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It doesn't have to be programming or software development related, but just asked during an interview for an IT related job.

I know some "left field" questions are meant to see how the candidate copes with unexpected and novel situations, but here I'm looking for a question that appeared to be completely unrelated to the job they were interviewing you for, or something that made you think "what useful information could they possibly get from my answer to that question?".

Tamara Wijsman
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ChrisF
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    Worst as in most difficult, or worst as in least representative of skill? – Fishtoaster Sep 03 '10 at 19:27
  • @Fishtoaster - most inappropriate or least representative of skill - basically you think "how could they gain anything useful from that ?" – ChrisF Sep 03 '10 at 19:51
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    Fascinating, I'll bet some of the questions below put the employer at risk of being sued by the interviewee... they MUST violate some US employment law – makerofthings7 Oct 31 '10 at 13:14

28 Answers28

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Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Do they really think people are dumb enough to say that they want to do something completely different? Or don't want to work for them?

I guess it can be useful as an indicator of who not to hire but it's so stupid easy to fake that you can't use it as an indicator of who to hire in any way if they answer correctly.

Brian R. Bondy
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    Answer: "Your supervisor" – Chris Sep 04 '10 at 12:30
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    To be fair, there are a few different valid answers to this that would indicate whether you want to pursue a management track (dev->pm->manager) or stay as a developer in the long term. – Fishtoaster Sep 08 '10 at 20:11
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    I always answer "programming, I don't want to be a manager". – Wizard79 Sep 08 '10 at 20:11
  • @Fishtoaster the problem though is that the farther along in your career the harder it is to stay as a programmer unless you are worth your weight in gold. Reason: New CSE students graduate every few months and are cheaper with more current education. Yes you have more experience and are probably better but the problem is senior leadership sometimes does not understand this new verse old mentality and finding a balance. You (the old programmer) are more expensive and more costly in terms of health benefits too so its easy to let you go and bring in fresh meat. – Chris Sep 08 '10 at 20:37
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    I was going to answer with this. My answer was, "That's gotta be a trick question, right? Things are changing so fast, I have no idea. Probably still programming, though." I got the job. – Mason Wheeler Sep 10 '10 at 23:59
  • At least you didn't answer, "In your seat..." – Dan Diplo Sep 11 '10 at 13:44
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    Oh, c'mon. I'd feel cheated if I wasn't asked this question. The way to judge the interview is seeing how long it takes them to ask. – JeffO Sep 14 '10 at 18:21
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    @Chris, that answer will pretty much guarantee you not to get the job. – HLGEM Sep 22 '10 at 17:48
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    @chris, even better: http://www.marriedtothesea.com/092408/interview-over-lunch.gif – Malfist Oct 06 '10 at 17:52
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    If I ever asked this while interviewing a programmer I wouldn't care if he didn't see himself working for my company in 5 years, but I would like to hear that he sees himself still making software. – Sergio Acosta Oct 13 '10 at 20:55
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    sigh..."in the mirror as always" – dotjoe Nov 11 '10 at 21:21
  • Answer: "successful" – Jeremy Dec 09 '10 at 19:28
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    "I don't know" worked fine last time. – Armand Dec 09 '10 at 23:26
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    I also hate this question. But the best answer comes from Mitch Hedberg: "Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me this question!" – Bill Dec 12 '10 at 13:46
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    I said "Technical Manager", and low and behold, I was sitting in the interview with the Technical Manager. – Kyle Rosendo Dec 30 '10 at 16:10
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    you'd be surprised what people say. I ask this, while not expecting much, but I had one guy say, "well I want to open my own consulting business, but economy is slow right now, so I wanted to find a job for 2 years or so". Guess how long the interview lasted after that response? – DXM Apr 24 '11 at 04:42
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    Problem is this question is a trap (It's a trap!). If you show ambition, you don't get the job because you just admitted to be looking to replace the guy interviewing you. If you tell the truth (as in @DXM's story), you don't get the job because you're honest. The company expects a canned answer of "Slaving away to make the owner of this company wealthy" and nothing more. – Wayne Molina Aug 19 '11 at 15:20
  • This question is easier(sort of reasonable) for junior people. You can always say, I am looking to learn more and build some domain expertise on (whatever job you are interviewing for). But, for people in their 30s, it is very lame question. I won't take the job if someone ask me this. – thinkanotherone Sep 07 '11 at 19:23
  • Ruling the world with an iron fist. – Miki Watts Nov 29 '12 at 09:39
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"Would you have any problems with being the only woman in a currently all-male group?"

'Cause, darn, then who would I talk with about lipstick? Or whether puce is in this year? Or any other non-work-related question I have no interest in?

Yes, I got the job.
Yes, I got stuck with things like, "We have to buy a group birthday gift for the boss, and you're a woman, so you collect money from everyone, figure out what to get him, and then go buy & wrap it."
Yes, I regretted taking the job, and was thrilled to leave.

Did they think that after 16 years of programming it would be news to me that this is a primarily male field?

Dori
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    Seems like that question wouldn't be so bad it it weren't followed by the group birthday thing. – andrewrk Sep 13 '10 at 07:52
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    @superjoe - What did the gender of the other people in the group have to do with my ability to write code? Why should I care? Why should they? – Dori Sep 13 '10 at 18:38
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    @Dori, it sounds like the question was social. I don't think your gender has anything to do with your ability to write code, but I think it does affect social situations. You said so yourself, your coworkers, being all male, decided to make you collect money from everyone and buy and wrap the gift. Another thing I can point out, and this is just for fun, is that often in male social groups, they get the weakest person to do the crap nobody wants to do. They might have been treating you just like they would treat a male by testing you to see if you would just give in to the pressure. – andrewrk Sep 14 '10 at 04:36
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    It wasn't for a programming job but I got asked if it would be ok for me to go to meetings at night (Legitimate meetings, these were city council meetings) and be out after midnight. My co-worker in that job was asked something similar but they asked her husband not her. It was a bad year to graduate so we both took the job anyway to stop being unemployed. I left when the men in the office all got a pay raise twice the size of the women's and the stated reason was "women have men to support them, they don't need the money." I was single at the time. – HLGEM Sep 22 '10 at 17:45
  • "They might have been treating you just like they would treat a male by testing you to see if you would just give in to the pressure." @superjoe30, as a woman that would have never in a million years have occurred to me. I will remember for the future. Thanks for some insight I didn't have. It explains some things in my past. – HLGEM Sep 22 '10 at 17:46
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    @HLGEM - I understand and do believe that women are treated terribly in some places. I'm horrified at those two anecdotes you mentioned. I don't see that kind of treatment very much around myself, but maybe that's because I'm at a university. – andrewrk Sep 24 '10 at 09:49
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    That being said, I'm wary of people taking it too far. For example, some feminists think that companies should have to fill a gender quota, much like affirmative action. Instead of forcing something unnatural like that, let's encourage women to join these male dominated fields. Or not. We could also, you know, just let them do what they want. Oh, and regarding my little conjecture - keep in mind it was just that. Not based on anything but anecdotal evidence. – andrewrk Sep 24 '10 at 10:02
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    @superjoe, it was a different world back in the 70's and 80's. I can tell much worse stories than those. – HLGEM Sep 24 '10 at 18:09
  • I'm afraid to ask, but I'm oh-so-curious! – andrewrk Sep 24 '10 at 20:28
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    @HLGEM, @super - depending on the company, it didn't stop in the 80s, either. One boss (different co. than the one mentioned above) told me in the 90s that he didn't want to hire women, as they all took maternity leave and that left him short-handed. Note: the biz didn't have "maternity leave," it had "compassionate leave"; and in the previous year, the only person to have taken it was a man whose father was dying. – Dori Sep 24 '10 at 22:24
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    It's a fair question. I know many women who are not as comfortable as I am working in predominantly male teams. I'm the opposite, I prefer not to work in predominantly female teams. As for the gift thing, when men ask that I say, "You know, if you did it yourself once in a while rather than asking the nearest woman, you'd be competent at it, too." Some men just don't get that we aren't better at it because of our DNA, we are better at it because we have more practice! – HedgeMage Nov 04 '10 at 18:46
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    Perfectly good question. If you answer was no, you would not have been a good fit for the team. Hence a very good predictor o fitness for the job. – David Reis Nov 15 '10 at 08:55
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    It might, in your opinions, be a perfectly good/fair question—but it's also a completely illegal question where it took place (in California). They would not have asked it of a man, which makes it gender discrimination. But the real issue I had/have is that it's a stupid question: what on earth could an employer learn from it? All programmers know the field is predominantly male; only an idiot would say, "No, I don't want to work in a group where I'm the only woman". Any woman who can't handle being in an otherwise all-male group needs to change careers asap. – Dori Nov 15 '10 at 10:24
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    @Dori: If it wasn't a question, just stated as fact ("We don't want you to have any surprises, so we want to make sure you understand that currently our team is all-male."), you wouldn't have had an issue with it? – Scott Whitlock Dec 09 '10 at 19:30
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    @Scott - I would have treated it like someone saying, "We don't want you to have any surprises, so we want to make sure you understand that currently our team breathes oxygen." Ummm… yeah? Who cares? Why did you think I might have an issue with that? Why do you think it's worth mentioning? And most importantly: is everyone being informed of this, or only particular classes of applicants? – Dori Dec 09 '10 at 20:12
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    @Dori - completely agree, I have been asked that too. In the same interview I was asked whether I had a boyfriend (yes) and then whether I would run off and get married and have babies and waste all the effort they'd put into training me. They did then offer me the job but I didn't take it. – Vicky Dec 10 '10 at 10:15
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    @Dori: I'm afraid you're saying you're offended by a completely factual statement the employer made about the position, and I'd tend to err on the side of more information is better. Ignore the stuff that doesn't matter. For the record, I've met people who would care. @Vicky: What the employer said to you is clearly discrimination, and appears to be nothing like Dori's experience. – Scott Whitlock Dec 12 '10 at 21:20
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    Factual statements or questions can be discriminatory and offensive. I would certainly take offense if an interviewer asked, "Mr. Murphy, I see your last name is Irish. Are you a drunk?" A friend of mine is an extremely successful project manager who just earned her doctorate, and I'm sure she would not take kindly to questions about fried chicken and watermelon because she's black. – Bob Murphy Dec 13 '10 at 00:18
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    Sometimes removing euphemisms clarifies matters, so here goes. "I know you have sixteen years' experience, but I'm worried that you can't behave professionally in our industry - after all, you have two X chromosomes. So can you explain how you can have a vagina and also have minimal social skills?" – Bob Murphy Dec 13 '10 at 03:21
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    @Scott - I never said I was offended. I said it was the worst interview question I've heard, as that's what the OP asked for. I also called it a stupid, discriminatory, and illegal question—simply because that's all true, and they're why it's the worst question. – Dori Dec 13 '10 at 03:24
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    At work, every woman I've known in our industry has wanted to be dealt with as a professional foremost, and her gender to be mostly a non-issue. But unfortunately, many parts of our industry are terribly misogynist. It ranges from little snubs to - no joke - death threats for having the temerity to submit code to an open-source project. Many qualified female programmers I know have left the industry because they got sick of this. Others get very prickly and just smack the hammer down on anybody who connects their profession and gender in any way. I really can't blame them for that at all. – Bob Murphy Dec 13 '10 at 03:38
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    Reading back through some of the last 3 months of comments, I find myself wondering about the guys who got the impression that I felt "offended" and/or "sexually assaulted." As I never wrote anything along those lines, the best guess I've come up with so far is projection. – Dori Dec 13 '10 at 03:39
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    HLGEM mentioned hearing "women have men to support them, they don't need the money." My girlfriend in the mid-80s worked for a major US defense contractor, and split her time between doing work so secret her office was inside a giant safe, and flying to the Pentagon to brief generals. When she got the highest annual review marks in her department, and didn't get a raise when the men did, that's what her boss told her. Shortly afterward, she left to work for NATO in Belgium. – Bob Murphy Dec 13 '10 at 04:19
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    @Dori: Yes, it could be projection. It could also be they're uncomfortable having their beliefs challenged, so they're trying to discount what you said by exaggerating it to the point of ridiculousness. I see it all the time with emotionally charged issues, and because my parents resort to it, I now refuse to discuss politics with them. – Bob Murphy Dec 13 '10 at 04:33
  • @Bob - or it may be that people are projecting standard feminist beliefs/wording onto what was said (perhaps unfairly) – DVK Sep 17 '11 at 17:52
  • @DVK - "standard feminist beliefs"? I swear I nearly wet myself! (You did mean that comment to be a joke right?) – flamingpenguin Dec 21 '11 at 17:59
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"What's the method signature of [I forget] from the [some Java reflection class]?"

"Uh... do you want me to look it up?"

The guy was visibly disgusted that I didn't know. For a web applications job.

Rodney Gitzel
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    Absolutely. Trivia questions like these are garbage. This is 2011 - internet is everywhere, and if you're working in an IDE you typically have context sensitive help and code completion at your fingertips. – Curtis Batt Feb 17 '11 at 19:36
  • As a good friend of mine will usually point out in this situation. If you were at a conference where one side spoke English and the other spoke Russian, would you want the guy that can translate in his head, or the guy that has to use Google Translator over the internet. – Andrew T Finnell Aug 13 '11 at 12:39
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    Sounds like your friend would interview Russian translators by asking them to translate some Spanish off the top of their heads. – Rodney Gitzel Aug 22 '11 at 19:26
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When does your visa expire?

I'm a US citizen, Chinese-American. English is my native language and the question came up after about 10 minutes of conversation.

Donna
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    I don't think asking about my credit cards is appropriate. =) – projecktzero Sep 22 '10 at 19:20
  • LOL! and Ouch! What was your answer? A counterquestion? – comonad Dec 04 '10 at 22:57
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    How about answering "I don't have a visa" :) – MAK Dec 13 '10 at 03:14
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    I may be wrong here, but isn't that one of big illegal no-nos in pre-hire questioning? (ref: http://humanresources.about.com/od/interviewing/a/interview_quest.htm - "are you a U.S. citizen?" – Jesse C. Slicer Dec 13 '10 at 22:33
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    Yes, it's illegal. The question you can ask is "Do you have the legal right to work in this country for any employer?" Whether that legal right comes from citizenship or a green card isn't their business. – Kyralessa Jan 28 '11 at 10:47
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    How can it be illegal when you would not be able to get a security clearance if you weren't a citizen and in many jobs that would make you quite useless? – Dunk Feb 17 '11 at 19:08
  • @Donna I am amazed that they not say "Are you have any type of loan from any Bank" – Anirudha Gupta May 10 '11 at 15:23
  • @Dunk, then you have good reason to ask. –  Jul 30 '11 at 22:05
  • @Dunk, It is illegal (as taught by my HR prof) because it is your personal info, like your address, your birthday. If a job requires security clearance, it should be stated in the job description. And trust me, people are not stupid, they won't apply for jobs like that if they are on work VISA. – thinkanotherone Sep 07 '11 at 19:27
  • thats awful, I'd have been tempted to walk out – NimChimpsky Sep 08 '11 at 07:43
  • @Nim - it's not "awful" as Jesse said above, it's actually illegal. – DVK Sep 17 '11 at 17:56
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"Can you bring us the secrets of your past employers?"

Not exactly in these words, but that's the intention.

Maniero
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In rapid succession:

  • What's your biggest strength?
  • What's your biggest weakness?
  • What's your weakest strength?

last one really threw me for a loop.

GSto
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I was once asked, "Has anything unfortunate happened to you recently?"

I responded that my father had recently died. The interviewer just nodded slowly and said "Hmmm...."

AndyF
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33

How many Functions are there in the Object Class ?

Compared to the other answers posted, I think this one should win by miles :-).

Geek
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  • Did he mean methods? (Assuming .Net) – Callum Rogers Sep 22 '10 at 18:54
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    So he didn't know the terminology either.... – Michael K Nov 04 '10 at 19:24
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    I got this question from a Japanese company. Name as many methods as you can of the "string" class. Terrible question. – Neil G Nov 19 '10 at 06:52
  • Answer: Enough that I only need to know a handful to do my job, and Google tells me the rest. – Wayne Molina Aug 19 '11 at 15:23
  • Wow, that is bad. When I get questions like that I (using incorrect terminology) I think I have missed some major part of programming all these years : they have introduced functional programming and closures to java's standard api. Then I get home and realize otherwise. – NimChimpsky Sep 08 '11 at 07:48
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What is your worst flaw?

This question is so dated and expected that I now use it as a metric. If a company is so far behind that they ask me this, I don't want to work for them.

Fishtoaster
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"What animal would you be if you could be any animal you wanted to be?"

I was 20 years old then and I chose "human", but that was an unacceptable answer. They persisted, and I started to think they were a bit loopy. A week later they offered me the job, which I later declined.

makerofthings7
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    " DINOSAUR! " and when the inteviewer starts to ask for an explanation, I just keep screaming "Dinosaur" until he too understands how awesome it would be to be a dinosaur. – SingleNegationElimination Dec 12 '10 at 20:35
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    @TokenMacGuy: Or you could constantly cut him off. "Interesting, do you thi..." "RAWR!" "Yes, but what's your experience like with..." "RAWWWRR!" "Ok you can sto..." "RAAAAWWWRRR!" "You're not actually a dinosaur." "Now that you brought it up, I REALLY want to be one! RAWR!" – Steven Evers Dec 12 '10 at 21:41
  • The only animal that can be anything it wants to be is a *shapeshifter*. – oosterwal May 26 '11 at 15:34
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    honey badger, it would take out chuck norris. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U – NimChimpsky Sep 08 '11 at 07:45
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    A trillionare philanthropist playboy, with the power to turn invisible. What, you said 'anything'! – Matthew Scouten Oct 27 '11 at 18:41
  • I can imagine such question can be useful in therapy, but how could it be possibly useful to recruiter during job interview? – Lukas Stejskal Aug 23 '12 at 14:24
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"How would you reformat this piece of code here?"

They wanted the interviewee to give an answer consistent with the company's coding standards, i.e. guess what that company's standards are.
Their style was unusual (Whitesmiths style indenting and they required a comment on every statement) so I doubt many candidates would have given the answer they wanted.

Fortunately they didn't give too much weight to that question. I scored more points by spotting all the bugs in the example function and they hired me.

finnw
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    Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't walk out. How was it to work there? (that's meant to be a sincere question btw) – John MacIntyre Sep 11 '10 at 10:00
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    @finnw - BSD is better than Whitesmith. – orokusaki Sep 26 '10 at 21:07
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    Whitesmiths is the only logical brace style: the braces surround the thing they contain. I would've worked there in a heartbeat. – Kyralessa Sep 29 '10 at 04:02
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    @John MacIntyre, @orokusaki and @Kyralessa, you are all missing the point. I would not choose a company to work for based on their preferred brace style. It is just not important enough. What I was commenting on was that they ask this question when it is impractical to filter candidates based on it (because the style is unusual and they do not interview many candidates so it would be rare to find a candidate with the same style preferences.) – finnw Sep 29 '10 at 18:45
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    @finnw - I got the point. My point was that usually when a company focuses so much on such an irrelevant point, they're usually a very picky (not demanding ... picky) company to work for. Really, anybody should be able to adapt to, or influence the change of, any code format style. Really, if anybody should be asking this question, it should be the programmer ... after they receive an offer. Know what I mean? .... so may I ask; were they picky about other stuff as well? Or am I off base? – John MacIntyre Sep 29 '10 at 20:07
  • @John MacIntyre, the guy who edited those coding standards was picky, but that is to be expected of the kind of person who volunteers to edit coding standards. Most of the managers and senior developers were not picky. – finnw Oct 21 '10 at 00:36
  • Kapow! Congratulations, you can now edit questions and answers! – Mark C Nov 08 '10 at 20:14
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    This was definitely a trick question: 1.) The coding style question is about what the interviewee would do in a situation of free choice, which is not given. 2.) The question itself /seems/ to be a stupid question, so there will most likely be a /hidden/ question, whose answer will be implied by the other. 3.) There were (how many?) bugs to be found. – comonad Dec 04 '10 at 22:48
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    Comment on every statment??!! Was this assembly language? – JoelFan Jan 11 '11 at 03:45
  • @SpashHit, no it was C++ – finnw Jan 11 '11 at 03:52
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    @finnw, They probably wanted to hear how much screaming you would do when they showed you what they actually wanted. –  Feb 17 '11 at 18:50
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I was asked the infamous rectangular cake question during a job interview:

How would you cut a rectangular cake into two equal pieces when a rectangular piece has already been cut out of it? The cut piece can be of any size and orientation. You are only allowed to make one straight cut.

This was terrible for two reasons:

  1. I think certain types of puzzle questions that have an "aha" answer don't show anything about the candidate. If you've heard the question before, you can fake working through the answer. If you haven't, the problem space is completely defined in the question, which means that the candidate doesn't really have a sensible way to work through the problem asking clarifying questions the way someone would with a real requirement.
  2. Although I immediately came up with a valid answer given all the constraints specified - "make one straight horizontal cut along the height of the cake so that the resulting slices are of equal sizes", this wasn't the answer the interviewer wanted, so I stood in near silence for a couple of minutes and then drew the "correct" answer on the board.

Although I got a job offer from this interview, the stupidity of this question and the general zealotry of the interviewer put me off working for the company, so I guess this question was useful for me to help decide not to work there!

Paddyslacker
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    I don't think that is a bad question for a programming job that involves a substantial amount of math (e.g. audio/image resampling.) There may be an "Aha!" answer but you will have an advantage if you can spot that kind of solution while working on that kind of project (real-life example: choose a horizontal or vertical line to divide a photographic image so that the two parts have JPEG encodings of appproximately the same length.) – finnw Sep 03 '10 at 20:15
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    As for the answer, I think what you have to do is work out the center of mass of the remainder of the cake and then cut in any plane on which that point lies. So there are infinitely many solutions. – finnw Sep 03 '10 at 20:31
  • Good point, but this definitely wasn't that kind of programming job. – Paddyslacker Sep 03 '10 at 20:35
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    Oh, and as for the infinitely many solutions - no there were not infinitely many solutions as far as the interviewer was concerned! This interviewer wanted "his" answer and "his" alone in this particular interview, so any exploration around things like balancing the cake to find its centre of mass would be met with "you can't do that". It seemed that he simply wanted to know if you got "his" answer. – Paddyslacker Sep 03 '10 at 21:42
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    lol I immediately thought of #2 to cut it horizontally and was suprised when I continued reading and saw it wasn't the correct answer. – Rachel Sep 22 '10 at 18:27
  • There are at least 3 correct answers to this question. The experienced interviewee knows them all. – Talvi Watia Sep 29 '10 at 23:31
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    An "experienced interviewee" may indeed know all of the answers to this question, but knowing them has nothing to do with being a good developer. Remember, it's not the goal to hire experienced interviewees; the goal is to hire good developers. – Paddyslacker Sep 30 '10 at 14:34
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    I would want to ask: Define "equal". – Craig McQueen Oct 13 '10 at 23:39
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    Hiring an experienced interviewee = hiring someone who is guaranteed to have an easy time finding a new job when he wants to ditch you. :-) – Carson63000 Oct 14 '10 at 00:10
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    mince the cake, and use a scale. –  Dec 09 '10 at 18:52
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    Ask what kind of manifold the cake exists in so you can understand his notion of "straight". – psr Oct 11 '11 at 22:43
  • It actually seems a nice question! – Andrea Feb 06 '13 at 13:56
  • You should have asked back, value equality or reference equality? ;) – nawfal May 13 '13 at 13:26
15

"How many years of DLL do you have?

It happened during a phone interview with a recruiter. I kind of saw this question coming because the previous five or so questions were all in the form of "how many years of X do you have", for each X from the list of buzzwords exactly in the order they occurred in the job ad.

This question will not only make you think "what useful information could they possibly get from my answer to that question?", but also "what useful information could they possibly get from any of my answers?"

The job would have required an 80km (50-mile) one-way commute, so I knew at that moment I wasn't going to pursue it.

azheglov
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Having been on both sides of the table on this one, the reaction to the odd and stereotypically lame questions can be more informative than the "good" ones.

The worst of that sort I was ever asked was if I would take a doughnut.

They had one on a plate on the table, but it was sitting in front of an empty chair next to the 4th coffee cup on the table (only three interviewers) giving the appearance that it was a 4th person's doughnut. The job dealt with a fair number of uncomfortable situations and they wanted to see how gracefully the interviewee could deal with it.

The one I later asked as an interviewer was to go 3rd in a team interview, and when it was my turn to ask I would put one of those aluminum briefcases that movies always show cash in on the table and ask the interviewee to name something inside. I actually carried the briefcase regularly so there was mostly normal things inside, but in dozens of interviews I only ever got two good answers: "air" which is almost impossible to be wrong, and "pencil" which we actually had to look to see because I couldn't remember (their wasn't). The point of this one was to see how quickly the person could deal with the random context change and how logically they approached the issue.

The point is that sometimes the answer itself doesn't matter in the least, the interviewer is interested in how you handle yourself or how you arrive at the answer.

Bill
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    So how did you answer the donut question? – Adam Lear Sep 16 '10 at 14:05
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    I did not eat the doughnut – Bill Sep 16 '10 at 16:33
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    If you just said "I'm not hungry." It would have just killed the question. +1, terrible question. – Steven Evers Oct 13 '10 at 21:55
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    Amateurs should stop trying to be psychologists. The results are just plain stupid. Like your average HR drone. – JUST MY correct OPINION Jan 09 '11 at 12:47
  • this is ridiculous. Its like going to car mechanic and asking him how to deal with cheese raining down from the sky, the answer is completely worthless. – NimChimpsky Sep 08 '11 at 07:50
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    the answer IS meaningless... Both the doughnut and the briefcase examples were from similar positions where you absolutely had to keep composure regardless of what is thrown at you. weird, stressful jobs. one day you might be dealing with a homesick kid, another day a serial arsonist, supply logistics for feeding 1000 people, a suicide, rabid animals, a pedophile, tornadoes, dragging a lake for a body, whatever.... (all things that happened at the doughnut job). For Nim's example : If you are a mechanic you should call BS, if you are in sales you should entertain it or laugh it off – Bill Sep 09 '11 at 03:12
15

The worst I was ever asked was:

Why are manhole covers circular?

Aside from the fact that most aren't this completely threw me.

The answer the interview wanted?

So if you drop it over the hole it can't fall through.

This was about 20 years ago now and I still remember it.

ChrisF
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    Most manhole covers in the US are circular. I say this as a person who, for a variety of legitimate reasons, goes through them on a regular basis. The drop-through answer is the expected one, but other good options are "Because manholes are circular" "Because circular pipes are structurally stronger" "Because the human body has a roughly circular cross-section." – Fishtoaster Sep 03 '10 at 19:31
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    @Fishtoaster - this was in the UK. – ChrisF Sep 03 '10 at 19:50
  • A lot of rectangular covers are just inspection covers (e.g. for telephone/internet cables and small drainage pipes.) They aren't designed to be climbed through (if the job requires climbing in then you will probably need to dig a larger hole anyway.) – finnw Sep 03 '10 at 20:35
  • I remember this question. It was dropped on me in a career preparation class. – Nathan Taylor Sep 03 '10 at 21:13
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    @finnw - the problem still occurs even if the hole isn't big enough for someone to crawl through. In fact it's worse - how do you retrieve the cover if you can't get down? – ChrisF Sep 03 '10 at 21:13
  • I was asked the same thing. Now, English is not my native tongue and I had no idea what a manhole was, so the interviewer first had to explain that to me before I failed to answer the question "correctly". Well, I got the job anyway.. – CodingInsomnia Sep 10 '10 at 12:58
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    @Fishtoaster another common answer is "So that it doesn't matter which way you put it back on." – eds Sep 16 '10 at 19:13
  • @eds - I think that was the answer I came up with after what seemed like ages thinking about it - but it wasn't the one he wanted. – ChrisF Sep 16 '10 at 19:21
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    @Fishtoaster - Are you related to the Ninja Turtles by chance? – orokusaki Sep 26 '10 at 21:05
  • @Kyralessa True, but another part of the reason they're round is so they're easy to roll to the side. Solid steel, do you think they're light enough to pick up? – Tarka Oct 13 '10 at 21:09
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    @Kyrlessa Yeah you can. Drop the manhole cover vertically in the middle of the horizontal manhole, since the altitude is longer than the length. – alternative Oct 13 '10 at 21:37
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    I don't like that question and answer because the reason it doesn't fall through is that it has a constant diameter and it fits over the edge of the hole. – Mark C Nov 08 '10 at 20:21
  • A circular cover has 20% less surface area than a square cover with the same diameter. Producing ten thousand circular manhole covers should therefore have a lower cost than the same number of square covers. – evadeflow Dec 02 '10 at 20:26
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    They wanted a questionable answer?! Even a circular cover could fall through, iff the hole would have been designed to allow that. There are two holes: the cover fits into the big hole and then lies above the smaller (hidden) hole. Only the shape of the smaller hole decides wether the cover could fall through or not. There exist square covers for octagonal holes, that cannot fall through. (At least in my basement.) – comonad Dec 05 '10 at 00:13
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    If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft http://hebig.org/blog/003029.php – Sevki Dec 18 '10 at 13:57
  • @orokusaki, so a proper answer would then be "because turtle shells are round"? –  Feb 17 '11 at 18:52
  • @Thor - indeed! – orokusaki Feb 17 '11 at 19:29
  • I had a former boss who always asked this stinker in interviews. I hated it. A lot of candidates totally freaked out and got brain-lock just trying to process why the hell we were asking about sewer equipment in a programming interview. I tried to explain to him that the "so it wont fall in" answer was crap, because it's all about the size of the lip just under the top edge, but he wouldn't hear it. – GHP Jul 13 '11 at 13:28
12

I see from your resume you've spent some time in Israel... would you have a problem working with Palestinian co-workers?

JoelFan
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12

How do you feel about customers?

I answered with: "I haven't met any."

Then at the end (this question ended the interview by itself) my favorite:

From one to ten, how would you rate yourself as a person?

To which I replied: Eleven.

Big Silence

He then thanked me, and I left. Ten minutes out the door I was offered my current job.

Now you know why I wanted to impress the guy. =)

Community
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Pablo
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    Point to yourself and in a British accent say "This one goes to eleven" while looking brainless. If the interviewer falls off his chair laughing, then take the job, regardless of the salary. – GHP Jul 13 '11 at 13:31
  • @Graham lol (min chars) – NimChimpsky Sep 08 '11 at 07:52
12

When I was near graduation in college, I had an interview with a woman who started every question like this:

Share with me your feelings about...
Share with me your thoughts on...

She was not at all technical, so all these were touchy/feely questions about odd social behaviors and situations. It was extremely awkward.

Jay
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    Depends on what came after that. Being non-technical would indicate to me that she was an HR representative, and their job is to filter out people that wouldn't fit in the team dynamic (non-team players, cowboys, total assholes etc.). Those types of questions are common, and can be very useful. I've gotten positions over equally skilled candidates because I showed a better fit for the company (I later found out that the other candidate was an obnoxious prick). – Steven Evers Dec 12 '10 at 21:49
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    Can you please share me your feelings on multiple inheritance? – tylerl Apr 01 '11 at 00:32
11

Here are 38 more questions.

  • Are you able to work overtime, evenings and weekends?
  • How do you feel about attending conferences with (men) (women) ?
  • What child care arrangements have you made?
  • What type of position does your spouse have?
  • Do you think that you can supervise (men) (women), and how do you think they will react?
  • This job has always been handled by a (female) (male). Do you think you can handle it?
  • Are you willing to put career interests before self-interests?
  • What are your computer skills? Would you be interested in doing some word processing?
  • How do you feel about women's liberation?
  • By the way, would you mind telling me: "Just how old are you?"
  • How do you respond to authority?
  • How do you define sexual harassment?
  • Where were you born?
  • What's your nationality?
  • Are you married, divorced, separated, or single?
  • Are you living with anyone?
  • What holidays do you celebrate?
  • Do you have any disabilities that affect your work?
  • What is your health situation like?
  • Have you ever been arrested?
  • Are you on any medications?
  • Do you ever abuse alcohol or drugs?
  • How many children do you have?
  • What church do you attend?
  • How do you think my older employees would react if I hired you?
  • Do you have many debts?
  • Do you own or rent your home?
  • How much insurance do you have?
  • How much do you weigh?
  • Do you plan to have any more children?
  • What does your spouse think about your career?
  • Have you ever brought a law suit against an employer?
  • Have you ever filed for workers' comp?
  • Where do you usually go on vacation?
  • What do you think about romance in the office?
  • Have you ever been sexually harassed?
  • Do you have plans to get married?
  • Tell me about your family.
  • What would your past managers say about you?
  • How do you feel about working overtime?
Amir Rezaei
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11

I was once asked by a Microsoft recruiter to solve a question which was basically the pigeon hole principal. I responded by emailing a link to the Wikipedia article.

Casebash
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9

How much can you drink (alcohol).

It was a weird company, the boss and his son smoked so everyone worked in a smoke filled room. Luckily the found somebody else.

Toon Krijthe
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    The smoking thing sucks, but any company hiring programmers that asks about your alcohol tolerance is exactly the kind of place that I'd like to be employed. They clearly understand the vital implications of Ballmer's Peak. – CodexArcanum Nov 04 '10 at 18:22
7

I was in a phone interview for a .NET job and the interviewer was aware that I am a fresh graduate with 6 months of part time ASP.NET(C#) experience.

She first asked me, "How come you don't list sharepoint on your resume?"

I respond, "Because I don't have any sharepoint experience."

She responds, "Well I thought you said you have 6 mos. of ASP.NET experience?"

I respond, "Correct, but I didn't utilize sharepoint at all."

She responds, "Well my client is asking for .NET Sharepoint experience, sorry."

End of interview.

hockfan86
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    Welcome to the world of Recruiters, RFPs, and the dreaded "skills matrix". – Curtis Batt Feb 17 '11 at 19:44
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    Right, you probably went through a recruiter who lied and said "SharePoint? Uh... sure, they know SharePoint!".

    I've actually had recruiters take my resume, add untrue stuff to it, and then forward it to the interviewer. During the phone screen, the interviewer insisted that my resume said I know some obscure technology that I had never heard of, and I had to reassure him that the recruiter was a liar.

     – Mike Mooney May 17 '11 at 10:20
6

I was once asked if i was married or single.

user616
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6

It can be considered a little bit off-topic, but I think it is worth to tell this story.

There was a terrible thing that happened to me.

When I was searching my first job, I was interviewed by a nice guy, at the first interview. One week after, the second interview there was his superior interviewing me, screaming like I was burning him, and me, I was shocked that the guy was screaming so much.

The next day the company phoned me for beginning to prepare myself to work for them, in a few days they would call me.

So, in a few days they called me. They said I would not be hired because the project was aborted.

sergiol
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5

I was once asked if I had any food allergies.

sal
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    Hmmm while potentially illegal in some countries (US HIPPA laws perhaps) this is a legitimate question. What if the business has a team that handles giant bags of peanuts, leaving peanut residue on your door knobs and the like? I'd be glad as hell that an interviewer told me this if I had a peanut allergy, which can be life threatening. – GHP Jul 13 '11 at 13:34
  • It's not legitimate. It's asking about a medical condition, so it's probably a violation of HIPAA, and possibly of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well. What would be legitimate: "Our developer offices are open cubicles in the middle of a peanut factory. There's peanut dust everywhere. We know that some people have food allergies so we try to be up-front about this. In case we call and offer you the job, please consider beforehand whether you can comfortably work in this type of environment." A refusal then wouldn't necessarily say anything about the person's medical condition. – Kyralessa Jan 11 '12 at 17:43
4

Are you easily offended by off-color humor?

Is there anyone who thinks they are? If I define it as humor, then I'm probably not offended, and if I'm offended, I probably didn't think it was funny or humorous. Obviously, there are things that WOULD offend me, but I have no way of knowing if what you refer to and what I refer to are the same degree of offensiveness, and no way of asking if that's what you refer to without bringing up, by definition, an offensive topic!

It occurred to me after a few seconds that they might want to just see how I react to interoffice disputes or something, but that question threw me off for a second.

GWLlosa
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    I've actually experience a bit of the opposite. I'm generally crass in humour and very sarcastic; my employer, and 90% of the employees were very religious (read: church 6 nights a week) and many of them were not very accepting of things that I'd normally find hilarious or interesting. Fortunately, I always keep my mouth shut until I found out what kinds of things are accepted at work and I never offended anyone. – Steven Evers Dec 12 '10 at 21:55
2

I've seen some companies in Portugal, and not only from the IT area, asking "How many gas bombs there are in Portugal?" (or in some other geographically delimited area known by both employer and candidate).

There was also an HR person telling this to me, and I said that I would not answer to this question or answer that "I will not give an answer to this question".

But, she replied me, that, for this question, you only need to answer. Period.

In my opinion such kind of questions don't add anything scientifically verifiable, nor do represent a person's ability to solve a problem.

sergiol
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-5

How come you haven't learned OOP? Don't you believe in upgrading your skill set?

I was so pissed off. I have forgotten more about writing code than that snot nose will ever learn.

Michael Riley - AKA Gunny
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