Strange Interview

david39

Very often, the person conducting the interview is a manager or senior employee who has good knowledge of the vacancy position but no trained skills as an interviewer.

I've seen this many times and, having been involved in interviewing people when I also had no previous experience in so doing, I understand what is going on. In such circumstances, the interviewer is as nervous as the applicant - both being placed in an uncertain and uncomfortable situation.

Interviewing job applicants is a skill. It can be taught or it can be learned by experience. If the interviewer is still in the learning stage and without a competent assistant at the time, the course of the interview tends to get sidetracked into the enthusiasms of either party. If those enthusiasms are the same, the interviewee my well get the job "because he's such a great potential colleague", while being totally unsuited for it in practice.

InsideInsurance

967stuart wrote: »

LOL, this has to be a joke ?

If i went for a job and they asked me to 'entertain' them by singing and dancing I would lamp them !

No its not a joke, they frequently did odd "tests" during the interview. A friend who also interviewed there went into the room and there was the panel of 3 people and a brick on the desk.

Before doing introductions etc they told him to take the brick and put it through the window. He looked confused and they basically said "that brick! That window". He picked up the brick, went to the window, opened it, looked below to ensure nothing/ no one was there and dropped it, closed the window and sat back down.

Their first interview question was "Why did you open the window? Who told you to open the window?" Needless to say a discussion about following instruction followed. He did get a second interview and subsequently an offer.

richardw

Sounds like the job could already be lined up for one of their mates and the interviews are just to cover their processes.

BitterAndTwisted

Or the people conducting the interview had already satisfied themselves that the person was absolutely right for the job from their CV and their references and just needed to confirm whether their personality was the right fit for them.

My response to the "entertain us" request would have been completely different to humiliating myself by singing or dancing to them for 30 long minutes.

**Juice**

I must say I think I prefer the informal style of interview, though the ones I've had have had some form of structure and a bit of interview-type questions interspersed with a but of chit chat and going off on a tangent here and there. I've found this more common in quite "modern" roles if that makes sense, like comms roles or in progressive companies.

gingerdad

LisaB85 wrote: »

I had an interview this morning for a large company, they didn't ask any questions as such other than when I could start, salary but it was just chatting really being told about the job and company, it seemed very informal like they were more interested in my personality than any achievements. Is this a good thing?

I must admit I preferred the interview to others I have been to where they put you on the spot with questions.

Sounds like my interview style. and i have a good hit rate on staff.. hope you get it

Print_Screen

InsideInsurance wrote: »

No its not a joke, they frequently did odd "tests" during the interview. A friend who also interviewed there went into the room and there was the panel of 3 people and a brick on the desk.

Before doing introductions etc they told him to take the brick and put it through the window. He looked confused and they basically said "that brick! That window". He picked up the brick, went to the window, opened it, looked below to ensure nothing/ no one was there and dropped it, closed the window and sat back down.

Their first interview question was "Why did you open the window? Who told you to open the window?" Needless to say a discussion about following instruction followed. He did get a second interview and subsequently an offer.

This is utterly ridiculous! :eek: What if your friend had just lobbed the brick through the window? Would they have been happy with the "I vas only following ze orders" defence as that is what they were implying.

Did they also ask the classic:
"If you were an animal what animal would you be?"
To which my response would have been
"A dung beetle so I could deal with all this bulls**t you're feeding me!"

What happened at his 2nd interview? Did they ask him to strip naked and dance around like some kind of monkey, specifically a gorilla.
They after 15 mins of this did they inform him a gorilla is actually an ape not a monkey, he should have known the difference, thus has failed his interview and not to let the door hit him on the butt on the way out?!

Print_Screen

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Sometimes interviews can be a test, I remember one person who went for an interview and when they got there they were told "entertain us", they asked for clarification and got a irritated reply along the lines of "sing, dance, juggle, whatever, entertain us". After 30 minutes of singing she was then told the interview was over, she turned around to go when one of the interviewers asked her why she had wasted their time, didn't she realise that an interview is intended for both sides to see if its what they wanted and she hadn't asked them anything for the full 30 minutes. She didn't get a second interview.

I would have asked the interviewer to whip out his John Thomas and get the rest of the panel to try and help me spot it. Stating that should take a good half hour on the proviso a microscope and set of tweezers are made available.

Unless the ability to entertain was needed for the job, I would assume they are just taking the proverbial and wasting my time asking me to do this. I would therefore not want to work for such a company which is why I act in this way.

InsideInsurance

Print_Screen wrote: »

What happened at his 2nd interview? Did they ask him to strip naked and dance around like some kind of monkey, specifically a gorilla.
They after 15 mins of this did they inform him a gorilla is actually an ape not a monkey, he should have known the difference, thus has failed his interview and not to let the door hit him on the butt on the way out?!

:T

The second interview was "odd" in that they purely asked technical/ theory about hobbies on his CV and mainly focused in on the fact he used to do target shooting and therefore what he thought of the then recent changes in handgun laws - equally irrelevant to what he was applying for

Wellery82

Reverbe wrote: »

This informal chatty style interview is sadly becoming the norm these days. I find them incredibly annoying all my experience and research- ie books etc teach you to read up on the company, prepare answers and questions etc. No book or person I have ever come across can give you advice to prepare for chats.I dont find they can possibly find the best possible candidate if they dont ask questions about your skills and experience nor give you any opportunity to sell yourself in some way_ tho i try to get round this by selling myself in the chat in a roundabout way this isnt always possible from whats going on in the interview.

I have worked in recruitment, both in house and agency, and in HR, and would actually suggest this gives you the most opportunity to sell yourself.

If you go into the interview thinking about what image you want to convey you have a great chance to do that - an informal chat lets you steer the interview in any direction. It allows you to show humour, enthusiasm, professionalism etc, it allows you to bring up work examples or chat about you as a person. It also gives you huge scope to find out about the company, culture, role itself etc. More importantly it shows how you interact with others and engage them, something that is vital in most jobs

As an example you want to show off your skills in IT programming, you ask a question about the culture of the team, you then ask about how much scope there is to get involved in different projects as you have x skills on x systems...... Likewise you want to show off your sales skills you ask about the targets they have in place in the sales team, you ask how the teanm are responding to them, and you give examples of how you operated in your previous role hitting targets and motivating others to do so etc.

As long as you are prepared to control the interview you will always have chance to show off the skills you want in my opinion