Finding the right person for a job is never easy, but interviews can at least tell you something about how serious a candidate is.
Take this list of outrageous questions that job candidates had the temerity to ask in actual interviews, compiled by staffing services firm OfficeTeam. You can tell a lot about a candidate’s motivation by what they focus on in interviews, so you’d clearly want to avoid hiring these folks.
Here are some of the questions these actual interviewees asked:
- “Do I have to be at work every day?”
- “Do you have a job for my partner?”
- “What are the women who work here like?”
- “Can I have three weeks off every three months to pursue my music career?”
- “Is it OK to wear shorts to work?”
- “What job is this for?”
Not very promising. OfficeTeam also offered a few examples of questions that would reflect well on a candidate:
- “While researching your firm, I learned the company recently [fill in the blank]. How does this affect your current strategy?”
- “Can you describe a typical workday for a person in this role?”
- “What skills and attributes are most important for success in this role?”
Questions like those suggest a candidate who’s thinking about your organization and what they can contribute to it.
Adapted from Six Outrageous Questions From Job Candidates by Dennis McCafferty at CIO Insight.