Interview questions

[Half Live]

Once I was asked if I had my own gun.

[Byte Stryke]

I love it when they have a Bilingual requirement.
I apply and when they call me for an interview if I'm not doing anything that day I go.

"Was Meinst du dep? I kann Einfluss auf Deutsche Gesprächen. möglicherweise meine Grammatik ist nicht perfekt, aber ich kann Deutsche Sprechen.

Verdammten Rassist.

Ausländer RAUS!"

[Irving]

As far as the miss-communication about salary and bi-lingual and crap, I've noticed that many companies have become very "Hands Off" with a lot of stuff that they do now. What happens is they hire a "talent acquisition consultant," and that person goes through all the resumes, picks people they think fit, schedules all the interviews, and just tells the managers when the interviews will be held. This means that the person doing the interview has no clue who you are, and probably just realized that they were going to interview you earlier that week. I've seen, and experienced first hand, how easily this can screw up all kinds of communication. With that middle man in there, hardly anyone has a 100% idea of what is going on.

At the last place I worked, they got rid of the in office HR representatives, and now all HR complaints go to the "home office" half way across the country. I guess the idea is that no one knows anyone, so it's easier to avoid picking sides. Personally, I think it'd be better to have someone in the office all the time to be familiar with the people who might make potential complaints. Anyone who has problems "picking sides" should be relieved of duty.

Combine those two elements of "hands off" and this is what recently happened at the company I used to work for.

There was a job opening in the commercial lines department, and several people from the personal lines department applied. The job was posted both to the public and for internal promotions. Everyone submitted their applications and started waiting. After a while, one girl got an email saying that her interview was scheduled for that Friday. The problem was that the commercial managers had not yet spoken to her manager, as per usual. On Tuesday, this girl went directly to the commercial lines department to confirm with the commercial managers about the interview. They had no idea what she was talking about and told her that they would see what was going on. Turns out, the "talent acquisition consultant" had scheduled the interview, but neglected to tell the commercial department. In the mean time some one else decided to close the position altogether, so by the time the commercial department found out about the interview for Friday, there was no longer a position. So what did they do? They went and grabbed the guy who USED to be the HR guy (he no longer does anything related to HR) and told him to go explain to the girl who had been told that her interview was Friday, that "they" changed their mind altogether about the position, and now no one was getting any interviews. This girl went back to her desk crying, and then told the rest of the applicants from the department that everyone wasted their time because the opening was closed. Who knows if they even bothered to tell the people who were applying from the general public. I feel the worst for the HR guy. I'm sure he wanted to remind him that he isn't HR anymore and to clean up their own mess.

Soooooooooo, all these attempts to "stream line" office flow can lead to some MAJOR fuck ups. Don't even get me started on the new method of customer service surveys (that are outsourced to a call center in another country) and are 50% of employee's performance review.


Any way, you guys have had some good input and I would love to see a few more tonight before I manage to derail the thread any further.

Thanks for the input so far.

[Zundfolge]

Stuart, thanks for reminding me why I work for a small company.

The problems I have with HR folk are usually compounded by the fact that I'm a Creative and we just do not speak the same language.

[Irving]

I really like that HR guy that I spoke of; he was always fair to everyone. He was such a great HR guy apparently, that they still make him do that position sometimes, only for free now.

[Byte Stryke]

I really like that HR guy that I spoke of; he was always fair to everyone. He was such a great HR guy apparently, that they still make him do that position sometimes, only for free now.

Ahem, in the Post-Tarp era we call that a "Supplemental Tasking"
Let's not have anymore literary infractions, shall we?

/sarcasm

[mrfish83]

I've heard: "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

My response: "If I were already a tree, then I didn't have much of a choice, did I?"

It was an odd questions to say the least. Didn't want to work for them anyway!

[Irving]

Yeah, fortunately, I haven't been asked any weird "creative" questions like that. I don't think I'd respond well to one though.

[Seamonkey]

Please post an interview question that you've had at an interview. It can be anything you want.

-One that you weren't prepared for and really stumped you.
-One that you are ALWAYS asked in every interview you've ever had.
-Your favorite one to answer.
-The one you hate the most.
-The one you've always wondered how to answer.

You get the idea. Let's hear it.

For my current position I was already in Iraq and working for another company. I applied online and received a phone call for the first interview. Turned out the person doing the interview was someone I worked with on circuits before so he already knew my competency levels since we had worked together for a couple months (he was my counter part on another base). He had no clue I applied for the position and I had no clue he worked for that company.
So far the jobs I've applied for are technical so I don't get any of the questions anyone else has mentioned so far. My questions relate to the equipment I work on and it's pretty clear if someone knows it or not.

With that being said, there are a lot of good points being brought up here. If you are in a bind and need to get a job to pay for food then you can't be as picky. If you have a choice and don't have to take the job right away then take the mind set of using the interview to determine if THEY are a good match for you. It's your turn to ask questions of them and you can gauge them by their responses. I understand not everyone has the option to pick and choose but if you do some research into the company, talk to other employees, read their press releases, corporate statements and such you "should" be able to get a feel for them. Do they at least try to take care of their employees or are you just a piece of meat?

In one class the teacher kept talking about Disney and how you have to watch a video before even applying for a job with them. They explain their culture and values to try and make it clear to potential candidates where they are coming from. Personally there are a couple companies that I will never in my life work for yet they are "highly respected" and I'm not going to name them since I don't want to be sued for defamation.

[Irving]

There are a few questions that I want to ask, but I won't because it will make me sound negative.