Not matter what type of Job you are looking for, an in person job or an job with an online website like Croco casino, at some point, you are going to have to do an interview where he will be asked interview questions.
My son is at his stage in life where he is ready to start doing interviews for his first “real job”. So I took out an old job interview book, “The Complete Q&A Job Interview Book“, and we started to go through some of the questions. The book was written in 2000. Some of the example questions are questions that are realistic to expect. But others! I can’t imagine anybody asking those questions.
Here are some examples of some really weird interview questions.
What is your parents occupation?
How exactly is what my parents do for a living important to how I will do my job at your company?
Do you live with your parents?
Who cares if I do or I don’t or why exactly I am living with them. As long as I can do the job that you are hiring for, that is all that is important.
Year and model of your car
Unless the job requires you to drive as part of the job requirements and you are expected to use your own personal vehicle, this is a non-issue. It is also irrelavent if a person drives to work, bikes to work, or takes public transportation. It only matters that you can get to work on time, and do the job you are hired to do.
Do you own or rent your home?
As long as you pay your rent or mortagage payment on time, which if the job is paying what it should be paying, you should be able to, this is a non-issue question. Even if you are currently living on the streets, that is why you are applying for the job … to stop living on the streets.
How much time do you spend with your family?
This is another way of asking if you are single or married, if you have children or are planning to have children. Those are irrelavent questions. What matters is that you can separate personal life and work life. When you are on work time, you are focused on work. As for personal, if work expects you do “work stuff”, then that expectation should be said at the interview and the salary quote should reflect that.
What makes a marriage happy?
Same thing as what makes a work relationship happy, mutual respect, team work, and everybody doing their fair share of the job.
Who is the boss in the family?
Although the book acknowledges that this is an old fashioned question, why did the author even include it?
As in any relationship, even between boss and employee or employee and employee, sometimes you are the “boss” and sometimes you are the “worker”, and that is a healthy relationship. But in the end, a family relationship is like a work relationship, a team environment.
Is your spouse employed?
Not important for the job I am being hired to do.
What contributed to your divorce?
None of your business. Personal life is personal life and work life is work life. In a work environment, the two should be kept separate.
Describe your relationship with your children.
Same answer as above … None of your business. Personal life is personal life and work life is work life. In a work environment, the two should be kept separate.
What are your childcare arrangements?
The only thing that is important is that you can work the hours that you are scheduled to work, and get the job done that you are hired to get done.
Do you own a life insurance policy?
Does the work provide a life insurance policy?
Did you family have an influence on your college choice?
Why is this important? Unless your parents forced you to go to a certain school against your free will (which you probably have bigger problem than just trying to get a job), this is an irrelavent question.
How did you finance your education?
How a person paid for college is not important. If a person got an academic scholarship, that is important. But beyond that, as long as the job pays enough that a person can pay their obligated student loans, everything else is irrelavent. If the job does not pay enough that you can pay your obligated student loans, then yes, the job is a stop point job where you will continue to look for better employment. But if the employer is planning to not pay you enough to pay your Student loan obligations, then the employer already knows this and you don’t need to tell them this.
Have you ever been tutored? Is so, in what subjects?
In most high tech majors (engineering, science, math, etc.), either a person has to have a tutor or else they have to participate in a study group. Regardless of which path a person takes, what is most important is that the person learned the material, passed their classes, and graduated.
People who get tutoring help are not stupid. People who don’t ask for help, when they need help are the ones who are stupid.
How do you show your interest in your coworkers?
Yes, social skills are important, and getting in arguments and fights with either coworking or customers is bad. But what matters most is being able to work with coworkers to get the job done.
Name three books you read in the last 6 months
In some ways, it is a personal question and none of the interviewer’s business. In other ways, do you actually read anything beyond what is placed in front of you by Google, Facebook, or Twitter?
What would you like inscribed on your headstone?
This is kind of a personal question. First, do you even plan to have a headstone or are your plans to get cremated when you die? On the other hand, even if you are cremated, would your family create a memorial of you? Would it just be a picture with maybe a poem or other information? Or would your familiy create a whole memory book for you? When my cat died, I created a memorial for the cat that was as simple picture plaque with a poem and the cat’s date of birth and death. A close friend of our family recently died leaving behind a wife and 6 kids. They are planning to create a memorial book with pictures and stories.
Would even a headstone describe you? Or would it take a whole book? That sounds pretty personal to me.
Summary
Just because somebody writes a book or creates a website about job interviews does not mean that they know what they are talking about. If an interview question sounds “out of place” or “personal”, it may be. A simple “That sounds like a personal question to me that is not related to the job I am applying for, can we please move onto the next question?”
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