Craziest Interview Question

[expat]

Many years ago I was interviewed for a job in a hardware store. My previous job was installing lawn irrigation systems.
I was asked "What did you learn from your last job". I replied that I had learned about solenoid valves, different types of plastic pipe and their adhesives, when I was interupted and asked "No. What did you learn about yourself?
I answered " I learned that I don't like sticking my head down muddy holes full of water!"

I did not get the job.

Re The Butterfly: I would have tried to negotiate a higher price

 

[Kruse]

I was fresh out of school and had taken a small class on how to do the "perfect" resume. Basically, I was told to keep it short and sweet. I was also told not to include any personal traits about myself, such as hobbies.
Being somewhat rebellious, my resume was two pages long and finished up with my list of hobbies, the final one I listed was my love for playing softball.
My first interview was with a company that had, at the time, about 35,000 employees.
So I get to the interview and my resume must have been a "cookie cutter" resume and nothing really perked up my interviewer UNTIL he noticed that I liked playing softball.
Suddenly, the interviewer perked up and asked me a dozen questions about my softball ability. Turns out the interviewer was on a company softball team that took their playing ability very seriously.
I was hired with the condition that I try out for their softball team, which I easily made. We had an excellent season.

Years ago, I saw in Reader's Digest a question that is frequently asked in job interviews. Here is the question:
Joe and Jim take out all the money in both of their pockets and it adds up to an even $20. Joe has exactly $19 more than Jim. How much money does Joe have and how much money does Jim have?
If you answered "Joe has $19 and Jim has $1", you answered WRONG. Now take your time and think about it.

 

[DoubleWasp]

Stupid interview questions are part of the reason I work for myself nowadays.

The weirdest questions I was ever asked were any questions pertaining to one's mother. Those are almost universally a trap of some sort.

Was once asked, "If you had to, how would you steal money from this company?"

I answered that I could in no way imagine how answering that question would in any way help me. Oddly, he kept pushing the issue. I offered to leave, and he backed down.

He then offered to tell me how he would do it. I again offered to leave.

I actually got that job, but wish I hadn't.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by DoubleWasp
Stupid interview questions are part of the reason I work for myself nowadays.

The weirdest questions I was ever asked were any questions pertaining to one's mother. Those are almost universally a trap of some sort.



Maybe he just wanted to see if you were a replicant. Although the answer isn't good if you are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf3-kqAoYzI

 

[DoubleWasp]

Lol. Not quite that way, but now I'm forced to wonder if this was an inspiration.

First time I noticed mother questions was when I was applying to work for a computer giant when I was 19. This was actually a computer (surprise) questionnaire. There were multiple questions, spaced far apart asking about relationship with your mother, encounters with your mother, amount of time spent with your mother, etc, etc. It made me kind of uncomfortable having to answer questions about my mother to a computer.

Didn't think much about it until I later interviewed for a Telecom giant. More stupid mother questions. I actually noticed the interviewer seemed more interested in the mother questions than many other more relevant ones.

I later conducted interviews for that company. Among the questions recommended to ask? Mother questions. Holy shoot.

I only learned two things. One, I was to reject any applicant who reacts poorly to mother questions, and two, sometimes people have weird reactions to mother questions. Had I seen Blade Runner (yeah, I'm that guy who never saw BR) I might have kept one hand on a gun under my desk.

Natural assumption is that it's a part of sorry psychological profiling. Assumption that if one has a bad relationship with their mother, they probably have a lot of other issues trailing them........or that they are a robot.

When I was asked those questions, I immediately shifted into giving Rosy and plausible answers. Not because I had anything to hide. I was just so weirded out by having an older stranger ask those questions that I had to mask being creeped out.

 

[das_peikko]

Originally Posted by Gebo
I respect your beliefs. But I do have one more question. How do you feel about abortions?


In some cases such as severe pre-birth defects, I think it's warranted. No sense in making a child go through life under such horrible circumstances.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Gebo
I have had some doozies for interview questions but I don't think I have ever heard of one as goofy as what was asked of my wife 15 years ago.

She was asked, "Would you kill a beautiful butterfly for $10,000?"

She said she would kill it for 10K. She got the job. Almost every person she talked with about the interview said they would not. Those interviewed asked her how could she be so insensitive and cruel. This is not a joke. There is one fact I need to mention. This was for a position at a college.

What is the most bizarre job interview question you were every asked?.


Quote
The CIA is interviewing three potential agents -- two men and a woman. For the final test, they bring one of the male candidates to a door and hand him a gun. "We must know that you will follow instructions, no matter what," says the interviewer. "Inside this room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill her."
"You can't be serious," the man says. "I could never shoot my wife."
"Then you're not the right man for the job," says the interviewer.
The second man is given the same instructions. Five minutes later, he emerges with tears in his eyes and says, "I can't."
Finally, the woman is given the test, but with her husband. She takes the gun and enters the room. Shots are heard, then screaming, crashing, and banging. After a few minutes, she comes out and wipes the sweat from her brow. "You didn't tell me the gun was loaded with blanks," she says. "I had to beat him to death with the chair."


My brother hands them a spring clothes peg.
Asks them to check it out carefully.
Asks for it back, then quickly pulls it apart.

Hands it back to them and asks them to reassemble it while they have a chat about their future employment.

The industry he is in, he knows that tradies chat on the job...he wants them to chat while they work and work while they chat.

 

[Kestas]

Originally Posted by Kruse
Joe and Jim take out all the money in both of their pockets and it adds up to an even $20. Joe has exactly $19 more than Jim. How much money does Joe have and how much money does Jim have?
If you answered "Joe has $19 and Jim has $1", you answered WRONG. Now take your time and think about it.

Good question. That took me a minute to figure out.

 

[PandaBear]

Let me put it this way:

Mother questions is a way to screen potential problem in people so they either 1) don't have high medical cost or 2) will break down over stress and do crazy things. They can't legally do it by looking at their family up bringing (i.e. skin color, zip code, family background, school they came from) so they use this kind of questions.

Butterfly: they want you to justify a bad decision and how to BS around why you would do it (i.e. you can raise many more butterfly for $10k to justify it) or they are looking for people with integrity (it is endangered and will create PR nightmare). The problem is you don't know which one is "their" right answer, even if you are flexible on this.

Softball: I'm sorry to say but if someone got hired for this then this is a horrible workplace. What is to prevent the company from hiring ladies who will sleep with the boss instead? or will spend after work hours cleaning the boss' house? or will submit fake reimbursement for the boss? Congrats on getting the job but it isn't how it should have been done.

This is why I would not allow people use these kind of questions in interview.

 

[Sandres]

I haven't been interviewed for a long time, but I have heard many interesting friends stories. I was always amused by stress tests, although I don't know what I was doing in their place. I really like the fact that there are whole articles on the web devoted to interview questions, for example, this one https://booksrun.com/blog/2-most-popular-fit-questions-at-interviews/ . They help people prepare for successful interviews. There are so many strange questions that an employer can ask, but their only goal is to find the most suitable candidate. Many employers are looking for people with creative thinking and you need to develop it in yourself.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by DoubleWasp
Lol. Not quite that way, but now I'm forced to wonder if this was an inspiration.

First time I noticed mother questions was when I was applying to work for a computer giant when I was 19. This was actually a computer (surprise) questionnaire. There were multiple questions, spaced far apart asking about relationship with your mother, encounters with your mother, amount of time spent with your mother, etc, etc. It made me kind of uncomfortable having to answer questions about my mother to a computer.

Didn't think much about it until I later interviewed for a Telecom giant. More stupid mother questions. I actually noticed the interviewer seemed more interested in the mother questions than many other more relevant ones.

I later conducted interviews for that company. Among the questions recommended to ask? Mother questions. Holy shoot.

I only learned two things. One, I was to reject any applicant who reacts poorly to mother questions, and two, sometimes people have weird reactions to mother questions. Had I seen Blade Runner (yeah, I'm that guy who never saw BR) I might have kept one hand on a gun under my desk.

You need to watch the whole thing then, but here's the whole interview bit til the end.

 

[KalapanaBlack]

I have used a very odd question a few times:

If you have a shirt with a pocket on the right side when worn correctly, and you turn it inside out and put it back on, which side is the pocket on?

I read it somewhere as a spatial/mental manipulation/reasoning question. Sure, it's a 50/50 guess but if someone thinks for the seemingly right amount of time and answers correctly, I think it's a good measure of their cognitive abilities.

I also was given 10 questions from an IQ test one time. It wasn't corporate policy, but was the local manager's way of reading reasoning ability. I thought it was a good test of abilities.

 

[bunnspecial]

I had an interview about a year and a half ago where I was asked if I would be willing to do one specific task in the course of my job duties that was illegal.

I answered that no I wouldn't and gave the reason why, and instead proposed an alternate(legal) way to achieve the same thing that I would be willing to do instead.

I don't know if they were attempting to trap me or if the person legitimately didn't know-it was something a bit obscure, I was being interviewed by a committee of 4 or 5 people, and I wouldn't necessarily have expected the person asking the question to know about that particular topic(while it would have been expected of me in the position for which I was being hired). After I gave my answer, the person who was sort of heading the interview said "So, can I summarize your answer to that question by saying that you would follow any applicable laws?"

Whatever the case, I was offered the job(didn't take it for a bunch of reasons, although that question wasn't one of them), so I guess that they were satisfied with my answer to that and other questions.

 

[aquariuscsm]

The one I hate the most is "So tell me about yourself". Um,ok.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
The one I hate the most is "So tell me about yourself". Um,ok.


You're supposed to have a 1 minute elevator speech ready to go at all time. That would be the time for it.

Speaking of elevators, the head of the company once greeted me in the elevator. He got my name right but then said I was doing a great job in accounting. I was in IT.

 

[Gebo]

My strangest interview was for sales position with Consolidated Freightways. The interviewee before me came out crying. I go In and the interviewer has his back to me looking out the window. The sun is shining so bright I have to squint just to see the back of him. He stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity. I just stood there. He finally said before even turning around, "Begin."

He asked me if I thought I was a pretty good judge of people. I told him I thought I was. He said, "judge me."

I told him that he reminded me of a cat that plays with a mouse and tortures it but never kills it. The cat lets the mouse get away and right before the mouse escapes the cat pounces on him again and holds him down. Over and over. I told him he was the cat and I was the mouse.

I got the job.

 

[Gebo]

One time I was asked by an owner if I could submit to him. I'm thinking he was concerned that I had run my own business and wouldn't be able to take orders from him.

I told him I wasn't sure but I believed I could.

He extended his hand and smiled and asked when I could start.

Something tells me if I had said, "Yes" , he wouldn't have hired me. Nobody knows for sure if they can submit until they are put in that position.