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Weird And Wonderful Interview Questions

Thu, 20 Jun 2013
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As Candidate Manager at Impact I meet a lot of candidates each month.  In the process you hear some really strange answers to your questions. This got me thinking of strange interview questions I had been asked and the slightly weird and wonderful replies I had received to questions I had posed to candidates. This blog is a bit of fun exploring some experiences of Impact’s Consultants and also a collection of the strangest questions in use out there.

Natalie from our HR Division was once asked ‘talk me through the process behind making a cup of tea’ , a question which initially seems strange but can offer insight to your attitude behind process and how detail oriented you are.

Rebecca from our Permanent Support Division once had a candidate describe herself as ‘listy’ meaning she likes lists but just sounds wrong!

Jan from our Permanent Support team was once asked – ‘If you were an animal what would you be’ although this also sounds a little off the wall – the animal you would choose probably says a lot about what you see as your dominant traits or what attributes you see as desirable in yourself or others.

More weird and wonderful questions and attempted explanations!;

  • Entertain me for 5 minutes – I’m not going to talk.

This shows how you deal with pressure/unexpected/how you get relevantcontent into that time frame

  • What punctuation mark best describes you?

Shows your personality

  • Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in terms of weirdness

Obviously if you rate yourself as a 10 that’s a problem! But this shows yourpersonality traits and gets you talking about your character more broadly

  • What song best describes your work ethic

Shows your personality traits and interests

  • A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?

Shows your creativity

  • If you could be any character from fiction who would it be?

Shows interests and personality

  • If you only had 6 months to live, what would you do with the time?

This is aimed at demonstrating your goals/priorities and life ambitions

  • What makes you angry?

Aimed at seeing how you deal with pressure and what certain triggers are foryou. Be careful about conceding you lose your temper quickly!

In summary, some of the strangest interview questions are actually rather effective at highlighting some of the things which can be missed by traditional ones.

Our main advice is to not get lulled into a false sense of security, you should ask yourself why that question is being asked and give yourself time to think before answering.   Also use this opportunity to showcase all the positive sides of your personality.