BS interview answers

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Speaking to a former coworker that is looking for work and he says

Wait first, this is an educated professional in his 50s with lots of experience.

He says "If they ask me for a weakness I just look down and shake my head and say 'I just work too dang hard' I am just passionate about getting the job done to a fault"

It took everything I had not to punch him in the dick. Probably has a big one. He is a big guy. I might have had to punch it twice just to cover it.

I mean he is heavy. He is not like 8 feet tall. but most people would say [chris farley pause voice] That's one big fella... Likes a second helping if ya know what I mean.

Ok so yeah just tell people what sucks about you.

My boss interviewed me and said what is your greatest weakness?

I said:
"How much time do you have?

It depends on who you ask.
If you ask my current boss, he gets frustrated that my brain doesn't shift gears fast enough. He walks up and wants to know about x. I say will let me think for a second, I was doing y. Sometimes I pull up notes and give him info on x. He hates this feature of me. He wants me to be able to recall anything instantly. I just dont have that much RAM

Now if you want to know what I think my biggest weakness is, I get distracted easily. Since this is a weakness I am well aware of, you probably wont notice it. I counter it by taking notes all the time. In a meeting, I write down most things not because I will forget but because it forces me to stay engaged. It works well for me."

She goes "That was unusually honest"
I said "you will find out eventually right?"

Do not go to an interview and spout off your communications 101 course to a perspective employer.

Sorry. I just had this conversation and couldn't believe a dude with the chops to handle ANYTHING in IT and a plausibly moderately sized wang was going to interview with this college intern "Make a negative a positive" idea.

Dont do that.

If anyone asks you why man hole covers are round in an interview
you say "Because man holes are round! Round hole, Round Lid Mutha Effa"

No need to do anything rote in an interview.

I bet he has a big man hole too.
 
"What do you consider your worst weakness?"

"I'm too honest."

"That doesn't seem too bad."

"Who gives a *&^% what you think?"

Ron Wanttaja
 
The old favorite:

What is the wingspan of this airplane?

Why would I need to know that, am I going to build a box to ship it?
 
My favorite answer to an interview question completely outside my advertised skills and the position description, "Are you serious?"

I didn't get an offer :rolleyes:

I did get an offer from a somewhat well-known company semi-famous for their 'stump-the-chump' style interviews. Part of the (solicited) feedback I provided after declining was that they spent too much time trying to trip me up and not enough talking with me about the position.

Nauga,
from where he wants to be
 
Isn't this really about BS interview questions? Does a question like that actually serve any legitimate purpose?
 
The question that got me hired on with my previous company:

Q- what is your greatest achievement and what did you learn?

A- I survived lawn darts as a kid, I now know that bicycle helmets have turned today's youth into pursies
 
My greatest weakness? I have only one. Kryptonite.
 
I was once told long ago that your strengths are also your weaknesses, and there is some truth to that. So when someone asks what my weaknesses are, I just rephrase one of my strengths.

E.g. I am very detail oriented, so when asked for a weakness, I say, "well, I'm very detail oriented, so sometimes I can fail to see the big picture because I'm concentrating too much on small details." If the position requires me to pay attention to small details and not worry specifically about the big picture, it seems to me like this would be the perfect and completely honest answer.
 
Palmpilot said:
Isn't this really about BS interview questions? Does a question like that actually serve any legitimate purpose?
Click to expand...
It is a question that has been in every interview I've done in my life.

They basically want to see if you are capable of some degree of self-assessment.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Speaking to a former coworker that is looking for work and he says

Wait first, this is an educated professional in his 50s with lots of experience.

He says "If they ask me for a weakness I just look down and shake my head and say 'I just work too dang hard' I am just passionate about getting the job done to a fault"

It took everything I had not to punch him in the dick. Probably has a big one. He is a big guy. I might have had to punch it twice just to cover it.

I mean he is heavy. He is not like 8 feet tall. but most people would say [chris farley pause voice] That's one big fella... Likes a second helping if ya know what I mean.

Ok so yeah just tell people what sucks about you.

My boss interviewed me and said what is your greatest weakness?

I said:
"How much time do you have?

It depends on who you ask.
If you ask my current boss, he gets frustrated that my brain doesn't shift gears fast enough. He walks up and wants to know about x. I say will let me think for a second, I was doing y. Sometimes I pull up notes and give him info on x. He hates this feature of me. He wants me to be able to recall anything instantly. I just dont have that much RAM

Now if you want to know what I think my biggest weakness is, I get distracted easily. Since this is a weakness I am well aware of, you probably wont notice it. I counter it by taking notes all the time. In a meeting, I write down most things not because I will forget but because it forces me to stay engaged. It works well for me."

She goes "That was unusually honest"
I said "you will find out eventually right?"

Do not go to an interview and spout off your communications 101 course to a perspective employer.

Sorry. I just had this conversation and couldn't believe a dude with the chops to handle ANYTHING in IT and a plausibly moderately sized wang was going to interview with this college intern "Make a negative a positive" idea.

Dont do that.

If anyone asks you why man hole covers are round in an interview
you say "Because man holes are round! Round hole, Round Lid Mutha Effa"

No need to do anything rote in an interview.

I bet he has a big man hole too.
Click to expand...
So....why does this bother you so much? That you want to punch a big guy in the junk? I mean, do you just really want to touch his junk?

If these people have such bad answers to the question, wouldn't that make it easier for you to do well in the interview???

I never worry about what other people are going to say in an interview and just make sure I can articulate my position clearly.
 
People in their 50s, and large are not smart.

People in their 30s, of average height/weight are smart.

Noted. :rollercoaster:
 
I hate those dumb questions, what's your greatest strength, whats a situation where...

Many of these HR types actually have a college education, is that all they did for 4 years, memorize the same stupid questions lmao

It's easier to just have a conversation about past work and the current position IMO
 
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Fearless Tower said:
So....why does this bother you so much? That you want to punch a big guy in the junk? I mean, do you just really want to touch his junk?

If these people have such bad answers to the question, wouldn't that make it easier for you to do well in the interview???

I never worry about what other people are going to say in an interview and just make sure I can articulate my position clearly.
Click to expand...

I just wanted to type "dick" in a thread.
 
The absolute best way to do well in an interview is to keep the other person talking as much as you possibly can. You have to be honest and forthcoming, but keep them talking.

What is your greatest weakness?

"What kind of weaknesses would you think impact this position?"
 
In the last interview I sat in on, I asked the applicant:

"If you were a Disney Princess, which one would you be, and why?"


Of course, I knew the guy for years before the interview. :D
 
I do interviews for my company. I ask this question sometimes. I don't expect to get an answer about how you have crippling anxiety, etc. I want to hear some self assessment and a little humility because those are traits we value in our corporate culture.

6PC's answer is a strong one, it's honest and straight forward. Everybody has faults. Pick an honest (but not deadly) fault that that you have and have a canned answer about it.

Mine is memory. I know that if I don't write things down, there's a good chance I won't remember that I need to do them. I've learned to keep a task list, to take/get someone to take meeting minutes very carefully and to try to keep note paper with me to write action items down. I'll ask you to ask for things early so if I have forgotten I can still get them in on the deadline. That all helps, but there still will be times when I'm asked for something and I won't have it done yet because it never made it into my task list. This is me - I'm not perfect. My brain is going 90 mph most of the time and I can't keep a task list in memory. If anyone cares to know, I'll tell you about all the different ways I tried to help remember to switch gas tanks on a Warrior every 30 minutes.

Restating a strength is an evasive answer - "I care too much" invokes an internal eye roll and maybe an external one too. It leans toward a lack of confidence, giving the impression that you consider yourself on the bubble and you need to hide every negative. It also means you didn't answer the question asked and I'm missing information I need to make a decision. Maybe the rest of the interview was strong enough to compensate, but I don't hire or recommend bubble candidates that I don't know enough about.
 
Position: Forklift Operator

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: My writing skills. I not a great writer.

Position: Engineer

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: I can't drive a forklift worth ****.

Position: Food Service Worker

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: I get nervous around explosives.

Position: Demolitions Expert

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: I'm bulimic.

Position: Scottish Cultural Advocate

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: I have this thing for sheep.

Position: Wool shearer

Q: What do you consider your biggest weakness?
A: I hate the sound of bagpipes.
 
I have been doing a lot of hiring in my group lately. I was interviewing for a system analyst with one of my newly hired supervisors in the room. He's spent a couple of decades at Microsoft, and has all this goofy big company training. He started in on this guy about how many sides would you have on a Rubik's cube piece that is in X position. The guy answered them correctly, but afterwards I asked what that was all about. He said it was an attempt to see if they could envision things spatially and abstractly. I told him to figure out other ways to get to that point ... namely delving into the process used to develop an app or something because that was dumb. (okay, that last part was on the inside).
 
Frogs97 said:
I have been doing a lot of hiring in my group lately. I was interviewing for a system analyst with one of my newly hired supervisors in the room. He's spent a couple of decades at Microsoft, and has all this goofy big company training. He started in on this guy about how many sides would you have on a Rubik's cube piece that is in X position. The guy answered them correctly, but afterwards I asked what that was all about. He said it was an attempt to see if they could envision things spatially and abstractly. I told him to figure out other ways to get to that point ... namely delving into the process used to develop an app or something because that was dumb. (okay, that last part was on the inside).
Click to expand...

It was a general intelligence question.

Can what you do be learned? If so, then you'd be better hiring smart people that can be taught and teaching them exactly what you want them to know. Your hiring costs will be lower because you'll have a much, much wider pool of candidates to hire from. That will be offset by training costs but the end result is that you'll have a team that knows exactly how to do the things you want done.

The alternative is to try to hire all the experts in your field, just like everyone else is doing. I trust you know there are not enough experts to go around. As one of those experts, I should recommend this approach because I really like it when companies bid my pay higher and higher for my services.
 
I think part of the modern interview process is finding out just how much ridiculous BS the applicant is willing to put up with.
 
cowman said:
I think part of the modern interview process is finding out just how much ridiculous BS the applicant is willing to put up with.
Click to expand...

I don't stand (or sit) for games from interviewers. If you can't act businesslike, professional and need to put me on the spot with some prank to see what I'll do then I don't want to work there.
 
I sometimes forget how awesome I am and how it makes others feel about themselves.
 
Fearless Tower said:
It is a question that has been in every interview I've done in my life.

They basically want to see if you are capable of some degree of self-assessment.
Click to expand...

I've never been asked that question in an interview. I've been out of the job market for along time though.
 
"My greatest weakness is that I don't interview well."
 
One time I tried to be cute

Q what is your greatest weakness?
A passing a drug test

not so much as a giggle.

An interview is not the place to test out your new material I guess
 
I've been asked weird questions, like

'how many ping pong balls do you think it would take the fill this room?' - I dunno, how many would fit up your ass?
'design a house for me' - this one was fun. I like abstract questions.

Then there's the riddle questions...
There's a light in the attic. You're in the basement with 3 switches. Going up the stairs only once, how can you tell which one turns the light on?

But yeah, that weakness question is weak. My weakness? I'd rather be flying airplanes right now.
 
49b527e0c9c40132db02005056a9545d
 
bflynn said:
It was a general intelligence question.

Can what you do be learned? If so, then you'd be better hiring smart people that can be taught and teaching them exactly what you want them to know. Your hiring costs will be lower because you'll have a much, much wider pool of candidates to hire from. That will be offset by training costs but the end result is that you'll have a team that knows exactly how to do the things you want done.

The alternative is to try to hire all the experts in your field, just like everyone else is doing. I trust you know there are not enough experts to go around. As one of those experts, I should recommend this approach because I really like it when companies bid my pay higher and higher for my services.
Click to expand...

Yes, but sometimes opportunity costs outweigh any premium paid for experience.

That being said, I'm re-organizing so I can hire cheap and brainwash them into my way.
 
Companies that still rely on open-ended questions in unstructured interviews deserve the fiscal difficulties that come their way.

It isn't like study after study has shown that unstructured interviews actually lead to the less productive and qualified candidates being hired. It is sad though, but perhaps not unexpected, that few are charged with designing a company's hiring process. And even if someone is, they don't know enough (or do not have the humility to realize the processes they learned from others are flawed) to do some research on what studies have revealed as the best predictors of quality hires.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Companies that still rely on open-ended questions in unstructured interviews deserve the fiscal difficulties that come their way.

It isn't like study after study has shown that unstructured interviews actually lead to the less productive and qualified candidates being hired. It is sad though, but perhaps not unexpected, that few are charged with designing a company's hiring process. And even if someone is, they don't know enough (or do not have the humility to realize the processes they learned from others are flawed) to do some research on what studies have revealed as the best predictors of quality hires.
Click to expand...

More often than not, open-ended questions, along with longer than normal pauses, will net you answers to questions you'd like to ask, but can't.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Companies that still rely on open-ended questions in unstructured interviews deserve the fiscal difficulties that come their way.

It isn't like study after study has shown that unstructured interviews actually lead to the less productive and qualified candidates being hired. It is sad though, but perhaps not unexpected, that few are charged with designing a company's hiring process. And even if someone is, they don't know enough (or do not have the humility to realize the processes they learned from others are flawed) to do some research on what studies have revealed as the best predictors of quality hires.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the American way - blame someone else.

In this case, you don't like the question - Blame the company for conducting a bad interview. Let's base our application decisions on who does the best interviews - that sounds perfect! Totally Millennial based thinking at its finest!

Interviewer: "Why do you want to work for us"
The "Modern Applicant": "Because I like the questions you ask in interviews"

I prefer to use other metrics. If I want to work for that company, I'll spend the time to do the research on the interview process and do my best to prepare. If that isn't your bag, look someplace else.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Triangle won't either
Click to expand...

Yes it will.

Assuming it's equilateral (the hardest case), the distance from vertex to base is smaller than the distance from vertex to vertex by a factor of 1.13.

No shape will fall in the hole if the hole is smaller than the cover's shortest dimension in 2D.
 
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