Ever been caught off guard by a job interview question? Most people have because many employers have resorted to asking applicants questions that could be considered offbeat or even off the wall.
Thomas Edison reportedly had a list of surprising queries he used when interviewing job applicants. Among his stumpers, as reported on the Mental Floss website:
- Who invented logarithms? (John Napier, a Scottish mathematician, in the mid 1600s
- Who was the Roman emperor when Jesus Christ was born? (Caesar Augustus)
- Of what is brass made? (It’s a zinc and copper alloy)
- Who was Bessemer, and what did he do? (Henry Bessemer invented the process used to mass produce steel)
If you’re looking for engaging, thought-provoking questions, a chat with HR professionals might yield some ideas. Responding to a request for “way-out-in-left-field interview questions” a few HR pros responded on HR Hero’s Facebook page and on the Employers Forum, part of HRHero.com.
One respondent said she once heard a hiring manager ask an applicant “How many paperclips do you think it would take to fill this room?” To which the applicant replied, “Regular or jumbo size clips?” The respondent added that her organization sometimes uses the following unconventional questions:
What would the title of your life story be?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?
If you had to explain what a database is to a 5-year-old, how would you do it? (That one is for IT applicants.)
A Facebook responder contributed, “If you ordered a steak rare and it came to the table well done, what would you do?” Another said she was once asked in a job interview what she would do if she came home to find a bicycle in her living room that wasn’t hers. “To this day, I have no idea what they were trying to get out of that question.”
Often there’s method to the madness when offbeat questions are asked. In an August 27, 2011, interview in The New York Times, Andy Lansing, president and chief executive of Levy Restaurants, was asked about his approach to hiring. He was quoted as saying he hires for two traits. “I hire for nice and I hire for passion.
“If you sit down with me, no matter how senior you are in the company or the position you’re applying for, my first question to you is going to be, are you nice? And the reactions are priceless,” Levy told the interviewer. He explained that he listens while interviewees talk as they try to figure out why he’s asking that question. Then he stops them and explains that he’s asking because the most important thing to being successful at his company is to be nice.
“And if you’re not nice, this is the wrong company for you. It doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you, it just means that our cultures don’t align, and there are great places out there for you, but this is the wrong one,” Levy said in the interview.
Levy also uses questions like, “What are you passionate about in your life?” and “What does passion mean to you?” He then explains that employees need to be passionate about the company and the job they’re hired to do. “If you give me someone who’s nice and who’s passionate, I can teach them everything else.”
Attorneys will remind interviewers that unconventional questions are fine — as long as they don’t cross the line into legally hazardous territory. Susan Hartmus Hiser, a shareholder with Vercruysse Murray & Calzone in Bingham Farms, Michigan, wrote in the October 2011 issue of Michigan Employment Law Letter that interviewers have to take care not to “ask questions eliciting information about an applicant’s race, color, national origin, age, sex, disability, or genetic information that is unrelated to the individual’s ability to perform the duties of a particular job.”
Hiser also reminds interviewers not to ask for a candidate’s maiden name, his or her birthplace or the birthplace of the applicant’s parents, spouse, or other relatives. Likewise, inquiries into a job candidate’s date of birth or religious affiliation are off limits.
She also warns about seemingly neutral questions that “may unduly affect members of a protected group or result in disclosure of information that reveals an applicant’s protected class.” Also, if an applicant voluntarily discloses prohibited information without being asked, the interviewer shouldn’t record the information on the application or in interview notes.
In the September 2011 issue of Indiana Employment Law Letter, Craig M. Borowski, a partner with Faegre Baker Daniels in Indianapolis, wrote of the importance of training interviewers since many questions “are inappropriate or perhaps even unlawful, such as certain questions relating to medical conditions, which, depending on the circumstances, could be unlawful under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).”
“At the same time,” Borowski wrote, “an applicant might volunteer information during an interview that triggers certain obligations on your part with respect to reasonable accommodations under the ADA. A supervisor who hasn’t received ADA training may not recognize those indicators and could say something that creates potential liability under the Act.”
As a college student interviewing for a summer job, I was once asked if I ever had sex with a co-worker. I was not expecting that one.
I tried the age-old tactic of buying time by answering the question with a question. My question: “Do you mean while at work?”
I didn’t get the job.
I was asked to give one reason I shouldn’t be hired. I refused, and I wasn’t hired (thank goodness)!