they had to go through the paces. But it's amazing how the clear winners have been so clear from the start.

[canyonwalker]

A reasonable goal for the phone screen interview is to triage candidates. Put them in categories of "Misfit", "Maybe", and "Hot prospect". The misfits you obviously want to disengage with quickly. People in the other two categories deserve more time. Of course, as you spend more time getting to know the candidates, people in the Maybe category can move up (perhaps they don't do phone screens well) and some of the Hot Prospects will move down (they're bullshitters, pompous jerks, or looking for a different role).

[canyonwalker]

An example of a stupid question-- the type which I think would justify a snarky response-- is, "If you were a household appliance, which one would you be and why?"

I don't recall ever being asked this one personally, though lots of interviewing advice articles reference it. I wonder if it ever was a common question or it's a case of a "runaway example" -- a comical notion that everyone repeats as if it happened to them though it never actually happened to anyone.