In last
week's blog I mentioned that I am not good at interviews, in fact in the whole
of my life I was only successful at one interview, and that was the one that
got me my first job in 1976. Subsequent interviews at which I failed resulted in
one of three outcomes: Someone else got the job (I can cope with that); The
Interviewer got the job (mildly humiliating); No one got the job (very
humiliating). On occasion I was on the other side of the desk, interviewing
people, but thankfully not alone; had I been I doubt I would have been
comfortable.
Interviews
are notoriously stressful and some candidates, like me, are not good at talking
about themselves, well not in a way that sells themselves anyway: there's a
very British trait that we don't like to boast which conflicts with the object
of the interview. Some interviews require candidates to perform some sort of
test, in fact I was involved in interviews where we were looking for a Workflow
Architect (part Business Analyst, part Software Programmer) where we asked
applicants to design a workflow diagram (not for anything too complex, it was
for making a cup of tea). These tests have always struck me as a lot more
useful than questioning alone.
But these
days it seems that interviewers have gone beyond the "What are your
strengths?" type of question and added some that, at first sight at least,
seem surreal, irrelevant and possibly downright unanswerable. Out of idle
curiosity, I took a look at the top ten toughest questions asked in the UK [1] to
see if they as pointless as they seem at first sight, and the answer is that by
and large they make some sense, even if the answer is to some extent
irrelevant.
1. "Can
you calculate how many tennis balls are used during the course of Wimbledon?”
No, is the
short answer, not unless you know the number of matches played in the
tournament, but even then you'd need to know how many games within those
matches, because the balls are changed every nine games, unless of course the
answer required is how many are supplied by Slazenger, which is not necessarily
the number used. I'd say that by demonstrating your understanding of the
question you would at least show the interviewer that you had the ability to
think through the problem. Alternatively you could admit you don't know, but
know how to find out, an equally important skill in my book. After all, I
couldn't say I knew everything about my job, but what I didn't know I knew how
to find out. The actual answer to this question is 52,000 by the way.
2. “Estimate
the total number of cars in the UK.”
Unless your
previous job was with the DVLA or the Office of National Statistics, this is
not a fact you will have at your fingertips, but again you could demonstrate a
logical mind by estimating (because that's what you are asked to do), that in a
population of 60 million about half the population will be too young, too old
or not bothered to drive, leaving 30 million people who are likely to drive,
and let's assume one car per person for the sake of argument; it is an estimate
after all. And the correct answer? 34.5 million.
3. “How many
calories are in a grocery store?”
You can take
this question literally, in which case the answer is none because a grocery
store will comprise steel, wood, glass, concrete and other building materials
that are not known for their calorific content, or you could ask, how big is
this grocery store as a starting point, then dissemble a bit by comparing the
little corner shop with the cavernous out of town supermarket, and what sort of
grocery store are they talking about anyway and the state of the nation's diet.
The number of calories in the food being sold within the supermarket will also
vary due to the season (at Christmas it seems food of a much higher calorie
content is on offer), the time and day of the week, whether a delivery has
recently been received and how much stock has been sold.
4. “How would
you sell a fridge to an Eskimo?”
As soon as
the interviewer said Eskimo, you immediately thought of someone swaddled in
seal fur, living in a house built of ice, and how could you sell a fridge to
someone like that? Except Eskimos no more live in ice houses (igloo, by the way
is Inuit for a building people live in, so they all live in igloos, whether
they are ice houses or brick built) than I do. So the answer is, in exactly the
same way you sell a fridge to anyone else. Oh, and some people prefer Inuit to
Eskimo as they consider the latter term non-PC.
5. “What
would you take to a lonely island with you and why?”
Note, lonely,
not desert, not deserted. So my lonely island would be Bandos in The Maldives,
and I'd take my family, my swimwear and my Kindle, because that's what I take
on holiday.
6. “Is Batman
a superhero?"
Yes.
Superhero is not the same as having super powers in my view, so the fact that
Batman can't fly or turn green, or burst into flames does not prevent him being
a super hero, because he is undoubtedly heroic and super has any number of
synonyms, including great, magnificent, sensational, terrific and cool, and I
think he fits the bill there, don't you?
7. "You
have 17 red and 17 blue balls, and you remove two at a time. If the two are the
same colour, add in one extra blue ball. If they are different colours, add in
an extra red ball. What colour is the final ball removed?”
Let us
assume that the first two balls you remove are red. You are now required to add
a further blue ball, but since you only have 17 blue balls to start with, how
can you? Nowhere in the question does it say that you have a reserve of red and
blue balls to add to the balls you begin with. Also, since you remove two balls at a time, there cannot be a final, single ball removed. There can of course, be a final ball remaining, but that is not the same thing. The question is inherently flawed.
8. “What
cartoon character would you be and why?”
Think of the
most obscure cartoon character you can, Dagwood Bumstead perhaps, or Garth, or
The Escapist. If the interviewer has not heard of them, so much the better.
This sort of question is surely asked solely so that you can demonstrate the
ability to speak coherently. Better yet, make up a character.
 |
| Dagwood Bumstead |
9. “What is
the wildest thing that you have done?”
Naturally,
the answer here should be tailored to the job you are applying for. Obviously
the position of Club18-30 rep requires a much raunchier answer than that of Archbishop
of Canterbury. On this occasion, I think you have to second guess the
interviewer!
10. “What was
your opinion of the film Blair Witch Project?”
How you
answer this depends very much on whether you have seen it or not. I haven't, so
I have no opinion on its content, but I have heard of it and have a general
idea about it, so at least I could waffle on about how it popularised the
"found footage" type
of movie, albeit that it was not originator of the genre.
A lot of
these questions anticipate that you, the interviewee, will make assumptions
based on preconceptions. In a similar way, when one goes on courses and is
given a team activity or exercise, you will be given certain limitations. There
will invariably be a limitation that is assumed by the team that was not named;
finding and then exploiting that invariably makes the task easier.
The ten
questions are there to make candidates
do something that Edward de Bono labelled lateral thinking, but what we
now generally call thinking outside the box. When we see a question we make
assumptions, invoke our prejudices and preconceptions and answer accordingly,
often missing what the question actually wants.
But finally,
a question that I think you will find impossible to answer. When does the dfs
sale end?
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