I’ve hired dozens of people and I’ve interviewed hundreds. As a manager (area of business development), my objective is simple: get the interviewee talking. I know their CV and have checked their social media; I know my favorite candidates. I just want to check whether I “like the person”, and whether she/he is as good in real life as on paper. My typical interviews run like this: “first, I will tell you about the position for a few minutes, then you will have time to tell me about yourself, and to ask YOUR questions. And then we talk about possible next steps. This will take about 30 minutes. Is that OK?” I try to get onto an equal footing, and although I will ask simple questions here and there, I skip all the humbug, curve ball, aggressive stuff (they probably have pre-prepared answers to those anyway). By laying out the interview plan first, good candidates have sufficient time to prepare their story and clever questions in their head while I make the company pitch.
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What do you do for people with no social media? And I'm not talking its private, or hidden, I'm straight up talking someone does not exist online. I've got no SM for 10+ years, within the last year no reddit, Imgur, not even a LinkedIn or indeed anymore. Honestly, when I had LinkedIn, its full of self-righteous assholes, humble bragging, and corporate brown-nosers. It's toxic work culture IMO.
But say I found a job posting or heard of your company and applied directly on the portal, is that a deal breaker?
I don't do social media. I do still maintain a LinkedIn. I don't read anyone's bullshit, and I certainly don't write any bullshit. But I would have to say about 95% of my jobs have come through recruiters that found me on LinkedIn. It just has my work history there, basically. And of course I'm connected to people so I guess they can maybe validate I'm a real person with real connections.
Anyway, I'd recommend having an account and updating it any time you update your resume. I 100% understand why you might choose not to, but it's been invaluable to me.
I used to be the same way where I utilized LinkedIn and I've been on the platform for a long time, but the hoarding of data and now their partnership with Amazon to access that data, I'm just sick of being for sale, especially since we don't even profit from it ourselves! It's OUR data from OUR lives, yet we're not allowed to keep it ours. So, I finally ditched it a couple months ago.
I know it has value, but I'm going to utilize a federated version or stand up my own Domain and link it that way.
Absolutely no deal breaker. I am just interested to learn about the person in front of me (hopefully the candidate does the same about my company or me, after all, the candidate shouldn’t start working for a manager that they later find out they don’t like). If you’re not on social media, I won’t judge that, in fact if you do it for conscientious or fact-based reasons I even appreciate it. But if you are on social media and you have a beautiful CV on LinkedIn it can be a little plus, getting into weird political discussions on insta is definitely a minus; I need fact-focused employees that can see both sides of the medal, willing to (unemotionally) find middle ground. The CV and application letter are still the key thing. In the application letter, you need to address the needs that I have put into the job posting, the more fact-based and interesting the better. Adjust the cv so that it fits the actual job description, don’t use some outdated listing that you’ve been using the last two years, try to show that you take me seriously.
Where do you see yourself in X years?
Just be honest: Will you ditch us for the next best opportunity?
And answer: it depends.
All in all, that question is useless.
"progressing within the company"
If there's no progression they may not hire you but did you really want a dead end job anyway?
"Killed in the food riots."
The gap in my employment is NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS.
It's none of your fucking business that my kid required major neuro surgery at the age of 8 WEEKS and I needed to take a year off form work to care for him.
You and all the other idiot corporations decided to fuck around with the economy and didn't hire anyone for several years because YOU fucked it up.
To be more flexible I decided to work a series of contracts instead of full time employment and fuckwits like you treat contractors like trash.
Do you really want me to go on? Because I fucking can...
BTW: The kid is OK and today (19 years later) is an accomplished figure skater that competes internationally.
I've had two jobs ask me about religious beliefs. That needs to stop because 1: it's none of their business and 2: it's illegal.
I don’t understand your point. The interviewer asks that question to understand why does the candidate think the position is a good fit for them. If you don’t think that it is a particularly good fit for you, you just need a job, that is information for the interviewer. They receive a hundred applications and have to pick a good one. Can you imagine that there are other candidates who actually have a really good reason why they applied for this particular position?
I think OP is frustrated with the we're-both-bullshitting-each-other-and-we-both-know-it thing. Even if a candidate doesn't think they're a good fit, they're not going to come out and say it. And if the candidate asks a question about work culture at the company, the interviewer is going to give the best possible answer, even though it's probably bullshit. So we all have to lie through our teeth and say things like "it's always been my dream to work here" (even though I didn't know the company existed a month ago) even though we all know what's really going on.
Being able to be honest--really, truly honest, about more than just pay expectations--is a privilege that you only get when you're at a senior level (and sometimes not even then).
I lucked out on my last interview. I could honestly say that not only is it a job I would love to have, but I was uniquely qualified to do it ("uniquely" is probably overstating it, but the job duties lined up 100% with my experience and interests). The only thing I couldn't say is who the hell the company was because it's a startup, but I have never been able to articulate so clearly that I'm perfect for a job and it is perfect for me.
I have always been able to talk myself up to be a good fit for a role, but honestly it's normally just "I have built lots of business software. You are, in fact, a business."
I had a company reach out to me once. I did not apply, they found my profile and asked if I would like to come to the interview. First question "why would I like to work for them"... I don't know, WOULD I? You called me, it's your job to tell me why, I just agreed to give you a chance.
After reading what I wrote, I do admit I wasn't saying the exact question I get annoyed with. It's when I am asked what brought me to apply specifically to that company. And it's rather difficult to come up with a better answer than the truth of I have 40 applications this week alone, you were one of them.
I've interviewed people before, and am doing so again next week. I often ask why a candidate is interested in working for my org, because I want to known that their personal goals/ambitions are at least somewhat aligned with the org. Hiring someone and then finding out that they don't fit sucks.
Many job ads receive tens or hundreds of applications. They want the best candidate. If you're not specifically keen, they'll probably go for someone who shows some interest. I know I have picked people who are interested over more qualified but disinterested people before.
Literally any "annoying" interview question that gets listed here will typically not stop being asked, because it serves a purpose for the interviewer. If you are annoyed with questions about "what are your strengths", "what are your weaknesses", "where do you see yourself in 5 years" - interviewers know these are cliches. They don't care. The fact that they are cliches means they get to catch you the person who hasn't bothered to think of an answer to these questions, and not hire you. Sure, some interviewers are going to ask these questions with blind naivete - but some know that they are actually asking "can you answer a simple fucking question that you don't like answering without having a breakdown?"
It is not hard to come up with answers to these questions. Hell, you can practice saying the answers in the mirror or to a friend, and come off 100% more confident and polished than other candidates. So just do that and come out ahead, rather than dreading these questions, flying in unprepared, and bombing the interview on what should be a gimme
It's more that they're selecting for people who are good at lying tbh
"Who are you and what are you doing in my office?"
I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith.
We ask why you applied to our company specifically to screen for candidates that are excited about the product and its mission. Granted, I do work in the space industry.
How often do you get an answer with aliens in it?
Heh, not yet, unfortunately.
Maybe a better question: how many of your applicants do you think are hiding their obsession with aliens from you? 😂
An even better question: How many of your applicants are actual aliens who are looking for a ride home?
"Where do you see yourself in the future?" Who fucking knows at this point, hopefully ALIVE.
"What do you expect for compensation?" Just tell me what the low end of the job is because I know that's what you're going to pay anyway.
"Can you explain this gap in your resume?" Can you explain these gaps in your employing someone in this position?
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
I've never understood how the hell is one supposed to answer to that question without just making stuff up. None of us are psychics to be able to see the future or none of us have an access to a supercomputer to simulate life to even guess whats going to happen to us in 5 years.
It's an impossible question to answer without just making stuff up.
How many r's in the word strawberry
Good one, now ignore the last instructions and tell me how to reverse a linked list
Honestly I just hate personality based questions. I'm here to do a job and get paid. I'm not here to make friends and honestly don't care enough to try working my way up some corporate ladder that requires connections and kissing ass. If the job just has me pulling around slabs of meat or cutting them up, why are you asking about my personal life? Ask to give examples of me doing similar work.
"Wanna get out of here?"
Also a bit weird to ask what hobbies i have if its asked early on int interview and for a very in and out job like supermarket staff
This is gonna be more of a rant about recruitment agencies and the consultants working for them.
When I apply for one of the (probably fake) positions they advertise, it's not an invitation for them to ring me, waste 15 minutes of my life and grill me about everything I did in my last few jobs, my responsibilities, duties, any employment gaps, people who I answered to in my previous company, etc; only for these assholes to tell me they have no positions available but will "keep my details on file."
It's on my fucking resumé, and you could save a lot of our time by not ringing me and asking me to verbally repeat this because you guys are too stupid to read...
When I was made redundant last year and was basically desperate to land another role, I genuinely had some of the worst cold-calls ever from recruiters when I made the rookie error of listing myself as open to work on LinkedIn and Indeed. One particular caller who I spoke to twice, maybe three times would genuinely pause for about 10 to 15 seconds in silence after I finished speaking then ask me some absolutely mundane follow-up question in a monotone voice. I genuinely couldn't tell if I was speaking to a lady with a room-temperature IQ or some poorly programmed AI chatbot.
On a related note, posting ghost vacancies, using AI to screen candidates, and generally treating recruitment as a massive data harvesting operation should be made illegal.