Top Interview Questions

Interviewing can be a tedious and stressful time. Which questions should you ask, which ones are appropriate? Do you prepare a question list for interviews? This article takes a look at 14 powerful interview questions, and gives insight into the kind of character traits the right questions can reveal.

Interviewing can be a tedious and stressful time. Which questions should you ask, which ones are appropriate? Are you going to pick the right person for the position? Below is a list of the top 14 interview questions hiring managers find most effective. These inquiries range from basic to complex and give descriptions of what the question accomplishes. Some of the questions are very straight forward and some are tricky ones that bring out the candidate's personality and behavior without directly asking them.

What circumstance brings you here today?

This is one of the best opening questions ever. This open ended question surprises many candidates. If they do not respond quickly, just sit quietly and wait for the response. Some candidates reveal problems with their current employer, potential insubordination, and both positive or negative character traits.

How would your best friend describe you?

In most cases, the response to this question indicates how the candidate wants you to feel they are perceived by friends. Take notes on the response and then ask, "May I call your best friend and see how they describe you?" You may or may not be interested in talking to the best friend. However, the response and body language after the follow-up question can indicate if you received a truthful response. I suggest asking this question near the beginning of the interview. It helps you get truthful responses for the rest of your time with the candidate.

What would you say are your 2 greatest weaknesses?

This question reveals the candidate's ability to identify the need for personal improvement. The best responses include a plan on how the candidate is addressing the weakness. Some candidates also do an effective job turning their weakness into a positive, which indicates the candidate has good alternative thinking or good sales skills. Watch out for candidates who are unaware or will not admit that they have weaknesses.

How do you alleviate stress?

Every job has stress. So if someone says they are not stressed or claim to not do anything about it, then they are either lying or they do not know how to control it. Look for positive activities or hobbies, rather than substance use or dangerous activities as stress relievers.

What are your short and long term goals?

The response to this question usually reveals if the candidate has personal or professional goals. If they do not have a quick response, it may indicate they do not plan ahead. I especially like responses which indicate drive, planning and good work/life balance. You may also need to ask for more details about certain goals to gain insight into whether or not the employee intends to stay for awhile or just gain a little experience and move on. Consider asking the follow-up question, "What are 3 goals that you have achieved in the past year?"

What type of work environment do you prefer?

When choosing potential employees, it is helpful to know what type of environment in which they prefer to work. If the company is very professional and usually quiet, someone who likes a loud, casual environment might not be the best fit. It is sometimes good to hire someone who does not fit the mold, but it is usually best to hire people who fit your work environment.

What is your typical way of dealing with conflict?

As with stress, conflicts are something we deal with frequently. Conflicts may range from differences with a supervisor, to differing lunch preferences. Most employers look for someone who can deal with an issue without getting frustrated. Either ask for a real-life example or build a hypothetical scenario and ask how they would handle the conflict. Some managers, who prefer a more confrontational interview style, intentionally create conflict and stress in the interview to see how the candidate responds.

What tools or habits do you use to keep organized?

Instead of asking are you an organized person, this makes the interviewee prove and describe their organizational skills. Most hiring managers expect that their employees have some type of system to stay organized. Whether it is using a planner, or electronic calendar, these tools confirm that the potential employee is reliable and responsible.

Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond to get a job done.

This is an excellent question that lets a potential employee really sell themself. In doing so, the hiring manager can see what type of person they are really interviewing. They can also measure how out of the way this candidate had to go in order to complete their duty. This gives a clearer picture about the work ethic of the potential employee.

What was a major obstacle you were able to overcome in the past year?

Problem solving is the major topic covered by this question. What kind of thinker is this candidate? Can they do projects on their own or does their manager need to hold their hand. It also confirms how determined they can be toward a project.

In what ways do you raise the bar for yourself and others around you?

This question gives the interviewer an idea of who is and is not an above average performer. It also demonstrates leadership potential and the willingness to be a team player.

Tell me about two memorable projects, one success and one failure. To what do you attribute the success and failure?

Asking this question helps determine the candidate's ability to learn from successes and failures.

What unique experience or qualifications separate you from other candidates?

Some candidates have interesting characteristics and experiences that will not be exposed without asking a question like this.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Save this question for the end of the interview. A good response should be consistent and defined when you asked about short and long term goals. Beware of candidates who plan to be the same position five years from now. My favorite response is, "I plan to have either your job or your boss' job."

Interviewing is about finding the right candidate for a position. Proper questions reveal the most promising candidate for a hiring manager. Before interviewing, write down the characteristics the ideal candidate would possess and try to tailor your questions around those attributes. Also, open ended questions make applicants create a clearer image of who they are for the hiring manager. Interviewing is simply a matching game to see which candidate is the best fit for the position.

Article written and published by: CareerBuilder.com 

10 things to do after the interview

How to keep the momentum going
Beth Braccio Hering, Special to CareerBuilder

The interview may be over, but your chance to make an impression is not. Here are 10 strategies to continue boosting your candidacy.

1. Show that you're still interested.
Leave no doubt in the interviewer's mind about where you stand. Ask for the job at meeting's end with a phrase such as, "I would really like to contribute to this company and am hoping you select me." Also, don't leave the room without a clear idea of what will happen next in the hiring process. Will select applicants be invited back to meet other people? By what date do they hope to fill the position? Such questions demonstrate enthusiasm for the job, and knowing the hirer's timeframe will help keep you from panicking if a week has passed without a phone call.

2. Set the stage for further contact.
Nobody wants to be a pest, but could your silence as days pass be misinterpreted as indifference? Avoid the guesswork by finding out before heading home what the employer prefers in terms of checking in. Lizandra Vega, author of "The Image of Success: Make a Great Impression and Land the Job You Want," suggests asking the recruiter about her preferred method of follow-up communication and whether it would be okay to touch base again.

3. Be punctual.
If you tell the interviewer you'll send a list of references tomorrow morning, make sure you do it. Keeping your word and answering requests in a timely manner speaks volumes about the type of employee you might be.

4. Know when to sit tight.
If an interviewer requests that you follow up by phone in a week, respect her wishes. Calling the next day can be construed as pushy and desperate.

5. Send a prompt thank-you note.
A positive, nonintrusive way to stay on an employer's mind is to send a thank-you note. Vega recommends emailing one within 24 hours of the interview, then following up with a handwritten note that arrives one to three business days later.

6. Send each interviewer a personalized, powerful follow-up letter.
This piece of communication is another chance for you to shine, so don't waste space with generalities. Ford R. Myers, a career coach and author of "Get the Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring," recommends including specific references to each person you met and tying your accomplishments directly to the company's stated challenges. You also can use the letter to introduce achievements that didn't get discussed and to elaborate on interview answers that you felt lacked punch.

7. Address one of the company's needs.
Another effective way to follow up is to act more like a consultant than an applicant. "During the interview, you learn a lot about a company's weaknesses and/or areas where the company wants to expand," states Linda Matias, president of CareerStrides.com and author of "201 Knockout Answers to Tough Interview Questions." "Consider creating a proposal on how you would address one of those areas. Doing so will demonstrate that you have the knowledge and also the enthusiasm to make a significant contribution."

8. Keep thinking and learning about the company.
Be prepared for additional interviews or follow-up phone calls by continuing to research the organization and the field. Gain new information about a topic brought up in conversation. Think of additional questions you'd like answered. These actions show the hirer that you didn't stop caring about the company after the interview was over.

9. Leverage outside resources.
Networking should never stop. "If you have contacts and connections with anyone who might influence the hiring decision, or who actually knows the interviewer, ask her to put a good word in for you," Myers says.

10. Accept rejection with grace.
Finally, keep emotions in check and don't burn bridges if someone else gets hired. One never knows what the future might hold. The accepted candidate may not work out, or a different position may open up. "If you are rejected, the first thing you should do (ironically) is send a thank-you note," Myers says. "This will help distinguish you from other rejected candidates and put you in a positive light."
Beth Braccio Hering researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues for CareerBuilder. Follow @Careerbuilder on Twitter.

Practice Makes Perfect: How to Rehearse for Your Next Job Interview

 

There are a lot of steps that usually happen before you get to the interview portion of your job search: writing a resume, networking, compiling your references. Most folks are able to put a lot of effort into getting the interview, but many fall apart during the actual interview. Why? Poor planning and a lack of practice.

Instead of winging it, or relying solely on your professional skill set, you should stage a rehearsal for your next job interview.

Not sure how to go about doing so? Start by enlisting a family member, friend or partner to play the role of interviewer, and ask that she stay in character from start to finish. Set up a space, such as a desk or table, where you can create a suitable setting. Then use these 10 tips to from corporate trainer Marlene Caroselli to make your interviews -- both mock and real -- successful.

Do Your Homework
"Learn all you can about the organization in advance," advises Caroselli. Share this information with your mock interviewer, perhaps in the form of crib notes. She can use this to grill you.

Tune In
"Watch people being interviewed on television and make note of what works," she advises. Look for traits that make people likable and competent.

State the Unobvious
"Create one really intriguing statement about yourself," she says. "For example, a woman I know, expecting to be told, 'Tell us a bit about yourself [the most popular interview question],' replied, 'I think I should tell you I'm a nonconforming conformist.' She explained what she meant and wound up getting the job."

Think Outside the Box
A little visualization can go a long way, according to Caroselli, author of Principled Persuasion. "Think about a visual that really represents what you can do," she says. "It can be a photo taken at an event you organized, for example. If you have nothing that symbolizes your capabilities, then look for a pattern not readily apparent in your resume and be prepared to talk about that particular interest or talent, apart from your official work history."

Know Your Lines
Actors do it, and you should, too. "Memorize a few short quotes and have them ready," Caroselli says. "They'll help you respond articulately to virtually any question."

Sum It Up
The very first request an interviewer may make is, "Tell me about yourself." In order to answer this interview question quickly and succinctly, she urges interviewees, "Have an elevator speech ready in case they want a brief overview of your career."

Be Tough on Yourself
Research tough interview questions and provide them to your helper. Also, point out gaps in your skills or holes in your resume and instruct her to grill you on those points. "By comparison, your own, actual interview will seem like a walk in the park, and that prospect will encourage you," Caroselli says.

Capture It on Camera
"If possible, have someone video you doing an interview rehearsal," she says. "Then study your body language to see if it reveals confidence, poise and enthusiasm."

Listen Up
Close your eyes and listen back to the recording of your replies to interview questions. "Play the tape back and analyze your responses," she says. "Ask yourself, 'Would you hire you?'"

Stay Calm
Work on being relaxed before your big meeting. "When you get to the interview site and are waiting to be called in to the interview room, work on a brainteaser," Caroselli advises candidates. "Research shows it calms the nerves and takes your mind off the challenge ahead."

By Caroline M.L. Potter

6 ways to kill your chances in the interview

From applicant tracking systems to appropriate résumés, there are more than enough hurdles to overcome before making it to the interview in a job search. However, this may feel like the greatest challenge for some job seekers, as many have come out of interviews without the slightest clue how it went.

CareerBuilder surveyed hiring managers to find out what’s going on in job interviews and why a promising candidate for a job may not get picked. Six major factors were a part of why interviews go badly for some, and while these mistakes may not seem substantial on their own, the job market is still too competitive to allow these simple errors. Learn from these six ways to kill your chances in the interview and how to avoid certain death.

When asked to identify the top detrimental mistakes in job interviews, hiring managers reported:

Mistake No. 1: Appearing disinterested is a top turnoff, according to 62 percentof employers.
Tip: Body language and how you respond to the interviewer’s questions may be sending a different message than what you mean. Be attentive during the interview, sit up straight and make eye contact with your interviewer. Also take your time responding to give thoughtful answers that will make it clear you’re interested.

Mistake No. 2: Answering a cell phone or texting – 60 percent
Tip: As soon as you enter the company’s building or the site for your interview, turn your phone off and put it away. While it may be tempting to use your phone while you’re waiting or leave it on silent, don’t risk your chances of getting the job because you wanted to check your phone. Give your attention to the interview and focus.

Mistake No. 3: Dressing inappropriately – 60 percent
Tip: While what you wear on the job will vary by industry and company, the standard and most appropriate look for a job interview is a business suit or a version of “business casual,” a collared shirt and dress pants. You should look and feel professional so both you and the interviewer can focus on your answers and not your clothing.

Mistake No. 4: Talking negatively about a current or previous employer – 58 percent
Tip: Interview answers walk a fine line between appreciating your past employers and making it clear that this job opportunity is preferable. Stay positive during your interview and concentrate on how your past roles and employers have prepared you for this current role, and if you do have a negative experience, keep your answer short and end on a positive, like what you learned and have done better since.

Mistake No. 5: Failure to make eye contact (72 percent) or smile (42 percent), bad posture (38 percent) and a weak handshake (28 percent)
Tip: While a certain amount of stress is understandable for an interview, do your best to appear confident and friendly by preparing for your interview and practicing your answers ahead of time. When you feel adequately prepared, your confidence and smart answers will wow the hiring manager.

Mistake No. 6: Not providing specific examples – 34 percent
Tip: When answering your interviewer’s questions, remember that they’re trying to make a smart business decision about who to hire. While you may feel that you’re the most creative, capable and task-oriented candidate, it’s better to provide quantifiable proof of your worth, like how much new business you brought in or the top ways you saved your company money.

What else can job seekers do to prepare for interviews? “A job interview can be one of the most nerve-wracking experiences out there, so it’s important to plan and practice,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “Have a friend run through a mock interview with you, asking questions you think will come up and some curve balls you’re not expecting.  Thoroughly research the company ahead of time and draft responses that incorporate your accomplishments.  The more prepared you are, the less likely you are to run into mishaps.”

By Susan Ricker

How to Keep Your Spirits Up During a Job Search

By Pat Mayfield

If you're having a difficult time finding a job, and it seems like it's taking forever, don't despair. Here are some suggestions for keeping your spirit positive:

Think Up
The mind is a powerful vessel. How we think and what we think can control our spirits. We literally can think ourselves up or down. To keep out the negative thoughts and self-doubt:

• Wake up thinking or saying positive statements.
• Avoid negative media, news, emails, and downer movies and television.
• End the day thinking or saying positive statements.
• Think about the positives a new job brings: new skills, new relationships, and a new chance to show your skills and talents.

Positive Reminders
Surround yourself with quotes or statements of hope and encouragement. Write your favorites on sticky notes on the refrigerator or computer -- somewhere you can easily see them. Two of my favorites are from Winston Churchill:

• "The pessimist sees problems in every opportunity...whereas the optimist sees opportunity in every problem."
• "Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up..."

Take Steps
Literally. Move. Being a couch potato shows. Leave the house at least once a day. Exercise, jogging or walking will:

• Reenergize you.
• Help to clear the mental cobwebs.
• Prepare you to look your best for interviews.

Pamper Yourself with Kind Acts
How you treat yourself can impact your spirit.

• Play your favorite music softly in the background while you "work."
• Eat healthy without hugging the refrigerator. Now is not the time to bulk up.
• Sing -- regardless of quality. Singing happy songs will actually will help to stretch and relax your vocal chords while refreshing your spirit.
• Avoid being sloppy. Dress and groom yourself with respect -- for you.
• Treat yourself with affordable goodies such as a favorite food or beverage, an afternoon movie with popcorn, doing something touristy, or a mindless novel.

See Spirited People
Make sure you spend some time, preferably in person, with positive and supportive people every day.

• Surround yourself with yea-sayers and avoid the naysayers.
• Work your network.
• Call people rather than email or texting them -- it's more personal and supportive.
• If you're single and live alone, go to the library or a coffee shop to be around others.
• Help others in need. Get out of yourself from time to time.
• Spend quality time with your family and friends.

Keep at the Top of Your Game
Keeping your spirit up has a lot to do with how you feel about yourself. Don't let your skill set and knowledge slide.

• Keep up on industry news.
• Read trade journals and business magazines and newspapers.
• If possible, practice to improve your career skill set.

Now's the Time
Enjoy the positives of your job search, like having spare time. Remember all those times you said, "If I only had time, I'd..."

• Read those books.
• Clean that closet.
• Take that class.
• Get in better shape.

Do Your Best Work to Find Work
Knowing you're taking all the right steps to find a job will help improve your spirits.

• Write a perfect resume and cover letter for each job.
• Send X amount of resumes out each workday without fail.
• Keep up-to-date records of results.
• Keep accurate contact information on companies, executives and hiring agents.
• Have your interview clothes clean and ready to wear.
• Work at finding work every day.

[Pat Mayfield is the president of Pat Mayfield Consulting LLC, based in San Francisco and Pleasanton, California. She specializes in sales and marketing solutions.]

Practice Makes Perfect: How to Rehearse for Your Next Job Interview

By Caroline M.L. Potter

There are a lot of steps that usually happen before you get to the interview portion of your job search: writing a resume, networking, compiling your references. Most folks are able to put a lot of effort into getting the interview, but many fall apart during the actual interview. Why? Poor planning and a lack of practice.

Instead of winging it, or relying solely on your professional skill set, you should stage a rehearsal for your next job interview.

Not sure how to go about doing so? Start by enlisting a family member, friend or partner to play the role of interviewer, and ask that she stay in character from start to finish. Set up a space, such as a desk or table, where you can create a suitable setting. Then use these 10 tips to from corporate trainer Marlene Caroselli to make your interviews -- both mock and real -- successful.

Do Your Homework"Learn all you can about the organization in advance," advises Caroselli. Share this information with your mock interviewer, perhaps in the form of crib notes. She can use this to grill you.

Tune In"Watch people being interviewed on television and make note of what works," she advises. Look for traits that make people likable and competent.

State the Unobvious"Create one really intriguing statement about yourself," she says. "For example, a woman I know, expecting to be told, 'Tell us a bit about yourself [the most popular interview question],' replied, 'I think I should tell you I'm a nonconforming conformist.' She explained what she meant and wound up getting the job."

Think Outside the BoxA little visualization can go a long way, according to Caroselli, author of Principled Persuasion. "Think about a visual that really represents what you can do," she says. "It can be a photo taken at an event you organized, for example. If you have nothing that symbolizes your capabilities, then look for a pattern not readily apparent in your resume and be prepared to talk about that particular interest or talent, apart from your official work history."

Know Your LinesActors do it, and you should, too. "Memorize a few short quotes and have them ready," Caroselli says. "They'll help you respond articulately to virtually any question."

Sum It UpThe very first request an interviewer may make is, "Tell me about yourself." In order to answer this interview question quickly and succinctly, she urges interviewees, "Have an elevator speech ready in case they want a brief overview of your career."

Be Tough on YourselfResearch tough interview questions and provide them to your helper. Also, point out gaps in your skills or holes in your resume and instruct her to grill you on those points. "By comparison, your own, actual interview will seem like a walk in the park, and that prospect will encourage you," Caroselli says.

Capture It on Camera"If possible, have someone video you doing an interview rehearsal," she says. "Then study your body language to see if it reveals confidence, poise and enthusiasm."

Listen UpClose your eyes and listen back to the recording of your replies to interview questions. "Play the tape back and analyze your responses," she says. "Ask yourself, 'Would you hire you?'"

Stay CalmWork on being relaxed before your big meeting. "When you get to the interview site and are waiting to be called in to the interview room, work on a brainteaser," Caroselli advises candidates. "Research shows it calms the nerves and takes your mind off the challenge ahead."

By Caroline M.L. Potter

100 Potential Interview Questions

By Thad Peterson, Monster Staff Writer

While there are as many different possible interview questions as there are interviewers, it always helps to be ready for anything. So we've prepared a list of 100 potential interview questions. Will you face them all? We pray no interviewer would be that cruel. Will you face a few? Probably. Will you be well-served by being ready even if you're not asked these exact questions? Absolutely.

Basic Interview Questions:

• Tell me about yourself.
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• Why do you want this job?
• Where would you like to be in your career five years from now?
• What's your ideal company?
• What attracted you to this company?
• Why should we hire you?
• What did you like least about your last job?
• When were you most satisfied in your job?
• What can you do for us that other candidates can't?
• What were the responsibilities of your last position?
• Why are you leaving your present job?
• What do you know about this industry?
• What do you know about our company?
• Are you willing to relocate?
• Do you have any questions for me?

Behavioral Interview Questions:

• What was the last project you headed up, and what was its outcome?
• Give me an example of a time that you felt you went above and beyond the call of duty at work.
• Can you describe a time when your work was criticized?
• Have you ever been on a team where someone was not pulling their own weight? How did you handle it?
• Tell me about a time when you had to give someone difficult feedback. How did you handle it?
• What is your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
• What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
• If I were your supervisor and asked you to do something that you disagreed with, what would you do?
• What was the most difficult period in your life, and how did you deal with it?
• Give me an example of a time you did something wrong. How did you handle it?
• What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
• Tell me about a time where you had to deal with conflict on the job.
• If you were at a business lunch and you ordered a rare steak and they brought it to you well done, what would you do?
• If you found out your company was doing something against the law, like fraud, what would you do?
• What assignment was too difficult for you, and how did you resolve the issue?
• What's the most difficult decision you've made in the last two years and how did you come to that decision?
• Describe how you would handle a situation if you were required to finish multiple tasks by the end of the day, and there was no conceivable way that you could finish them.

Salary Questions:

• What salary are you seeking?
• What's your salary history?
• If I were to give you this salary you requested but let you write your job description for the next year, what would it say?

Career Development Questions:

• What are you looking for in terms of career development?
• How do you want to improve yourself in the next year?
• What kind of goals would you have in mind if you got this job?
• If I were to ask your last supervisor to provide you additional training or exposure, what would she suggest?

Getting Started Questions:

• How would you go about establishing your credibility quickly with the team?
• How long will it take for you to make a significant contribution?
• What do you see yourself doing within the first 30 days of this job?
• If selected for this position, can you describe your strategy for the first 90 days?

More About You:

• How would you describe your work style?
• What would be your ideal working environment?
• What do you look for in terms of culture -- structured or entrepreneurial?
• Give examples of ideas you've had or implemented.
• What techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organized?
• If you had to choose one, would you consider yourself a big-picture person or a detail-oriented person?
• Tell me about your proudest achievement.
• Who was your favorite manager and why?
• What do you think of your previous boss?
• Was there a person in your career who really made a difference?
• What kind of personality do you work best with and why?
• What are you most proud of?
• What do you like to do?
• What are your lifelong dreams?
• What do you ultimately want to become?
• What is your personal mission statement?
• What are three positive things your last boss would say about you?
• What negative thing would your last boss say about you?
• What three character traits would your friends use to describe you?
• What are three positive character traits you don't have?
• If you were interviewing someone for this position, what traits would you look for?
• List five words that describe your character.
• Who has impacted you most in your career and how?
• What is your greatest fear?
• What is your biggest regret and why?
• What's the most important thing you learned in school?
• Why did you choose your major?
• What will you miss about your present/last job?
• What is your greatest achievement outside of work?
• What are the qualities of a good leader? A bad leader?
• Do you think a leader should be feared or liked?
• How do you feel about taking no for an answer?
• How would you feel about working for someone who knows less than you?
• How do you think I rate as an interviewer?
• Tell me one thing about yourself you wouldn't want me to know.
• Tell me the difference between good and exceptional.
• What kind of car do you drive?
• There's no right or wrong answer, but if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
• What's the last book you read?
• What magazines do you subscribe to?
• What's the best movie you've seen in the last year?
• What would you do if you won the lottery?
• Who are your heroes?
• What do you like to do for fun?
• What do you do in your spare time?
• What is your favorite memory from childhood?

Brainteaser Questions:

• How many times do a clock's hands overlap in a day?
• How would you weigh a plane without scales?
• Tell me 10 ways to use a pencil other than writing.
• Sell me this pencil.
• If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?
• Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?
• If you could choose one superhero power, what would it be and why?
• If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of and why?
• With your eyes closed, tell me step-by-step how to tie my shoes.

Response Strategies for Interview Questions

By Michael Neece, Monster Contributing Writer

Every interview question thrown your way presents an opportunity for you to make your case for why you're the best person for the position. You want to highlight your positive qualities and avoid giving reasons to disqualify you. That said, think about your overall response strategy for the interview.

Examples Speak Volumes
For each quality you present, make sure you're prepared to describe a situation where you demonstrated that quality. Basically, you always want to be able to back up any claims you might make. For example, if during the interview you say that you work well under pressure, be ready to describe an example where you did work effectively under pressure and delivered the results required.

Steer the Interview Your Way
One thing to guard against is getting lured into the interviewer's game of alternative or trick questions. Be like a politician. The next time you watch a debate or press conference, notice the kind of questions reporters ask, and then observe how the politician responds. Politicians often answer questions indirectly by presenting information they want to convey. You can do the exact same thing in a job interview.

For example, if the interviewer asks if you prefer to work alone or on a team, he may be trying to get you to say you are one way or the other. But you don't have to play this game. The reality is that most jobs require us to work both independently and in teams. Your response to this question should show that you have been successful in both situations.

Your answers also need to provide the reason to hire you, and you want to avoid providing reasons not to hire you. Before responding to any interview question, take your time, breathe and think about your answer. Thoughtful answers delivered clearly are much better than empty answers given rapidly. And you're not being measured by your response time.

Be Clear and Concise
Be honest and succinct with your responses. Tell the truth in as positive a manner as possible, and don't discuss things or events in a negative fashion. Long answers are less effective than concise responses and tend to make interviewers suspicious. If you are talking more than 90 seconds without interaction with the interviewer, you may be providing more detail than is needed. If you feel you may be talking too long, just stop and ask the interviewer a question like, “Am I giving you the level of detail you're looking for?” This prompts a response and promotes an open exchange of information. Besides, if you're putting the interviewer to sleep with your long-winded answers, asking a question will wake them up.

Open the Conversation
After your response, ask the interviewer a tag-on question, such as, “Does that give you what you were looking for?” This ensures you are understood accurately, conveys that you want to be sure you're providing what the interviewer is looking for and promotes two-way communication.
You deserve the best, so practice your responses to frequently asked interview questions, and prepare to be your best when it matters most.

How Not to Say Thank You After an Interview

By Gladys Stone & Fred Whelan, Monster Contributing Writers

In the job search, there's nothing like performing well at the interview. And after researching the company, practicing your interview presentation and answering the interview questions with confidence, you want to follow up with something impressive. You want to thank the employer with a gesture that makes the company want to hire you -- or at least bring you back for another round of interviews.

This is the point when some people come up with what they believe are clever ways to thank people for the interview. Sadly, these attempts at being memorable can leave the wrong impression with the interviewer.

So be sure to avoid these three unconventional post-interview thank-you strategies in your job search:

• Don’t Say It with Plants or Flowers: A candidate for a communications position thought sending a plant would be a nice way to say thank you after her interview. What it really said was that she did not know that doing so was unnecessary and inappropriate. It is never proper to send a gift after an interview. The interviewer is doing his job by interviewing you, and sending a gift of any kind can be interpreted as a bribe to move your candidacy forward. Rather than helping your cause, this move could hurt your chances of getting the job.
  
• Don’t Friend the Interviewer on Facebook: Trying to connect with an interviewer on Facebook crosses a boundary that should not be broached. It tells the interviewer you don’t know how to draw the line between employer and employee, and you would likely have difficulty with that distinction if you were hired for the job.
  
• Don't Follow Up with a Call the Day After the Interview: If you follow up by phone too soon after the interview, the interviewer will interpret the action as too aggressive. A follow-up call the next day will signal that you lack good judgment and that you would probably act inappropriately on the job. At this point, the ball is in the prospective employer's court. Any follow-up by phone on your part should reflect what you and the interviewer discussed.

What Should You Do? Send an Interview Follow-Up Letter

The best advice is to follow up with a short thank-you letter after the interview, thanking the interviewer for his time and reiterating your interest in and qualifications for the job. The more succinct, the better. An articulate post-interview follow-up letter or email can only strengthen your candidacy.

10 Things to Never Put on Your Resume

For job seekers, the resume may be the most important document they need. After all, what's on that simple piece of paper can mean the difference between landing an interview and landing in the circular file.

While most job seekers concentrate on what they should include on their resume, few pay attention to what they shouldn't include. This article explores 10 things you should never put on your resume.

A crazy objective

So you want to be the next Bill Gates. Terrific! And you may even have the chops to make it happen. But please don't put it in your objective statement. Outlandish, overconfident, or "out there" objective statements almost always ensure that the rest of your resume isn't read.

Read More ....

5 Reasons Why Traditional Employment Is in Trouble

According to the U.S. Labor Department, 2.1 million people resigned their jobs in February, the most in any month since the start of the Great Recession.
This is startling given that the economy is not strong and that millions are out of work. The natural inclination would seem to me to be to hunker down and hang on to the job you have, no matter how bad it is. That is what happened in previous recessions. Yet these were disgruntled, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled people who voluntarily, many without other positions or jobs lined up, chose to leave.

In discussions with some of them, I heard talk about feeling they having been used to bolster executive salaries and inflate shareholder expectations unrealistically. Many felt unappreciated and disrespected — a word I hear a lot now and never used to hear at all.

And with eroding benefits and the potential of better access to health care, the hold that corporations used to have is loosening.

I think we are seeing the early signs that the attitudes and expectations of the emerging and experienced workforce are changing faster than many thought likely and that traditional firms may find it harder and harder to employ the best people.
I among others have been predicting that the age of the entrepreneur is dawning — a time when more and more people are confident and optimistic about working for themselves, offering their services for a fee to someone who needs their skills. Many of the ones I speak with are convinced that this is a better way to feel fulfilled and be prosperous than the daily grind of going to work for an employer.

The success of crowdsourcing sites like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and other sites where anyone can offer their services for bid such as elancer or freelancer say a lot about what is happening. It has become relatively easy to offer products for sale on sites such as eBay or Craig’s List or to find a match between your skills and the needs of someone else.

But many corporations and recruiters are in denial. They will not agree that a significant number of people feel this way but at the same time they will not deny that it is hard to find, attract, close, and retain the skilled talent they need. And as Baby Boomers start to retire and move out of the active job market the gap will grow.
It does not take a crystal ball to see the signs of change.

Expectations Have Changed

People expect work to be engaging, interesting, and fulfilling. Younger people even feel it should be fun. The organizations that offer project-type work, work that poses a challenge, or work that fulfills humanitarian needs, are not having much trouble finding good people. Gen Y, those in their 20s, have been the pioneers in changing attitudes and in showing that individuals can find work that is fulfilling and earns money — often by working independently or by joining a very small firm or startup.

Choice, Not Control
People want to be empowered to make decisions, to be free from bureaucracy and administrivia. They know they have a lot to contribute and are frustrated when seemingly meaningless rules and procedures are put into place with no consultation or discussion.

Firms like Brazil’s Semco are run as democracies, and employees have the power to decide almost everything. For the past few decades this, along with Gore-Tex in the U.S., have been storybook examples of how organizations may look as we move into this century. The hallmarks for success include participation in decision-making, freedom over schedules and work assignments, and fair, transparent, and equitable pay based on contribution.

A Focus on Employment Branding

But, in lieu of making these painful changes to structure and existing practice, firms are instead focused on using the power of advertising and image-shaping to enhance or create an employment brand in the hope of attracting people.

Most employment branding efforts use Madison Avenue-style tactics to raise interest in a company. The campaigns are expensive and require immense effort, but there may be a period of time when more good people are attracted to a firm. The downside is that once hired they may quickly move on if the hype is not reflected in practice.

Semco, on the other hand, has no trouble attracting great people primarily through referral, word-of-mouth, and by the quality of the products and services they offer. Historically, very few firms have had to resort to expensive branding campaigns to attract the people they needed. Talented people with the right skills sought out the firms. This is why the employment market has always been skewed toward the employer who has been able to set salaries, offer the benefits it wanted to offer, and carve out jobs with minimal regard to the candidate’s or employee’s needs or desires.

Firms such as Lincoln Electric, Gore-Tex, IBM, and recently Facebook have little need to do overt employment branding because their employees do the recruiting for them.

More Interest in the Candidate Experience

Also, almost in acknowledgement that they have not done a good job in providing a candidate with a positive experience — with good customer service — when they apply for a job, there is now more emphasis and interest in improving that experience.

Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads has long been an advocate for improving the candidate experience and has tirelessly worked to get firms to make substantial changes in how they deal with a candidate. Recently he has created the the Candidate Experience Awards to further enhance this effort.

But it is unfortunate that he has to do this. It is simply another sign that the tide has turned away from traditional employers to the smaller firms that do care about the candidates and do listen to them and offer decent service.

More Effort and Money Being Placed on Becoming Listed as “The Best Place to Work”

Many firms spend thousands of dollars in fees and salaries to compete for a Best Place to Work award. Many have full-time employees dedicated to this effort for a significant time period while also ramping up employment branding activities.

Again, this is only viable because there is not enough natural interest in these firms to attract good people.

As traditional organizations try to fit round pegs into square holes, the smaller startups and enlightened larger firms are finding it easier to hire good people.

Good people are attracted to places that are in alignment with their needs, attitudes, and intellect, and those places are increasingly organizations that are flexible, fun, empowering, respectful, transparent, and flat. But the dinosaurs didn’t evolve successfully and I doubt that larger firms will either.

by Kevin Wheeler

Projects Are the New Job Interviews

Resumes are dead. Interviews are largely ineffectual. Linked-In is good. Portfolios are useful. But projects are the real future of hiring, especially knowledge working hiring. No matter how wonderful your references or how well you do on those too-clever-by-half Microsoft/Google brainteasers, serious firms will increasingly ask serious candidates to do serious work in order to get a serious job offer.

Call them "projeclications" or "applijects." World-class talent will engage in bespoke real-world projects testing their abilities to deliver real value on their own and with others. Forget the "What's Your Greatest Weakness?" interrogatory genre; the real question will be how well candidates can rise to the "appliject" challenge and help redesign a social media campaign, document a tricky bit of software, edit a Keynote presentation, produce a webinar or peer review a CAD layout for a contract Chinese manufacturer.

Exploitive? Perhaps. But most organizations have learned the hard way that no amount of interviewing, reference checking and/or psychological testing is a substitute for actually working with a candidate on a real project. I know advertising agencies that have an iron-clad, inviolable rule that they will only hire creatives who have successfully done freelance work with an account team. Similarly, a fast-growing Web 2.0 "software as a service" company doesn't waste its time asking coding candidates trick "Python" questions during job interviews; they have potential hires participate in at least two "code reviews" to see what kinds of contributors, collaborators and critics they might be.

Yes, candidates must sign NDAs. Yes, sometimes these sessions effectively pit a couple or three candidates against each other. But there's nothing fake or artificial about the value they're expected to offer. These organizations treat hiring as part of their on-boarding process. Hiring becomes more holistic rather than "over the wall." More importantly, everyone in the enterprise now "gets" that people only get hired if and only if they deliver something above and beyond a decent track record and social graph.

Ethically, the most interesting behavior I've observed is that firms exploring "projeclication" hires aren't asking for free labor. They're paying below-market rates for their candidate's insights and efforts. If I were a 20-something coder or a forty-something marketer, I'd undeniably have mixed feelings about giving my best efforts for discount compensation. That said, it's worth something to know what it's like to really work with one's colleagues on a real project as opposed to the all-too-misleading charade of iterative interviews. To my mind, this approach is an order of magnitude more ethical than the "free" and unpaid internship infrastructure that has gotten so out of control in so many industries.

But just as many organizations have grown more skillful conducting Skyped interviews and using web-based quizzes and questionnaires as qualifying screens for candidates, my bet is we'll soon see new genres of project-based hiring shape enterprise human capital portfolios. Facebook and Linked-In are obvious venues for "app-sourced" — that's "app" as in applicant, not application— business project design. Increasingly, project leaders will design milestones and metrics that make incorporating job candidates into the process more seamless and natural. College graduates, MBAs and older job candidates will learn how to sniff out which "applijects" are genuine invitations to success and which ones are sleazy bids for cheap labor. In the same way job candidates learn how to interview well, they'll get the skills to "appliject" well because they understand how to optimize their influence and impact within the constraints of the project design.

Ultimately, the reason why I'm confident that "projects are the new job interviews" is not simply because I'm observing a nascent trend but because this appears to be a more efficient and effective mechanism for companies and candidates to gain the true measure of each other. Designing great applijects and projeclications will be a craft and art. The most successful utilizers will quickly be copied. Why? Because the brightest and most talented people typically like having real-world opportunities to shine and succeed.
Blog post by Michael Schrage

It's Not a Job Search, It's a Permanent Campaign

Political campaigns used to be short, frenzied run-ups to an election — after which the winning candidate would turn to the stately task of governing. But over the past few decades, politics and policy began to mingle. Political advisors took White House roles, and polling began to drive decision-making — "The Permanent Campaign," as journalist (and later Clinton staffer) Sidney Blumenthal presciently dubbed it in his 1980 book.

The advent of 24-hour cable news (and later, the Internet) opened a gaping maw, ravenous for content. Politicians knew they'd be dissected constantly, not just during campaign season, with querulous Crossfire hosts debating who has "The Big Mo" and who's on the downswing. Most people — even former political operatives, like me — can agree this is bad for democracy. But candidates have accepted it as the new normal and, with savvy teams PR experts on call, they're making do.

The real problem, though, isn't the impact on politicians.
It's the fact that everyone else — including regular professionals — is also now expected to perform round-the-clock personal brand maintenance, and most people don't even realize it.
Sure, they probably have a Facebook account, and they may even be on Twitter. But they don't recognize that these are no longer personal communication tools, or a means of strengthening weak ties across their networks. Instead, they are the criteria by which you will be evaluated in the future. Just as Michael Deaver ensured that Ronald Reagan always stood in front of a perfect, picturesque backdrop — and set the standard for all subsequent leaders — you're now responsible for curating your image.

And unfortunately, it's not enough just to worry about it at "election time" — i.e., when you're seeking a promotion or looking for a new job. The permanent campaign truly is ongoing, and all successful candidates (of the job or political variety) need to recognize a few new truths:

Your reputation precedes you. Any employer with a modicum of common sense is going to vet you on the Internet before even bothering to talk to you. In a world where too many job seekers fabricate parts of their resumes, the Internet can provide valuable third-party verification that you are who you say you are. It's also your opportunity to set yourself apart. If your only online presence is eBay sales or race times from your running club, you're going to look like an amateur.

If you're invisible, you're probably a fraud. Resumes and even clever cover letters will become increasingly meaningless when employers are looking not for words, but for demonstrated knowledge and results. If you've got a strong online personal brand, you're in. And if you don't? One firm I consulted for almost didn't hire a a qualified senior executive because — lacking almost any online presence — they strongly suspected he had fabricated his background. He hadn't, but the elaborate process of verifying his story nearly cost him the job.

You progress or you stagnate. It's a fact: the rest of the world isn't paying nearly as much attention to you as you'd like. You've spent the past few years developing new skills and capabilities — yet your employer and colleagues are oblivious. The only way you can demonstrate your new expertise to a broad audience — one that might want to hire you, in fact — is to brand yourself as a public expert, just like a candidate for office would. Online, create a stream of valuable content by tweeting, blogging, and being quoted by media outlets. Offline, cultivate your reputation through involvement in professional associations, public speaking, and networking.

Many people don't want to deal with the hassle of a "permanent career campaign." They think it's too much work to contemplate their personal brand, maintain their social media footprint, or cultivate relationships when they're not on the make for a new job. Those are the people who will lose. Whether or not you want to play the game, it's happening around you. Here are three ways — cribbed from the candidates who know best — you can win your personal campaign:

1. Monitor. Keeping track of media mentions formerly meant a fleet of bleary-eyed interns coming in at 6 a.m. and clipping, gluing, and photocopying a packet of articles. Thankfully, Google has eliminated this cruelty, which I myself once endured. Set up a Google Alert on yourself, your current company, and any prospective firms on your watch list today.

2. Control the dialogue. Politicians have learned that if they don't put out material to fill the airways (press releases, pitches, and miscellaneous storylines), the newsmedia — or their rivals — will do it for them, and that's not going to be pretty. Someone is going to control the dialogue and it might as well be you. Start writing your blog posts or recording your podcasts now.

3. Create your fan base. When a candidate is attacked, they have defenders — armed with talking points — ready to rebut the negative charges. And they also have a proactive battalion of "letter to the editor" writers, peppering their local papers with laudatory missives. Who's in your fan club? Start reaching out now to trusted colleagues, friends, and allies. If you have a professional goal, they can help by talking you up, searching for leads and more.

Putting forward your personal brand requires ongoing vigilance. What are your campaign strategies?
This post is part of the special series The New Rules for Getting a Job.

by Dorie Clark
http://blogs.hbr.org/

Senseless Interviewing: An Addict’s 7 Steps to Recovery

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of interviewing a candidate and discovering within the first five minutes that they weren’t a match for the job, you probably found yourself spending the next 25 minutes thinking about how much time you’re now wasting that you can never recover.

When you find yourself addicted to the standard way of doing things, when you realize you are afraid to make a change out of fear for the unknown, and when you find your efficiency is going down the tubes — it’s time to consider a recovery program. Your solution? Video interviewing.

1. Admit fault

The first step in recovering from any addiction is to recognize you have a problem. You must first recognize that you are powerless over in-person interview inefficiency and the process has become unmanageable. You are stuck in the same old modes of interviewing candidates, which decreases you efficiency year over year. You have spent countless hours scheduling candidates, interviewing them, and developing questions as you go. Video interviewing allows you to interview a candidate on your own time, when you are available eliminating the need to be physically present at the same time or in the same location.

2. Find something new

Video interviewing has enabled companies everywhere to virtually interview candidates, thereby reducing travel expenses for long-distance potentials. Countless professionals have regained hours of their lives by turning off a pre-recorded interview as soon as the candidate raises a red flag and you realize they won’t be a match for your company. No longer do you have to spend the full 30 to 60 minutes meeting with someone you have no interest in talking with further. Video interviewing can restore your sanity in the hiring process.

3. Opt for new tech-savvy interview processes

Welcome to the 21st Century! You found your way here and you have allowed your organization to get a leg up on your competition. You have always found your company to be progressive, innovative, and technology forward. Now you can attract candidates who have the same qualities. Many candidates desire flexibility in the interviewing process, and video interviewing also give back time and efficiency to the candidate.

4. Make an inventory of your past interviewing tactics

Many times, companies try new processes only to revert back to old ways. Be sure to document and keep a list of the pros and cons of why you chose to give video interviewing a try in the first place. This will help you compare the processes to one another.

Chances are your cons list of old tactics will include a few of the following:
 ◦Limited access to large pool of candidates due to time constraints
 ◦Interviewing expenses
 ◦Lack of standardization in questions
 ◦Limited number of interviewers with initial access to review candidates
 ◦Asking multiple candidates the same questions over and over

5. Show others the benefits of video interviewing

When determining any new process, it is important to talk with others in your organization to ensure they are on board with a change. Talk with your colleagues, HR, and other professionals who can help you map out the path to video interviewing and obtain their buy-in for the switch.

6. Begin implementing video interviews

Creating the interview process can be perhaps one of the greatest eye openers in reinforcing their use. You now have the ability to ask more detail-specific questions that allow you to get straight to the heart of each position.
 ◦Scenarios: Ask your candidates how they would explain various situations. Create consistency in the type of questions you ask the candidates.
 ◦Skills: Ask your candidates how they complete different tasks, when they have done various types of work in the past and what skills they used to compete the projects or assignments.
 ◦Thought process: Ask your candidates problem-solving or cause and effect questions to determine what thought processes they use.

7.  Help candidates find you and buy into a video interview process

Video interviewing is a great tool to efficiently analyze top candidates in an budget-friendly way; however, you still have to find them. Continuing to promote open positions on job boards, social media sites, and your corporate website will help to ensure you have a vast pool of potentials to select from. Consider creating a video interview FAQ page on your careers site to direct candidates to when they are going through the video interview process. Many are still unfamiliar with the method, and you want to give them the best opportunity to show their true self rather than simply being intimidated by the mode. Video interviews benefit your candidates in many ways — helping them understand these benefits will give them more confidence in the medium. Here are just a few benefits for job seekers:

 ◦No scheduling conflicts or need to sneak out of work
 ◦Helps demonstrate professionalism and energy more effectively than with telephone interviews alone
 ◦Increased likelihood of being screened as larger volume of candidates may be screened by employer
 ◦Minimizes inconsistencies between interviews, such as if the interviewer is “having a bad day,” running late for another meeting, getting interrupted by colleagues.

http://www.recruiter.com/

Smart Choices: Hiring the Right People

Need an office manager or a front-desk person? Pay and benefits are important but a successful search may depend more on patience. Physicians — most of whom are accustomed to making quick decisions — often don’t put enough time or thought into hiring, says Elizabeth Woodcock, an Atlanta-based practice management expert.

“Until physicians come to realize that they are leading multimillion-dollar businesses, they will tend to hire the wrong people,” Woodcock says.

Wrong as in promoting the longtime staff member who’s easy to work with but who may not have the ability to lead the staff, learn the complexities of a large-scale business or influence customer satisfaction.

In order to hire the right person for the job, follow a structured approach and don’t make these common mistakes when making hiring decisions.

• Don’t read the resume and/or determine the interview questions for the first time while the candidate is in the office. Do prepare thoroughly by developing interview questions that get to the heart of whether the candidate can do the job. Here are a few sample questions to guide your evaluations of potential employees:

1. Customer service: “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a patient complaint.”

2. Priority management: “Tell me about an occasion when you had two doctors or bosses ask you to do conflicting tasks. How did you handle this dilemma?”

3. Response to office politics and gossip: “Tell me about a time at work when a co-worker complained to you about other employees or office policies and procedures, concluding with ‘Don’t you think so too?’ How did you respond?”

• Don’t jump to a conclusion about a candidate in the first few minutes of the interview…then spend the rest of the interview validating your opinion. Do remain objective and balanced.

• Don’t complete an interview without having a good enough understanding about a candidate to make a selection decision. Do end your interview when you can make a selection decision about the candidate.

• Don’t do most of the talking. Do allow the candidate to do most of the talking.

• Don’t describe the job at the beginning of the interview. Do describe the job after you have determined that the candidate has the competencies to do the job.

• Don’t sequence interviews with each interviewer asking the same questions of the candidate. Do have each interviewer ask different questions.

• Don’t ask each candidate interviewing for the same job a different set of questions. Do ask each candidate the same set of questions so you can compare them equally.

• Don’t forget key points about the candidate later. Do take good notes.

• Don’t ask only close-ended (“yes” or “no”) questions. Do ask open-ended questions.

• Don’t allow interruptions (i.e., phone calls and people walking in) to interfere with the interview. Do schedule the interview during a time when you will not be interrupted.

• Don’t hire a candidate who may have falsified information. Do make reference checks.

• Don’t ask discriminatory or inappropriate questions, like, “When did you graduate from high school?” and “Do you have someone who can take care of a sick child?” Do ask questions that are relevant to the job requirements.

Finally, take your time to select the best person for the job. The results of your decision can affect office morale, customer satisfaction, your free time and the bottom line.

http://www.recruiter.com/

Working with Recruiters Made Easy

Your average job seeker just doesn’t “get” what a recruiter does. This is apparent to anyone that’s ever heard a friend or relative complain about a recruiter “not finding them a job.” If you’re planning on working with recruiters or with a staffing firm, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Tips for Working with Recruiters

• Recruiters don’t find people jobs: The average job seeker has it all mixed up – recruiters don’t go out and find jobs, recruiters find candidates. They match candidates with open positions given to them by their client companies. Recruiters are tasked with filling these job requisitions. If you’re planning on working with recruiters, understand that they are often looking for very specific types of candidates – don’t get offended if you don’t match.
• Recruiters are part of the bigger picture: With this in mind, job seekers should embrace one or more recruiters as part of their overall job seeking strategy – not as an end-all solution. Professional networking, social media sites, and other job seeking channels should still be utilized to maximize individual job leads. Job seekers should recognize that recruiters can open additional doors for them and are inevitably part of the larger job market landscape.
• Recruiters and job seekers need to work together: It’s all about teamwork. Job seekers should be honest about their credentials and in turn, recruiters will work hard to push their profile towards befitting opportunities. Be open and upfront about your current compensation and future expectations and recruiters will get the interviews rolling. If everything works out, the recruiter makes a placement and you get a new job – both sides win when there’s mutual respect and understanding.

All too often, job seekers throw themselves at recruiters and expect royal treatment. Candidates have a hard time accepting the fact that recruiters don’t work for them, but with them. Recruiters always have your best interests in mind (and they want you to get hired), but they can’t make individually tailored jobs appear out of thin air.

Seeing eye-to-eye with recruiters isn’t all that complicated when you use their services as one of many valuable resources in your job seeking toolbox. If you are looking for a job, make sure you pursue every avenue available to you – and that working with recruiters in the correct fashion is part of your job search strategy.

http://www.recruiter.com/

Can You Get an Elephant Into a Refrigerator?

Listed below features an interesting article for tough and random interviewing questions.

Think that’s an odd question? How about this one: What do you think of garden gnomes? Glassdoor has 23 more questions just like those, compiled from thousands of interview questions posted to the employer review site during the last year by job seekers, some charmed, others perplexed, and some completely flummoxed by these kinds of oddball questions.

Pity the poor job seeker who did just what all the advice books and columnists advise — researched the company, read up on the industry, prepared for the inevitable “Tell me about your weaknesses” — only to be asked, “Please spell diverticulitis.” Learn More!

Image compliments of Google.com