Obviously you’ve got your standard interview questions, but what about the type that tries to understand you’re way of thinking, that you can’t prepare for, that wants you to think outside the box.

30 comments

  1. When they ask for one word answers and ask them really quickly so you don’t have much time to think.

  4. Never been in an interview where they’ve tried to “catch me out” because that serves absolutely no purpose as to whether the candidate is suitable for a job or otherwise.

  5. “Tell me about your best day ever” – video pre-recorded style interview. Threw me right off… mainly because I’m boring but that’s another issue…..

  6. I don’t remember the exact question but I was asked a question of the type “how many basketballs are there in the UK?” once.

    After I struggled for a few seconds they told me they didn’t care about the answer and just wanted to know how I’d go about working the answer out. I found that much easier, but if that’s what they wanted to know they should have asked “how would you estimate the number of basketballs in the UK?” instead.

  7. At age 18, my brother applied for a job in a muesli factory. They asked him why he wanted to work with muesli and he had no answer.

  9. I had to give my best pirate impression

    /edit: it was an assistant accountant role

  10. My dad’s favourite trick is to ask “who would win in a fight, a badger or a baboon?”, just to see how people react when presented with something they weren’t expecting

    Think he’s had a guy go on a full 10 minute rant to justify his decision before now, but most choke up at it

    Edit: corrected the animals, the gf knew better than I did smh

  12. I’ve interviewed a lot of people over the years and like to throw people of with “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

    Normally by the time we shortlist the applicants for interview, everyone we see has the qualifications and experience to do the job, the interview is more about discovering how they’ll fit in and the type of person they are.

  13. seven years ago I was asked “what would you be in a Fish & Chip Shop?” and “what’s your favourite sandwich?”. my interviewer is a lunatic who I continue to be good friends with!

  14. Got asked if I was a tv or film character who I would be. Entirely froze and asked if we could come back to it which we didn’t. The only two I could think of on the spot were Harry Potter and Jon snow so thank god I didn’t say them

  15. ‘If I was to speak to your friends, what’s the one thing you wouldn’t want them to tell me?’ I think he was trying to be clever by not asking the standard ‘what’s your biggest weakness?’ but it just seemed stupid. I declined to answer. He offered me the job, on condition that I emailed him an answer to the question. Declined again.

  19. Retail/service job as a student. I got a straightforward interview but the batch after me had to do animal impressions to music. There was 140 of them being humiliated.

  21. Once I was moving within a company to a different branch, and I had to interview with a branch manager. She was very flirty with me on the interview, but I remained friendly and professional. Later I was told she is doing that with all the transfers, and if someone is even a little bit inappropriate, she refuses the transfer.

    A friend of mine was applying for a retail security job, and they asked him what sort of animal he would be. He’s a big Ukranian Russian guy, was in the army for 10 years before leaving the country, he just stood up and called them wankers who are waisting his time.

  23. I’ve had to go to two value based interviews. The first was years ago and you were meant to talk about you not about you and work. I failed miserably as I was totally overworking myself and had little to no identity outside of work.

    The second was more recently and it was really hard. You were basically set up to expose what your weakness might be. All the questions were designed to see if you knew what to do and if you were reacting appropriately and in line with the organisation’s values, which I learnt by heart. Very weird. I got the job and have been working there so all good now.

  24. “Sell me this pen”

    It was a standard cheap blue biro, for a Saturday job in Claire’s Accessories.

  26. Not an interview but I was once filling out an application for a chain restaurant job and it asked me what’s your most embarrassing moment

  27. Oh, you did a placement at X. Did you meet Y? What did you think of him?

    Replied honestly that I’d met him a few times and he’d kindly taught me how to use zzzz.

    Oh, really? Lots of people think he’s a complete arsehole. Are you sure?

    He did say he’d kill me if I ignored his instructions but if I’d ruined a £200k piece of kit that would be fair enough…

    Ah, he is an arsehole!

    Not that I noticed – his staff all seemed to like him as far as I could tell…

    I got back to work and asked my boss what Interviewer Lady had against Y.

    Against him? They’ve been happily married for twenty years!

    Got the job.

  28. I used to work in the UK for about 5 years, and getting a UK work visa meant going for an IELTS exam which was basically an English assessment test on Reading, Listening, Writing (these are held in an exam hall) and Speaking (one on one interview).

    Now my English is fairly decent, and the first 3 tasks are pretty much the same questions for everyone but the speaking test depends on the interviewee and the questions they ask are basically to judge your English vocabulary and pronunciations. You are given a topic of discussion and 2 minutes to lay out all your points/thoughts. And the question I was asked was – ‘What are your thoughts on fruits? You have two minutes!’

    Fair to say, all the reading I had done the day before on current and world affairs to sound clever was thrown out the window, and I stumbled my way about on how I love apples, especially when they make a crunching sound when you bite. Sadly there was limited use of the expansive English vocabulary while describing apples so I ended up scoring an average score in ‘Speaking’, but overall did manage to score a decent 7.5/9 !

  29. ‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ In an interview for a workshop position as a joiner. When I said no but I had a wife they noted it down and moved on. (I got the job so I guess I answered correctly?)

  30. “If you were going to be a biscuit, which one would you be?”

    This was for a professional IT position. I genuinely laughed out loud and the interviewer seemed like a really nice guy, the type I’d imagine I’d be friends with. They even offered me the position, however I turned it down due to another offer exceeding theirs (which I lived to regret!).

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