My big one is that they need to stop asking why I applied for their company. The real answer is I want a new job, and I blasted out a hundred applications. I didn’t choose your company specifically.
The gap in my employment is NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS.
It’s none of your fucking business that my kid required major neuro surgery at the age of 8 WEEKS and I needed to take a year off form work to care for him.
You and all the other idiot corporations decided to fuck around with the economy and didn’t hire anyone for several years because YOU fucked it up.
To be more flexible I decided to work a series of contracts instead of full time employment and fuckwits like you treat contractors like trash.
Do you really want me to go on? Because I fucking can…
BTW: The kid is OK and today (19 years later) is an accomplished figure skater that competes internationally.
Wow, congrats in the good ending!
“Where do you see yourself in the future?” Who fucking knows at this point, hopefully ALIVE.
“What do you expect for compensation?” Just tell me what the low end of the job is because I know that’s what you’re going to pay anyway.
“Can you explain this gap in your resume?” Can you explain these gaps in your employing someone in this position?
I live in Canada and about once a year Trump remembers we exist and talks about invading us. Quebec and Alberta both keep talking about separating. I don’t know where Canada will be in five years time, let alone myself.
The compensation thing drives me nuts too. It’s like if nothing in the store had a price on it and when you went up to the checkout they were like “What would you expect to pay for a can of peas?” Just tell me the number and I’ll either agree or not!
I’ve had two jobs ask me about religious beliefs. That needs to stop because 1: it’s none of their business and 2: it’s illegal.
We ask why you applied to our company specifically to screen for candidates that are excited about the product and its mission. Granted, I do work in the space industry.
How often do you get an answer with aliens in it?
Heh, not yet, unfortunately.
Maybe a better question: how many of your applicants do you think are hiding their obsession with aliens from you? 😂
An even better question: How many of your applicants are actual aliens who are looking for a ride home?
They’re easy to spot. Their last job is always at a phone company.
I like this take from smbc
This.
That
Where do you see yourself in X years?
Just be honest: Will you ditch us for the next best opportunity?
And answer: it depends.
All in all, that question is useless.
“progressing within the company”
If there’s no progression they may not hire you but did you really want a dead end job anyway?
Oh right, there’s also the career people and the obnoxious Megacorps. I only apply for small to medium, like flat hierarchies, so forgot that.
“Killed in the food riots.”
I’ve interviewed people before, and am doing so again next week. I often ask why a candidate is interested in working for my org, because I want to known that their personal goals/ambitions are at least somewhat aligned with the org. Hiring someone and then finding out that they don’t fit sucks.
Many job ads receive tens or hundreds of applications. They want the best candidate. If you’re not specifically keen, they’ll probably go for someone who shows some interest. I know I have picked people who are interested over more qualified but disinterested people before.
So you favor dumb people over competent people?
Sounds about right for the average hiring manager. People don’t care about your organization. The incredibly inefficient system of capitalism they were born into requires them to exchange the unrenewable resource that is their time, the only thing they have in this universe, for arbitrarily valued currency which changes value constantly through no action they make, so they get the privilege of continuing to exchange their time for more of this currency, until their flesh suit is too broken to continue this exchange.
No one has ever been excited about working for your company. A few learned to fake it. A few simply aren’t capable of complex thought and treat working for your company the same way they’d treat a colonoscopy or birthday party because they literally can’t tell the difference.
Lemmy ahh comment.
Feel free to go back to reddit, where you ‘people’ belong.
It sounds to me like you have never worked some place exciting. You should give it a try. I was and am very excited about the work I do and for whom I do it.
Me too but it’s easier to find what they’re talking about and really hard to find what you’re talking about, and even harder to get hired. And 10x harder to know what you’re getting into before your first month in the job, so this answer is the most appropriate during the interview.
If you think your only value as a human being is your capacity to produce, then I don’t know what to say to you?
Yes, capitalism sucks, but also, humans aren’t all just out here blindly doing capitalism and not thinking about anything else. Every person working a job has to interact with coworkers, and those interactions are not mediated solely through a lens of productivity.
I said the opposite, actually, the problem is your work is your entire life. Jobs are there to enable you to live life. They are not your life. They are not what you do, they are the necessary component that allows you to do what you want to do because we live in a world that does not value human life.
I agree with that. What makes you assume my work is my entire life? I only work 4 days, and I have a solid community outside work and various hobbies.
Crazy you get to hire people only working 4 days a week.
Why do you have that authority?
Why are you only willing to give 4 days a week of your time to your glorious employer.
Are you not serious about your goals with that company?
I … honestly have no idea how to tell how serious or sarcastic those questions are…
Sounds like you are not qualified to interview people for jobs.
No. See, most people ARE just blindly doing capitalism because it’s either that or die.
Listen to me very closely: Nobody gives a single flying fuck about your mission statement. Turning away more qualified candidates because you didn’t feel they were as interested in the company culture as others makes you a shitty hiring manager. Nobody gives a shit about the company culture. Every employee with two brain cells knows it’s about money, period. When times get hard, the company will not care how much you mesh with the culture, they will drop you like a hot turd if you aren’t producing enough or are costing them money. So why pretend anything else matters?
Mate I’ve got to spend 40 hours a week with these people. I would much rather hire someone who is socially competent but needs to learn a few things technically than hire an asshole who is just going to be a pain in the ass.
Honestly if you view every interaction through a strictly transactional lens you’re not gonna have a good time being a human. Most of our lives are spent doing things we don’t really want to be doing, be that work or cleaning or building/repairing shelter, etc. The thing is, most people find ways to find some joy or comradery in these tasks. If your only goal is to complete each of them as quickly as possible you’re gonna spend most of your life being fucking miserable.
But getting back on track - not every company is built the way you describe. Personally, I’ve been able to build a team at my company where everyone gets their work done, enjoys each other’s company, and goes home after 40 hours. If I hire people who don’t get along with everyone else I lose that balance. So I hire people that fit the culture, and teach them the skills they need technically. The offices with a bunch of individualistic assholes tend to work longer hours, have poorer quality, and higher turnover rates. And they are all fucking miserable. Personally that is not something I’m interested in.
The votes on your comment are enough to tell that your blanket “Nobody” is not a valid statement. It’s generally a smart idea to accept that there are diverse perspectives that exist, and not everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Is that question at the end of your comment actually curiousity, or just a boring rhetorical?
Because working with people you like makes work so much more bearable? We have an AP lady who is a hotshot, does such a good job but so mean and hotheaded and thinks she is “honest” but is really just mean. Hates her husband , hates people, only likes her dog. Her manager is on her last straw because she criticizes everyone else all the time and dislikes half the people she works with, and she (the manager) has had to referee arguments she has with the rest of the staff.
You can train someone to do a job, it’s much harder to train someone out of being an asshole.
Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean there aren’t people who do care.
Also, not every company is a corporate hell hole.
I’ve hired dozens of people and I’ve interviewed hundreds. As a manager (area of business development), my objective is simple: get the interviewee talking. I know their CV and have checked their social media; I know my favorite candidates. I just want to check whether I “like the person”, and whether she/he is as good in real life as on paper. My typical interviews run like this: “first, I will tell you about the position for a few minutes, then you will have time to tell me about yourself, and to ask YOUR questions. And then we talk about possible next steps. This will take about 30 minutes. Is that OK?” I try to get onto an equal footing, and although I will ask simple questions here and there, I skip all the humbug, curve ball, aggressive stuff (they probably have pre-prepared answers to those anyway). By laying out the interview plan first, good candidates have sufficient time to prepare their story and clever questions in their head while I make the company pitch.
What do you do for people with no social media? And I’m not talking its private, or hidden, I’m straight up talking someone does not exist online. I’ve got no SM for 10+ years, within the last year no reddit, Imgur, not even a LinkedIn or indeed anymore. Honestly, when I had LinkedIn, its full of self-righteous assholes, humble bragging, and corporate brown-nosers. It’s toxic work culture IMO.
But say I found a job posting or heard of your company and applied directly on the portal, is that a deal breaker?
I don’t do social media. I do still maintain a LinkedIn. I don’t read anyone’s bullshit, and I certainly don’t write any bullshit. But I would have to say about 95% of my jobs have come through recruiters that found me on LinkedIn. It just has my work history there, basically. And of course I’m connected to people so I guess they can maybe validate I’m a real person with real connections.
Anyway, I’d recommend having an account and updating it any time you update your resume. I 100% understand why you might choose not to, but it’s been invaluable to me.
I used to be the same way where I utilized LinkedIn and I’ve been on the platform for a long time, but the hoarding of data and now their partnership with Amazon to access that data, I’m just sick of being for sale, especially since we don’t even profit from it ourselves! It’s OUR data from OUR lives, yet we’re not allowed to keep it ours. So, I finally ditched it a couple months ago.
I know it has value, but I’m going to utilize a federated version or stand up my own Domain and link it that way.
Absolutely no deal breaker. I am just interested to learn about the person in front of me (hopefully the candidate does the same about my company or me, after all, the candidate shouldn’t start working for a manager that they later find out they don’t like). If you’re not on social media, I won’t judge that, in fact if you do it for conscientious or fact-based reasons I even appreciate it. But if you are on social media and you have a beautiful CV on LinkedIn it can be a little plus, getting into weird political discussions on insta is definitely a minus; I need fact-focused employees that can see both sides of the medal, willing to (unemotionally) find middle ground. The CV and application letter are still the key thing. In the application letter, you need to address the needs that I have put into the job posting, the more fact-based and interesting the better. Adjust the cv so that it fits the actual job description, don’t use some outdated listing that you’ve been using the last two years, try to show that you take me seriously.
I am a hobby photographer, I do post to pixelfed, but I won’t link that account on my CV, however I do maintain a personal gallery on my own domain, it is not indexed by google, I don’t want it shared all over the place, but I have added a link to in on my CV under hobbies.
I just export galleries from digikam, upload them, and add them to a custom page with pure HTML and CSS so it looks nice.
I have had several interviewers bring up my photos and gallery and be quite interesting.
I love that it has zero ads and every page loads immediately. There is zero SQL lookups, zero analytics and once you try it, and then go back to the normal modern web you realize how slow everything is.
I don’t understand your point. The interviewer asks that question to understand why does the candidate think the position is a good fit for them. If you don’t think that it is a particularly good fit for you, you just need a job, that is information for the interviewer. They receive a hundred applications and have to pick a good one. Can you imagine that there are other candidates who actually have a really good reason why they applied for this particular position?
I think OP is frustrated with the we’re-both-bullshitting-each-other-and-we-both-know-it thing. Even if a candidate doesn’t think they’re a good fit, they’re not going to come out and say it. And if the candidate asks a question about work culture at the company, the interviewer is going to give the best possible answer, even though it’s probably bullshit. So we all have to lie through our teeth and say things like “it’s always been my dream to work here” (even though I didn’t know the company existed a month ago) even though we all know what’s really going on.
Being able to be honest–really, truly honest, about more than just pay expectations–is a privilege that you only get when you’re at a senior level (and sometimes not even then).
Saying something obviously fake like “it’s always been my dream to work here” is a bad idea, unless it’s a prestigious company where that could be true. The question is actually a good opportunity for the candidate to show off something if they want to, without being too awkward if they don’t.
You can say you’ve done research into the company online and are impressed by the work-life balance/leadership/worker loyalty/innovation. Sincere interest is not only flattering, it also makes you look thorough and driven. You can say you were recommended to apply by someone you know who has a connection. You can also give them some idea of what you are expecting, which can potentially save time if it’s not actually what they are offering. I had a friend get redirected to applying to a better position than what had been listed like this.
And if you truly are not a good fit, you can actually address that your previous experience doesn’t directly apply by saying something like “I’m looking for a change” rather than trying to dance around it for the entire interview. If your interviewer has any familiarity with the role, you won’t be able to trick them into thinking unrelated experience makes you well-qualified. And when that’s the case, acknowledging it early makes it much less awkward by establishing expectations appropriately. Basically, you have to be careful to limit your lies to things you can actually sell.
I lucked out on my last interview. I could honestly say that not only is it a job I would love to have, but I was uniquely qualified to do it (“uniquely” is probably overstating it, but the job duties lined up 100% with my experience and interests). The only thing I couldn’t say is who the hell the company was because it’s a startup, but I have never been able to articulate so clearly that I’m perfect for a job and it is perfect for me.
I have always been able to talk myself up to be a good fit for a role, but honestly it’s normally just “I have built lots of business software. You are, in fact, a business.”
If you want to know why they think they are a good fit, then ask them why they think they are a good fit. Trying to figure out if they are a good fit by asking them a totally different question just seems crazy to me.
Good idea. Next time you apply for a job and get interviewed, send them the list of your approved questions, and clarify that you are not able to understand or willing to answer any questions that are not on your list. It will help make them understand that you are too smart for their stupid recruiters and managers.
I’m not telling you what you can or can’t ask. I’m suggesting you be more direct in your questions. There’s no need to play games and hope they just happen to answer a question you didn’t actually ask.
Also, there’s no need to act like an ass.
I had a company reach out to me once. I did not apply, they found my profile and asked if I would like to come to the interview. First question “why would I like to work for them”… I don’t know, WOULD I? You called me, it’s your job to tell me why, I just agreed to give you a chance.
After reading what I wrote, I do admit I wasn’t saying the exact question I get annoyed with. It’s when I am asked what brought me to apply specifically to that company. And it’s rather difficult to come up with a better answer than the truth of I have 40 applications this week alone, you were one of them.
I agree, “why did you apply” is a silly way to phrase that question.
So come up with a line ahead of time. It’s all bullshit anyways. Try to find the tune they want the monkey to dance to during the interview.
No, the interviewer is either lazy, incompetent or inexperienced. A decent interviewer doesn’t ask this question.
Honestly I just hate personality based questions. I’m here to do a job and get paid. I’m not here to make friends and honestly don’t care enough to try working my way up some corporate ladder that requires connections and kissing ass. If the job just has me pulling around slabs of meat or cutting them up, why are you asking about my personal life? Ask to give examples of me doing similar work.
Tbh, most of the time they’re not listening to the answer, but instead how you answered it, whether you come off as gruff, assholish, etc
It’s a production line, workers are dependent on each other, particularly in an abattoir. They also don’t want crazies for obvious reasons and it’s food production so personal hygiene is required. It’s not a suitable job for hermits.
The skills in sport for instance, are relevant to a production job.
I guess this place is different cause they have no standards for who they hire. If you can reliably show up and move your limbs easily, then that’s good enough. I have seen all kinds of examples of the people you say they wouldn’t want in just the 9 months I’ve been there.
Because working with people you don’t like is not fun?
I work in a slaughterhouse in the middle of nowhere of a deep red state. I’m surrounded by people I can’t stand and have to listen to hateful rhetoric in the locker room every day. I don’t care cause I get paid to keep coming in and spend most of my time listening to music/podcasts.
That sounds fucking shit, my sympathies.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to provide THE answer to your question, just a possible answer (that’s not necessarily applicable in all contexts). But also, I suspect my answer might still be applicable in your context from the perspective of your boss/hirer.
It’s not supposed to be fun. No one is at work to have fun. People are at work because they die if they do not work. It’s not really possible to have fun with a gun to your head unless you’re mentally incompetent or a psychopath.
It must be the worst living this way. I’m 47 and have never had a job where I haven’t at least had a little fun. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. I’m genuinely sorry you have to live that way.
Having a good bunch of coworkers whom you become friends with makes the work a lot more enjoyable.
It can, sure, but that isn’t the point of work or where most people fulfill their social needs. That is called finding community in suffering. During bank robberies and other hostage situations the victims also find ways to trauma bond and take their mind off of their current suffering, to the point where trauma bonded people are far more likely to be lifelong friends and partners than just random strangers.
In an ideal world where people magically get to do what they want to do and not worry about getting paid, your view point makes more sense. We don’t live in that world though, and selecting applicants based on how much they’re willing to fake being your friend just results in less competency and more work for everyone.
I get it. It sucks being forced to work to fulfill your basic needs.
But jeez, your perspective sucks. I bet you’re a lot of fun to work with. 🙄
You know, even without capitalism, we’d all have to work to get something in return somehow. We all have different needs.
OK, but consider this: I do have fun at work. And most of my friends do to, at least some of the time. I know that this is a privileged position to be in.
I’m sorry that you don’t. And I agree that lots of people don’t, and that that sucks. But that’s not a universal truth.
And for the hirer, there’s a choice between working with someone who might see work as at least tolerable and maybe even an enjoyable and fiendly place to be, or working with someone who hates every minute of being there. If you were in their shoes, which would you pick?
I’d pick the person that is most competent for the job, personally, as that means less work for others on their team, and less work overall that needs to be done in order for a day to be over.
I’m not at work to make friends, normal humans have a life outside of work for that. ‘Work friends’ are not real friends, they’re hardly real people. They are entities you have to interact with in order to continue living.
I doubt that I’m the only person here who has good friendships that started as co-workers…
Yeah pretty sure you can go back as far as you want in human history and people will tend to be friends with the people they work with. Gathering partners, building partners, scouting partners, etc. Befriending others to complete mutually beneficial tasks is a big part of the special sauce that defines our species. This idea that we shouldn’t befriend those we work with is absolutely wild to me. Like, you don’t need to be best friends, but you should get along and enjoy each other’s company.
I get along and enjoy the people that don’t make my job harder. Which is why I’ve been a lot happier at work lately cause I started working alone.
You are not.
Working with a great team and boss can make it seem a whole lot less like work. Still friends with a team that formed 30 years ago. Two marriages came out of it as well. We all worked together for about 10 years before people and the company went other ways but we all remember it as one of our best work environments we were ever part of, and we still get together regularly.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my office?”
I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith.
Yeah. As someone who has done interviews I think a lot of it is bs. I generally was mostly asking questions around their experience to see how genuine it is. When going over the resume I mostly tried to verify it was authenticate.
Literally any “annoying” interview question that gets listed here will typically not stop being asked, because it serves a purpose for the interviewer. If you are annoyed with questions about “what are your strengths”, “what are your weaknesses”, “where do you see yourself in 5 years” - interviewers know these are cliches. They don’t care. The fact that they are cliches means they get to catch you the person who hasn’t bothered to think of an answer to these questions, and not hire you. Sure, some interviewers are going to ask these questions with blind naivete - but some know that they are actually asking “can you answer a simple fucking question that you don’t like answering without having a breakdown?”
It is not hard to come up with answers to these questions. Hell, you can practice saying the answers in the mirror or to a friend, and come off 100% more confident and polished than other candidates. So just do that and come out ahead, rather than dreading these questions, flying in unprepared, and bombing the interview on what should be a gimme
It’s more that they’re selecting for people who are good at lying tbh
Or - they are selecting for people that are good at understanding how to reframe. Which is probably one of the most important skills you can have in life.
Like, if they ask “why do you want this job?” And your answer is “because I want money” then you will not get the job. Not because you lied or failed to lie, but because you failed to acknowledge the context of the question. The interviewer wants to know why you won’t be a miserable sack of shit while working there, because they don’t want to deal with that in a coworker. And it is useful to consider the framing that leads to the answer “because I want money” - it is the assumption that jobs and money are scarce for you, and you desperately need any job right now. And this is the type of person most employers are desperate not to hire - which is why you hate this question. Because it outs you as someone people don’t want to hire.
The better framing is that you are confident that you can get any number of jobs, that you are looking for one that will pay you, of course, but that you also care about a number of other things like the day to day tasks you’ll be doing, the people you’ll be working with, and the impact you’ll be having on others.
And neither of these framings are untrue. Your desperation to get a job is a function of your emotional state. Sure, you can want to get a job sooner rather than later - but all you have to do is realize that things will still be okay if it takes a bit longer to get the job you want than you would really like it to. And we can observe this to be true - that everything will be okay - because it has been true every other time in your life (you’re still here, aren’t you) and in others’ lives.
i literally have – and i mean this in the nicest way possible – no idea wtf you are talking about. if employers want that then consider me unemployed for life.
if employers want that then consider me unemployed for life.
You might need to put me in the same boat. I don’t play those hr games. I figure that if there is bullshit in the interview process there will be bullshit in the job and it is fine by me if they take themselves out of the running for my next employment.
Why is answering a simple question lying? This is why you can learn something from asking any question. You see the candidates’ attitude, communication skills, and critical thinking skills through pretty much any question. We need to have a conversation during the interview, and the questions are markers that path out that conversation. If you come across as just lying or bullshitting, that’s a signal too. Of course there are better and more awkward questions to ask. But what is so hard about just responding to them like a decent, polite, smart person?
Reading this thread, I guess the problem for some folks stuck on the job market is that they think the hiring manager wants to know: “should I give this guy a job? Do they deserve a chance?”. But that is not the case. They want to know: “Should I fill the position with this candidate or that other one?”. Going in the interview not understanding that they need to be able to differentiate between candidates is just a bad start, and you will only ever get the job if there is no other qualified candidate.Why is answering a simple question lying?
The guy who lies is the one who gets the job
“Wanna get out of here?”
Also a bit weird to ask what hobbies i have if its asked early on int interview and for a very in and out job like supermarket staff
Why are people here so negative about interviews? Companies and candidates interview each other. You should have an answer prepared to these standard questions.
My only gripe about job hunt happens before any interview: Any barriers unrelated to the candidate, intended to reduce the number of candidates. I don’t see it that often, but some positions have way too many candidates and candidates cannot be judged fairly
Got questioned if we’re ok working overtime without pay. We asked for clarification and they wanted us to work 60h/w and only paid for 35h so they can keep us as a part time. Obviously we laughed in their faces and walked out.
That’s what I mean. The candidate also interviews the company
Going to be honest, never had an interview where we liked, let alone had any respect for the employer.
It’s great they admitted such illegal assholery before going any further. At least you didn’t waste anymore time.
Verily, such atrocities are not in our interests
